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Dates From Hell (The Hollows) Kindle Edition
She thought her date was out of this world.
Actually, he was not of this world . . .
We've all been on bad dates, nightmare dates, dreadful experiences that turned out to be uniquely memorable in the very worst way. But at least our partners for these detestable evenings were more or less . . . human!
Now Kim Harrison, Lynsay Sands, Kelley Armstrong, and Lori Handeland -- four of the very best writers currently exploring the dangerous seduction of the supernatural -- offer up dating disasters (and unexpected delights) of a completely different sort: dark, wicked, paranormally sensual assignations with werewolves, demon lovers, and the romantically challenged undead. Sexy, witty, chilling, and altogether remarkable, here is proof positive that some love matches are made someplace other than heaven.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperCollins e-books
- Publication dateOctober 13, 2009
- File size725 KB
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About the Author
When librarians finally granted Kelley Armstrong an adult card, she made straight for the epic fantasy and horror shelves. She spent the rest of her childhood and teen years happily roaming fantastical and terrible worlds, and vowed that someday she'd write a story combining swords, sorcery, and the ravenous undead. That story begins with Sea of Shadows.
Armstrong's first works for teens were the New York Times bestselling Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising trilogies. All of her novels for teens have been New York Times bestsellers. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband, three children, and far too many pets.
Lynsay Sands is the nationally bestselling author of the Argeneau/Rogue Hunter vampire series, as well as numerous historicals and anthologies. She’s been writing stories since grade school and considers herself incredibly lucky to be able to make a career out of it. Her hope is that readers can get away from their everyday stress through her stories, and if there are occasional uncontrollable fits of laughter, that’s just a big bonus.
New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison was born and raised in Michigan. Her bestselling Hollows novels include Dead Witch Walking; The Good, the Bad, and the Undead; Every Which Way But Dead; A Fistful of Charms; For a Few Demons More; The Outlaw Demon Wails; White Witch, Black Curse; Black Magic Sanction; Pale Demon; and A Perfect Blood, plus the graphic novel Blood Work. She also writes the bestselling Madison Avery series.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Dates From Hell
By Kim HarrisonHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Kim HarrisonAll right reserved.
ISBN: 006085409X
Chapter One
Phone cradled between her shoulder and ear, Ivy Tamwood scooped another chunk of chili up with her fries, leaning over the patterned wax paper so it wouldn't drip onto her desk. Kisten was bitching about something or other, and she wasn't listening, knowing he could go on for half her lunch break before winding down. The guy was nice to wake up to in the afternoon, and a delight to play with before the sun came up, but he talked too much.
Which is why I put up with him, she mused, running her tongue across the inside of her teeth before swallowing. Her world had gone too quickly from alive to silent on that flight back home from California. My God, was it seven years now? It had been unusual to foster a high-blood living vampire child into a sympathetic camarilla, taking her from home and family for her last two years of high school, but Piscary, the master vampire her family looked to, had become too intense in his interest in her before she developed the mental tools to deal with it, and her parents had intervened at some cost, probably saving her sanity.
I could keep Freud in Havana cigars all by my lonesome, Ivy thought, taking another bite of carbs and protein. Twenty-three ought to be far enough away from that scared sixteen-year-old on the sun-drenched tarmac to forget, but even now, after multiple blood and bed partners, a six-year degree in social sciences, and landing an excellent job where she could use her degree, she found her confidence was still tied to the very things that screwed her up.
She missed Skimmer and her reminder that life was more than waiting for it to end so she could get started living. And while Kisten was nothing like her high school roommate, he had filled the gap nicely these last few years.
Smiling wickedly, Ivy gazed through the plate-glass wall that looked out on the floor of open offices. Weight shifting, she crossed her legs at her knees and leaned farther across her desk, imagining just what gap she'd like Kisten to fill next.
"Damn vampire pheromones," she breathed, and pulled herself straight, not liking where her thoughts took her when she spent too much time in the lower levels of the Inderland Security tower. Working the homicide division of the I.S. got her a real office instead of a desk in the middle of the floor with the peons, but there were too many vamps -- both living and undead -- down here for the air circulation to handle.
Kisten's tirade about prank phone calls ended abruptly. "What do vamp pheromones have to do with humans attacking my pizza delivery crew?" he asked in a lousy British accent. It was his newest preoccupation, and one she hoped he'd tire of soon.
Rolling her chair closer to her desk, Ivy took a swig of her imported bottled water, eyes askance on the boss's closed door across the large room. "Nothing. You want me to pick up anything on the way home? I might be able to wing out of here early. Art's in the office, which means someone died and I have to go to work. Bet you first bite he's going to want to cut my lunch short" -- she took another sip -- "and I'm going to take it off the end of my day."
