Book Spotlight & Excerpt: Hostile Takeover by Cristelle Comby

 

GENRE: Urban Fantasy

 

Cristelle Comby will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

Book Description

P.I. Bellamy Vale isn’t your everyday investigator. Moonlighting as Death’s earth-bound envoy, he specializes in the weird, wacky, and slightly unhinged.

 

When a mysterious beast savagely mauls random residents of Cold City, the police assume that these are the killings of a rogue wolf. But experienced private investigator, Bellamy Vale, is unconvinced.

 

Ordered by Death herself to investigate, Vale has no choice but to obey, for his boss is not someone to disappoint—if he wants to keep breathing, that is.

 

With friend and computer hacker Zian, nosy journalist Candice Kennedy, and homicide sergeant Melanie Ramirez by his side, Vale has no choice but to end the killings or face the wrath of the demon who holds his life in her hands.

 

 

Interview with Cristelle Comby

 

What inspired you to come up with the idea for your book?

Not everyone knows it, but history is filled with hundreds of different mythologies, and each one is bursting with a plethora of monsters and legends. It’s a fascinating subject.

Now imagine if all these stories were true, if all these deities were alive… somewhere. That’s the idea behind the Vale Investigation series. I really wanted to do a series where each book focuses on a different mythology.

 

Do you have a favorite scene? If so, what was it?

The main character, PI Bellamy Vale, moonlights as death’s envoy on Earth. Because she doesn’t have a name, Vale nicknamed her Lady McDeath. I love the scenes they have together. She’s often pissed at something Vale did or didn’t do. And he would love it if she could find someone else to do his job. They’re a lot of fun to write.

 

Any challenges in writing this book?

Most of the research I do is mythology-oriented. I already had some knowledge prior to starting to work on Vale Investigation, but I had to learn a lot more to enrich my universe. I knew there were lots of different mythologies, but I didn’t think there was that many. Did you know in Africa alone, there are about 30 different subcategories and over a hundred deities?

 

What do you love most about writing?

Bringing new characters to life and seeing them evolve. For me writing is all about the characters, they’re at the heart of everything. Stories are the emotional journey they take to grow and mature.

 

What other books have you written?

I have written a series of four cozy mysteries, the Neve & Egan Cases. It’s the story of young university student Alexandra Neve and her blind History professor Ashford Egan. A series of event leads them to open a private detective agency together in London.

 

Do you have a favorite book (out of the ones you’ve written)?

Yes, the fourth book of the Neve & Egan Cases. It’s (almost) entirely written from Egan’s POV. It’s was a huge challenge to write a blind person has the main character. It gave me a lot of headaches, but I’m very proud of myself for having achieved that.

 

Book Excerpt

I’d just got out of the shower when she showed up. Same entrance as usual. One second she wasn’t there; the next, she sprawled languidly on my bed. That always gave me the creeps. And how in all the hells could she always have such perfect timing? But I knew better than to question how she appeared from nowhere, disappeared without a trace, or knew the things she knew.

 

We were old acquaintances and she had seen into my soul and beyond. I had no problem with her seeing my nakedness. And even if I did, I was too worn down to care anyway. I flicked the bedside table lamp on, walked past her, ass-naked, and reached for a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Someone else may have tried to educate her on social behavior, but I’d long ago given up on the hope that she would ever come to grips with a concept as trifling as privacy.

 

“I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” I said as I shrugged the clothes on. My sore shoulder protested and I winced.

 

“Why would you?” she replied with a slight accent that was impossible to place.

 

I glanced at her for clues. Her hair was loose and dark brown again. She had a little makeup on, looked to be anywhere between twenty-five and forty. Her feet were bare and she wore a long and oh-so-thin black dress.

 

I recognized the look. It was the one I’d dubbed “the Mediterranean” and I knew what it meant. She sat up and her gaze darkened to a coal shade as she took a good, long look at me.

 

 

AUTHOR Bio and Links

 

Cristelle Comby was born and raised in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, in Greater Geneva, where she still resides.

 

She attributes to her origins her ever-peaceful nature and her undying love for chocolate. She has a passion for art, which also includes an interest in drawing and acting.

 

She is the author of the Neve & Egan Cases series, which features an unlikely duo of private detectives in London: Ashford Egan, a blind History professor, and Alexandra Neve, one of his students.

 

Currently, she is hard at work on her Urban Fantasy series Vale Investigation which chronicles the exploits of Death’s only envoy on Earth, PI Bellamy Vale, in the fictitious town of Cold City, USA.

 

Links:

Official Website: www.cristelle-comby.com

Twitter: @Cristelle

Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Cristelle-Comby/e/B00EAWEODS/

 

Cristelle Comby will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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