Guest Post & Giveaway: Debt Collector, by Susan Kaye Quinn

Hey guys :) Today I am part of the book blitz for Susan Kaye Quinn's New Adult future noir serial Debt Collector. Don't know what the heck future noir is? Never fear, just scroll down to Susan's guest post and let her explain it to you ;) There's also a tourwide giveaway of episode 1-3 at the very bottom. Unfortunately it's US only, BUT there's also a second, international giveaway for episode 1.

Synopsis:
EPISODES 1-3 (Delirium, Agony, Ecstasy) of the Debt Collector serial. Contains mature content and themes. For young-adult-appropriate thrills, see Susan's bestselling Mindjack series.

What's your life worth on the open market?
A debt collector can tell you precisely.

Lirium plays the part of the grim reaper well, with his dark trenchcoat, jackboots, and the black marks on his soul that every debt collector carries. He's just in it for his cut, the ten percent of the life energy he collects before he transfers it on to the high potentials, the people who will make the world a better place with their brains, their work, and their lives. That hit of life energy, a bottle of vodka, and a visit from one of Madam Anastazja's sex workers keep him alive, stable, and mostly sane... until he collects again. But when his recovery ritual is disrupted by a sex worker who isn't what she seems, he has to choose between doing an illegal hit for a girl whose story has more holes than his soul or facing the bottle alone--a dark pit he's not sure he'll be able to climb out of again.

The first three episodes of the Debt Collector serial are collectively the length of a short novel, or 152 pages. These are the first three of nine episodes in the first season of The Debt Collector serial. This dark and gritty future-noir is about a world where your life-worth is tabulated on the open market and going into debt risks a lot more than your credit rating. Episode 4, Broken, releases 4/17/13. For more about the Debt Collector serial, see DebtCollectorSeries.com

Goodreads     Amazon     B & N

GUEST POST

Future-Noir or Why Retro Science Fiction is Awesome by Susan Kaye Quinn

Apparently, I write strange science fiction. This comes up whenever I try to classify my stories to readers, bloggers, the lady at the checkout stand, my mother, or Amazon (who insists that I need a "category" in which to place my books; I insist I need about five). Apparently I write novels that mash together all kinds of genres in an indiscriminate cross-pollenation that would have Isaac Asimov turning in his grave... if he hadn't done the same sort of thing himself as a young man (winking at you, Isaac!).

Seriously, if you want to see a good bar brawl among literary types, just ask them what's the genre of Hunger Games or Time Traveler's Wife or any Nicolas Sparks novel, and watch the rhetoric fly! I personally have a very laizzez-faire approach toward genre definitions, which is sure to infuriate genre-disciplinarians. (I don't mention my east-indian-influenced steampunk fantasy romance to genre-afficianados. I don't want them to rupture something.)

I figure the story comes first; people can decide what genre it is after it's written. So no one was more surprised than me when I ended up writing a future-noir.

 On a long car ride, just me and my Muse...

Muse: The Debt Collector.
Me: Er, what? Who are you?  
Muse: When people's debts exceed their future potential contributions to society, he cashes them out.
Me: Whoa. Tell me more.  
Muse: He extracts their life energy and transfers it to a "high potential" - someone who can use it to make greater contributions to the world.
Me: Holy... that's a great idea.
Muse: He's a good man with bad power. And it's future-noir.  
Me: Future-noir! Cool! Uh, what is that exactly?

Muse: Dark. Gritty. Futuristic but retro at the same time.  
Me: Oh... like Blade Runner... Holy cats, this is awesome.
Muse: You're welcome.

I ran (well, okay, drove) home and wrote the first episode. It was dark, gritty. Lots of low light, shady characters, set in a futuristic LA where the smog pooled at the impoverished feet of the city and the wealthy high-potentials lived above it all in the clean, clear air, taking their life-energy-hits courtesy of the titular Debt Collectors. The fashion was retro-sexy. The feel was future-dystopian. Did I mention it's gritty? And dark? I send it off to my critique partner...

My Crit Partner: Hey, your new Debt Collector story reminds me of Looper!
Me: Well, it is future noir. *acts like I know what I'm talking about*
My Crit Partner: Seriously. I totally see Lirium as a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt! And it totally reads like noir. You know, like Double Indemnity!  
Me: Double what? That's not one of those old black-n-white films, is it?  
My Crit Partner: All those noir films were black-n-white.

