My Fair Vampire

Like the proud phoenix that she is, my character Dori, of My Fair Vampire, has been born again. Only this time she’s 106,000 words of tangled plot and backstory / infodumps. She’s got all her fingers and toes and has added quite a bit of baby fat, a little too much. Premature before, she has carefully been nursed in the NICU (natal intensive care unit) but now seems viable.

Thus begins the equally arduous task of training her to be a big girl who may one day grow into a woman worthy of gracing the shelves of Barnes and Noble, the vast warehouses of Amazon and dare I say it, the tables of Costco and racks of Target.

(And I really hope I don’t have a third first draft of this one to announce. For everyone’s sake, I’ll just call it draft 2 if that does happen and keep it to myself. Promise.)

Since I said I was done, then realized I wasn’t, I thought I’d post a new teaser in penance.

If you read one of the first teasers, you know Dori was given a year to learn the skills necessary to be self-sufficient without drawing undue attention. Her time’s now up. In this snippet, she’s meeting the various Council members before her hearing begins. It’s not going at all how she expected as the President of the Council, Lyle Bainsbridge, plays host for a bit:

“Please, call me Lyle.” I smiled. He smiled. Donovan smiled, but the corner of his mouth trembled from the effort. “And let me introduce you around. Donovan, I think you can stop hovering for a bit. She’ll be okay with me. I promise.” He followed his statement with a wink, but Donovan continued to exude tightly coiled tension. Continue reading →