"No," Kisten said. "Danny is doing the shopping today."
One of the perks of living atop a restaurant, she thought, as Kisten started in on a shopping list she didn't care about. Pulling her plate of fries off her desk, she set them on her lap, being careful to not spill anything on her leather pants. The boss's door opened, catching her eye when Art came out, shaking hands with Mrs. Pendleton. He'd been in there a full half hour. There was a stapled pack of paper in his hands, and Ivy's pulse quickened. She'd been sitting on her ass going over Art's unsolved homicides for too long. The man had no business being in homicide. Dead did not equal smart.
Unless being smart was in manipulating us into giving the undead our blood. Ivy forced herself to keep eating, thinking the undead targeted their living vampire kin more out of jealousy than maintaining good human relations, as was claimed. Having been born with the vampire virus embedded into her genome, Ivy enjoyed a measure of the undeads' strengths without the drawbacks of light fatality and pain from religious artifacts. Though not in line with Art's abilities, her hearing and strength were beyond a human's, and her sense of smell was tuned to the softer flavors of sweat and pheromones. The undeads' need for blood had been muted from a biological necessity to a bloodlust that imparted a high like no other when sated . . . addictive when mixed with sex.
Her gaze went unbidden to Art, and he smiled from across the wide floor as if knowing her thoughts, his steady advance never shifting and the packet of paper in his hand moving like a banner of intent. Appetite gone, she swiveled her chair to put her back to the room. "Hey, Kist," she said, interrupting his comments about Danny's recent poor choice of mushrooms, "change of plans. By the amount of paperwork, it's one of Art's cleanup runs. I won't be home till sunup."
"Again?"
"Again?" she mocked, fiddling with a colored pen until she realized it telegraphed her mood and set it down with a sharp tap. "God, Kisten. You make it sound like it's every night."
Kisten sighed. "Leave the paperwork for tomorrow, love. I don't know why you bust your ass so hard. You're not moving up until you let Artie the Smarty go down on you."
Continues...
Excerpted from Dates From Hellby Kim Harrison Copyright © 2006 by Kim Harrison. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B000OVLK3G
- Publisher : HarperCollins e-books; Reprint edition (October 13, 2009)
- Publication date : October 13, 2009
- Language : English
- File size : 725 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 415 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #616,671 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #393 in American Humorous Fiction
- #1,099 in Fantasy Anthologies & Short Stories (Kindle Store)
- #1,121 in Demons & Devils Paranormal Romance
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Kim Harrison is best known as the author of the New York Times #1 best selling Hollows series, but she has written more than urban fantasy and has published over two-dozen books spanning the gamut from young adult, accelerated-science thriller, several anthologies, and has scripted two original graphic novels set in the Hollows universe. She has also published traditional fantasy under the name Dawn Cook. Kim is currently working on a new Hollows book between other, non related, urban fantasy projects.
Kelley Armstrong believes experience is the best teacher, though she’s been told this shouldn’t apply to writing her murder scenes. To craft her books, she has studied aikido, archery and fencing. She sucks at all of them. She has also crawled through very shallow cave systems and climbed half a mountain before chickening out. She is however an expert coffee drinker and a true connoisseur of chocolate-chip cookies.
Lori Handeland is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with more than 60 published works of fiction to her credit. Her novels, novellas, and short stories span genres from paranormal and urban fantasy to historical and contemporary romance and, most recently, women’s fiction. Just Once (Severn House, January 2019), which is under development by Catalyst Global Media as a feature film, is her women’s fiction debut. Just Once is a richly layered novel about two women who love the same man and how their journeys of loss, grief, sacrifice, and forgiveness intertwine.
Lori set her sight on being an author at the age of ten. She remembers sitting at a typewriter before she knew how to type, pecking out a story about a family who went into space. As an only child, her summers were spent with that typewriter, television, and, above all, books. She recalls thinking that if she could write books of her own, she would never run out of books to read. As a young adult, she got sidetracked by the need to make a living. She worked as a waitress and later enrolled in college to become a teacher.
While student teaching, Lori started reading a life-changing book, How to Write a Romance and Get It Published. Within its pages the author, Kathryn Falk, mentioned Romance Writers of America. There was a local chapter; Lori joined it, dived into learning all about the craft and business, and got busy writing a romance novel. With only five pages completed, she entered a contest where the prize was having an editor at Harlequin read her first chapter. She won.
Lori sold her first novel, a western historical romance, in 1993. In the years since then, she has written eleven novels in the popular Nightcreature Novels, five installments in the Phoenix Chronicles, six works of contemporary romance about the Luchettis, a duet of Shakespeare Undead novels, a trilogy, Sisters of the Craft, where she created time traveling witches, and many more standalone books. Lori is also the author of the critically acclaimed Once Upon a Time in the West trilogy, writing as Lori Austin.
