Feature Friday: Lucienne Diver and Bad Blood Giveaway

Today's Feature Friday author is the lovely and multifaceted Lucienne Diver.  Not only is Lucienne a successful literary agent with The Knight Agency but she's also an author.  Lucienne broke into the industry as a YA author, but her newest novel is for the big kids :).  She's been gracious enough to give us a guest blog post talking about her new book, Bad Blood.  But first, we're going to learn a little bit more about her.

Lucienne does not actually come from circus folk, though you’d never know it to meet her family.  She is, however, in no particular order, a wife, mother, book addict, sun-worshipper, mythology enthusiast, beader, travel-junkie, clothes horse and crazy person.  She writes the Vamped series of young adult novels for Flux Books, which School Library Journal calls, “a lighthearted, action-packed, vampire romance story following in the vein of Julie Kenner’s “Good Ghouls” (Berkley), Marlene Perez’s “Dead” (Harcourt), and Rachel Caine’s “The Morganville Vampires” (Signet) series.”   Her short stories have been included in the Strip-Mauled and Fangs for the Mammaries anthologies edited by Esther Friesner, and her essay “Abuse” is included in the 2011 anthology Dear Bully.  Bad Blood marks her first urban fantasy and fourth published novel.  Long and Short Reviews gave it her favorite pull-quote of all times, "Bad Blood is a delightful urban fantasy, a clever mix of Janet Evanovich and Rick Riordan, and a true Lucienne Diver original."   

Lucienne's Guest Blog:

"Welcome to Tori's World

Tori Karacis is just like the rest of us.  Her world is our world.  Nice, normal, sane...ish.  Okay, so her family legends say that their line traces back to a drunken liaison between the god Pan and one of the gorgons.  And  she maybe starts to believe it when she sees Hollywood agent Circe Holland (potentially that Circe of myth and legend) struck down by something that looks a helluva lot like The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Certainly, as Hamlet might have said, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are thought of in her philosophy" (I may be paraphrasing here).  Or, as one of her heroes, Sherlock Holmes, would have said, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”  But  aside from the maybe-true ancient history, she's really a lot like you and me.  Crazy family, insane love life, dead end job...

Oh, yeah, the building blocks of humor (and suspense, even, because Bad Blood has a lot of both) are recognition, surprise and a healthy sense of the absurd.  In other words, you have to start with reality before you can blow things out of proportion.  In the characters readers must recognize themselves or the girl or guy next door in order to emphasize.  As a writer, you need to surprise a laugh or an emotional reaction out of the readers.  Danger or humor, climax or punchline, the impact is vastly lessened if your audience sees it coming.  And a sense of the absurd?  Don't we all need that just to get through life?

So while Tori's family might be a little crazier than most, they're really not that far beyond the pale.  Meddling grandmother?  Check.  Only hers is not only an actual sideshow bearded lady, she also in her off hours runs the Goddities website - kind of the gossip rag of the ancients, where she keeps track of who's doing what to whom.  (For example, Aphrodite is the new Mayflower Madam; Hephaestus is the current wunderkind of ILM; Hermes is a syndicated humor columnist a la Dave Barry...)  This means that when Tori's life intersects with that of a certain incredibly hot film star, Apollo Demas, Yiayia is the first to know.  Dysfunctional homelife?  Well, she did leave the Rialto Bros. Circus under something of a cloud after her obsessional curiosity led her to uncover secrets they'd rather have swept under the rug.  Black sheep in the family?  Yeah, that would be her.

And that insane love life I mentioned...you'd think being the object of desire of one of Hollywood's hottest men would be a dream come true, but when that "man" is the sun god, notorious for love affairs that don't end well for the mortals involved, let's just say the whole thing is a non-starter.  Especially when Tori has a prior crush on a seriously studly Italian stallion cop named Nick Armani who might finally be waking up and taking notice.  

Dead end job?  Well, I might have exaggerated the point a bit.  Private investigation is definitely a growth industry in L.A.   It's more that her first solo mission ends with the death of the aforementioned Circe Holland and whether someone wants to stop her subsequent investigation or simply silence the only witness to the murder, someone is determined to see Tori dead too.

So there you have it, craziness, crime, death and destruction, gods and gorgons, murder and myth...really just a typical day in L.A. 

Want to get in on the insanity?  Enter the contest below to win a signed copy of Bad Blood.  And if you enjoy, I'd love to hear about it!"

Find Lucienne Diver:
Website
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter

 The Giveaway:

I'm giving away Lucienne's new book, Bad Blood!

Read reviews on Goodreads

Buy now at Barnes and Noble

Buy now on Amazon

How to Enter:

Enter the giveaway using Rafflecopter. Hit the green "Do It" buttons, follow the prompts, and hit the green enter buttons when you're done. (You may have to log in using Facebook to do this). There will be two winners (selected by Rafflecopter). I will contact the winners via email. This contest is open to international entrants.

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