Me: Right! I knew that. (Sure.) Anyway, I think of Lirium more as James McAvoy in a trenchcoat.
My Crit Parnter: I can work with that.
*we both drool on the picture*
 Wait, what was I saying?

Right. Future-noir. Gritty retro feel - where the men wear trenchcoats and slick suits and the women wear bright red lipstick and carry a mini-revolver under their skirts - only it's a futuristic story with time-travel (Looper) or berzerker androids (Blade Runner) or life-energy transfers (Debt Collector) that change the landscape. It's raw. It's sexy. It's awesome.

It looks something like this.

Nice Blogger Lady: What genre is that?

Me: Future-noir.

NBL: What's future-noir?

Me: It's a science fictiony, mystery type of story. Sort of a mix between urban fantasy and noir, with a thriller twist. There could be romance in there too. Like Blade Runner. Or Looper!

NBL: I'll just call it science fiction.

Me: Works for me. :)

Susan Kaye Quinn is the author of the bestselling YA SF Mindjack series. Her new Debt Collector serial is her more grown-up SF that she likes to call future-noir. Her steampunk fantasy romance is temporarily on hold while she madly writes episodes to keep Lirium (the titular Debt Collector) happy. Plus she needs to leave time to play on Facebook. Susan has a lot of degrees in engineering, which come in handy when dreaming up dangerous mind powers, future dystopias, and slightly plausible steampunk inventions. Mostly she sits around in her pajamas in awe that she gets make stuff up full-time. You can find her at www.susankayequinn.com

THE GIVEAWAYS

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Review: Death and the Girl Next Door, by Darynda Jones

Release date: October 2, 2012
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Paperback, 274 pages

Goodreads Description:
Darynda Jones, author of The New York Times bestselling series that began with First Grave on the Right, brings us Death and the Girl Next Door, a thrilling Young Adult novel garnering high praise and early buzz from major authors

Ten years ago, Lorelei's parents disappeared without a trace.  Raised by her grandparents and leaning on the support of her best friends, Lorelei is finally beginning to accept the fact that her parents are never coming home.  For Lorelei, life goes on.

High school is not quite as painful as she thinks it will be, and things are as normal as they can be.  Until the day the school's designated loner, Cameron Lusk, begins to stalk her, turning up where she least expects it,  standing outside her house in the dark, night after night.  Things get even more complicated when a new guy—terrifying, tough, sexy Jared Kovach—comes to school.  Cameron and Jared instantly despise each other and Lorelei seems to be the reason for their animosity.  What does Jared know about her parents?  Why does Cameron tell Jared he can't have Lorelei?  And what will any of them do when Death comes knocking for real?  Thrilling, sassy, sexy, and inventive, Darynda Jones's first foray into the world of teens will leave readers eager for the next installment.


The following is based on an eARC the publisher provided to me via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.


Review (no spoilers):
I really enjoyed this book, though it was very different from what I had expected when I picked it up. I was under the impression that it’s a Reaper story, but it’s actually not. Not really anyway, or not in the way I had supposed. Instead, the novel both taps into and builds on a kind of mythological background I hadn’t anticipated but was definitely intrigued by! I can’t say too much about it because of spoilers but I’m really curious to see this develop and unfold in the next book now that the cards are on the table, so to speak.

I found Lorelei likeable and easy to relate to. Despite her strange and unreliable ability (she sometimes gets short visions or glimpses when she touches people) she is just a regular teenager, hanging out with her friends and trying to make it through highschool while trying not to think about the ten-year-anniversary of her parents’ mysterious disappearance too much. She’s strong but she also has flaws and insecurities. One of my favorite aspects in the book was the dynamic between her and her two best friends, Glitch and Booklyn. Especially Brooke because she was so snarky and called bullshit when she saw it. The three of them really stick together no matter what and had each others’ backs. I also really liked that Lorelei’s grandparents played such an important role because quite often in YA, the protagonists’ parents/families are very marginal or absent.

When Cameron Lusk, the school loner, starts stalking Lorelei and standing outside her house all night, she is really freaked out and doesn’t know how to react or how to confront him. And when Jared, the new guy at school, gives her visions which are impossible and warm, fuzzy feelings despite the fact that there’s also an aura of danger added to the hotness of his perfect features, things move into the weird and mysterious fast. Why can’t Cameron and Jared be in the same room (much less talk) without breaking into a fight? What do they know about Lorelei that she doesn’t? Which one of them is dangerous for her and which one tries to protect her – and from whom? What really happened the day Lorelei’s parents disappeared and why can she not remember? Why are both Cameron and Jared so strong?

