Latter-Day Olympians

CRAZY IN THE BLOOD, the second novel in my Latter-Day Olympians urban fantasy series of murder, myth and mayhem, releases in print today!  Cue virtual confetti!  Cue trumpets!  Heck, cue a whole street party…no, wait, a rave!

Okay, I think that’s enough exclamation points for right now.  Seriously, though, I’d love, love, love you to pick it up if you’re interested, or to start with the first novel, BAD BLOOD, if you haven’t yet been introduced to the wild world of Tori Karacis and her family line (which may or may not have started when the Greek god Pan beer-goggled one of the gorgons).  For a bit more info on book 2, check out below.

CRAZY IN THE BLOOD teaser:

Hell on Earth. It’s not just an expression anymore.  

It’s an ill wind that carries bad news, and Tori’s just had a double load of it blow through her door.

Just a few weeks after she prevented some rogue gods from blowing L.A. into the ocean, more dead bodies are turning up near the leftover crater. Bodies that have been shredded by something too big to be…shall we say, of this world? Worse, Uncle Christos has disappeared after stumbling onto a deadly cult masquerading as the Back to Earth movement.

The connection: Dionysus. Yes, that Dionysus. He’s resurrected his bloody fertility rite, complete with frenzied female groupies who tear men limb from limb. And he’s lured Demeter, goddess of the harvest, over to his side by finding a way to get her daughter away from Hades for good.

Predictably, Hades isn’t about to let her go without a fight. Unless Tori finds a way to bring her back, he’ll abandon the gates of Tartarus. At which time all hell will, literally, break loose.

Between saving the world, the woman, and cultists and her crazy uncle, Tori’s giving up on getting to the beach before all the good spots are taken.

Order Crazy in the Blood now! store.samhainpublishing.com, www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com or find an independent bookstore near you at  www.indiebound.org.

QUOTES:

“A smart, sassy heroine, gods and monsters aplenty, a couple of sexy might-be-love interests and knotty mystery to unravel – what more could you want? Lucienne Diver’s writing is sharp and funny, making CRAZY IN THE BLOOD a must-read from start to finish and a more than worthy successor to BAD BLOOD.” • Christina Henry, author of the Black Wings series

“This is a novel that anyone seeking a terrifically fun novel will enjoy, and just quirky enough that it will attract lots of other readers as well… one heck of a rollicking good read.” • Night Owl Reviews

Excerpt from CRAZY IN THE BLOOD

Copyright © 2012 Lucienne Diver All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication

The Feds and my cousin Tina’s wedding invitation blew in on the same ill wind. Truth be told, one came in bearing the other. It couldn’t be harpies or banshees or even, hell, desert scorpions. Oh no, those I could probably have handled. But it didn’t seem terribly good form to use my gorgon mojo on guys who could lock me up and lose me in the system without needing much in the way of probable cause.

Not that I was paranoid. I mean, two weeks ago I’d faced down a few gods from the old neighborhood trying to drop L.A. into the ocean just to announce their second coming. In theory, a couple of mere mortals shouldn’t be too much of a problem—assuming they weren’t here to cart me off to some super secret government lab to explore my more unusual attributes from the inside out.

“Mizz Karacis?” asked the one I was already planning to dub Little Wooden Boy simply because he reminded me of a two-thirds scale model of Al Gore. “I hope so, I’m wearing her underwear.”

“Very original,” he answered with no discernable trace of sincerity. “I’m Special Agent Eric Holloway and this is Special Agent Ben Rosen from the FBI.” His partner, the one not holding my mail hostage, flashed a badge that I supposed was meant to be good enough for the both of them. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

And there it was…the other shoe. I’d been waiting for it to drop ever since Internal Affairs had started harassing Detective Armani…or, as I called him now, Nick. I understood why—an officer dead, Armani’s partner disappeared—but that didn’t mean I liked it. He couldn’t very well tell them the truth—that his partner, Detective Lau, had flown off on the back of a dragon who’d been awakened by a seismic blast caused by Greek gods run amok. Not unless he was willing to earn himself a trip to a padded cell on a psychiatric visa. I still wasn’t fully convinced of my own sanity, and I’d seen it all with my own eyes.

But my inquisitors loomed, awaiting an invitation to enter. I said a wistful good-bye to the idea of getting to the beach before all the good spots were taken. It was unseasonably warm for late March, and my air-conditioning just wasn’t cutting it. If I was going to bake, it might as well be to a nice golden brown. Instead, I sighed. Heavily.

“Sure, come in. Thanks so much for bringing my mail,” I replied wryly.

I held out a hand to relieve Holloway of the burden, but he walked right past me without giving it up. His gaze skimmed my sunny yellow bathing suit cover-up and flip-flops, noted the mesh bag containing my paperback and tanning supplies, and moved on to the small condo I was housesitting for Armani’s AWOL partner. My own apartment had fallen prey to Zeus’s pyrotechnic wrath. I’d packed away Detective Lau’s desiccated sea life—dried up starfish, sand dollars, sea urchins and the like—because they creeped me out. Otherwise, the place was pretty much as she’d left it, aside from the dirty dishes in the sink and a centimeter or so of dust. I wasn’t much on the housekeeping front.

“Cozy,” commented Rosen with that same lack of inflection his partner had mastered. No doubt they’d been at the top of their academy class for dry delivery. Their mothers must be so proud.