Her fiction has won both acclaim and coveted awards, including five nominations for the prestigious RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America and two wins for Best Paranormal Romance (Blue Moon) and Best Long Contemporary Category Romance (The Mommy Quest), as well as a Romantic Times Award for Best Harlequin Superromance (A Soldier’s Quest) and a National Reader’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal (Hunter’s Moon).
Lori lives in Southern Wisconsin with her husband. In between writing and reading, she enjoys long walks with their rescue mutt, Arnold, and occasional visits from her two grown sons and perfectly adorable grandsons.
Lori can be found at:
www.lorihandeland.com
www.facebook.com/LoriHandeland
www.instagram.com/lorihandelandbooks
Sign up for her newsletter:
https://www.lorihandeland.com/newsletter-sign-up
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Undead in the Garden of Good & Evil - Kim Harrison could slap her name on a piece of lettuce at this point and we'd all sit around oohing & awing at it. The woman is that enthralling. For fans of her series, don't expect this short tale to further that storyline. But it does give us more incite into the lives of both vampires, Ivy & Kisten. It helps you associate with why certain choices are then made in the series.
The Claire Switch Project- I love Lynsay Sands. In fact if I could trade my own dear husband in for a few of her hero's I would! This was very light & entertaining if a tad predictable. The ending was very intrigueing though. If she ever gets tired of her vampire series ( please no, never)she could start this theme for a new one. Think Mystique from X-Men!
Chaotic- Very good story by Kelly Armstrong! A half demon would be spy thinks she's using her powers to detect chaos to bust the bad guy & help the world. However she finds that the real bad guys have been using her & she must help jewel thief Karl Marston save the day. Warning: Our jewel loving werewolf doesn't neccisarily get the girl. But the author does set them up very interestingly to continue with further stories...
Dead Man Dating- Alright I wil admit that I HATED the Moon series by Lori Handeland, it's no secret. But I think her short may have been the most memorable & exciting of the great stories in this book! A somewhat mousy librarian becomes a hunted conquest for a new breed of sexual demon unleashed in New York. Sort of Like a Succubbus with out the frailties, this demon needs a virgin sacrifice. That's hard to find in the big city. Enter a reclusive demon hunter with possesion secrets of his own to save the day. I felt there was a lot of chemistry in this story. With believable tidbits of modern terror in the big apple, I was blown away by the ending which surely must be setting us up for a new series by Handeland. Shockingly, I'd buy it as well!
"Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil" by Kim Harrison is the story of Ivy and Kirsten before they met Rachel. Ivy is being pressured by her boss Art (a vampire jerk) and how she deals with him is downright funny; it also explains why she wound up as a runner for Interland Security.
5 stars
"The Claire Switch Project" by Lynsay Sands Clare and Kyle are old high school buddies (now grad students) working on a molecular destabilizer. She is zapped by another researcher who wants to speed up human trials, and finds that as a result she can change her appearance to that of anyone else. This hasn't blown the plot thats about what happens at her high school reunion. The disaster is quite funny and about as complete as could be expected. Several good surprises as well.
4 1/2 stars
"Chaotic" by Kelly Armstrong Hope is a half demon who can sense chaotic forces. She is working for the Interracial Council running down supernatural bad guys. She senses a heist at a museum fund raiser and meets Marsten a werewolf, thats when the surprises start. Some humor and an excellent plot. Its nice not to have the protagonists jump each others bones in a short. The characters are compelling and I would like to see more of them.
5 stars
"Dead Man Dating" by Lori Handeland is one of the more original stories I have come across in a while. Kit is a bored literary agent and has demon troubles (this is a little rocky technically as the author is confusing members of the descending hierarchy with demons, but hey its a fantasy) and demon hunter Chavez comes to the rescue. Good characters, interesting plot. One brief erotic scene but thats central to the plot. Overall an excellent read.
5 stars.
While these stores are short all are excellent for the genre and overall the book deserves 5 stars.
Top reviews from other countries
"Undead in the Garden of good and evil" Kim Harrison is about a vampire living with the virus, and a dead vampire of a boss who covers up a serious crime. The characters are interesting and dynamic, an excellent prequel to the Rachel Morgan series!
"The Clair Swich Project" is about a molecular destabilisation, when is effects Clair, she and her side kick Kyle have an interesting reunion.....not good but, funny in parts!
"Dead Man Dating", is by far the worst one in the book..it is for all your paranormal fans, but leaves the reader, how can one say..disappointed.
Overall, its an interesting read....for all that love romantic chaotic dates! (Holiday read only!)