Another thing I had more or less resigned myself to after reading the book description was a love triangle. I’m not a big fan of those usually. So I’m glad to say that Darynda Jones manages to pull a two-guys-one-girl story off without one! The Romance between Jared and Lorelei starts with an instant attraction but it’s not insta-love. She’s interested and she crushes, also because the now hottest guy in school seems to have eyes for her only. But she doesn’t fancy herself head over heels in love with him even though she barely knows him and is certain that he’s hiding something. I really liked Jared. Being who and what he is isn’t easy and I found it adorable that for once, the super-hot guy is kinda shy and embarrassed about the reaction he gets from the female part of the student body. He doesn’t sport the cocky attitude most gorgeous boys in YA have. He’s on a mission, committed and ready to make sacrifices. He really cares about Lorelei a lot, enough to risk losing all of his power. But he’s not a goody-goody either. The characters generally emerged as well fleshed-out, complex people over the course of the novel and each had a clearly distinguishable voice.

I know I’ve been vague about the plot and what actually happens in the novel, but that is because it’s nearly impossible to talk about it without spoilers. Let it be said that there’s loads of action, mystery, investigating, and discovering things about the past. However, after an important, long action scene near the beginning, things drag a little and we see nothing of Cameron and Jared while Lorelei puzzles over them. That frustrated me a bit. But once Lorelei and her friends find the two guys again, things get moving once more and there are no more draggy bits until the end. Seriously, I found it hard to put the book down to get some much-needed sleep. It’s just so compelling to read on! And I want to talk about all the spoilery stuff and discuss it with other people who have already read the book so I can speculate about what’s going to happen. Because though I had an idea of who was who and what was happening, there were quite a few turns at the end when things are revealed that I just never saw coming. At all. But they made perfect sense in the story.

Two minor things: in some scenes Lorelei was a bit too innocent or naïve for my taste, and the way she and Brooke sometimes talked about Jared’s hotness and objectified him rubbed me a bit the wrong way. It was mostly just at the beginning but I felt the need to point it out. Why does the guy-crush always have to be defined primarily by his hotness while the girl is unaware of her own appeal? Fortunately, Jared also had other traits to make him awesome and didn’t care/know about the effect of his appearance.

So overall I really liked Death and the Girl Next Door. The writing kept me hooked, it was witty, action-filled, and I had fun trying to figure things out. The romance took a bit longer to develop than I’d thought but then it took off and there were also some steamish bits, though nothing too extreme. The important characters are well-developed. The mythological world-building background was easily my favorite part though because it picked up on an aspect I hadn’t heard of before, and I’m curious to see things continue in the next installment of the series!

Find Darynda Jones on    Twitter       Facebook       Website

Have you read Death and the Girl Next Door? What was your impression? And if not, do you think this book is for you? Have you read Darynda Jones' adult books? Because I'm curious about them now...

Waiting on Wednesday: Scorch, by Gina Damico

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

My pick this week is:

Scorch (Croak #2), by Gina Damico 

Expected publication: September 25, 2012
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Format: Paperback, 352 pages

The goodreads blurb:
Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby is a teenage grim reaper with the bizarre ability to damn souls. That makes her pretty scary, even to fellow Grims. But after inadvertently transferring her ability to Zara, a murderous outlaw, Lex is a pariah in Croak, the little town she calls home. To escape the townspeople’s wrath, she and her friends embark on a wild road trip to DeMyse. Though this sparkling desert oasis is full of luxuries and amusements, it feels like a prison to Lex. Her best chance at escape would be to stop Zara once and for all—but how can she do that from DeMyse, where the Grims seem mysteriously oblivious to Zara’s killing spree?

 I enjoyed Croak, the first book in this series, so much! I love me some morbid sense of humor and sarcastic death jokes. I breezed through it in about a day or two, and I'm glad I don't have to wait a whole year for the sequel! I'm curious about where this is all going and I can't wait to see Lex and Zara face off, haha.

Have you read Croak? Do you have other awesome reaper books to recommend?

NOTE: I've prescheduled this post to publish while I'm sitting in a train to Prague... so it might be awhile before I can respond to comments / check out everyone else's WoW. Sorry 'bout that. The hotel should have Wlan though.