Revelation
The Seven Signs, Book 1
The Seven Signs, Book 1
Erica
Hayes
Genre: paranormal romance, urban
fantasy romance
Publisher: Berkley Sensation
ISBN: 978-0425258378
Number of pages: 330
Word Count: 100K
Cover Artist: Kris Keller
Paperback: Amazon Book
Depository BN
Book
Description:
A fallen angel with a
mission and a medical examiner who's lost her faith are fighting for their
souls in a glittering, near-future Manhattan...
Blind faith is for fools. That's what Dr. Morgan
Sterling believes. And she's going to prove it by curing the zombie plague
ravaging her city's slums. She's certain it's not a sign of the End of Days,
but a nasty disease—until an angel appears in her morgue in a flash of glory.
Luniel is not just a fallen angel. He's a powerful
warrior sworn to fight evil in hopes of a chance at redemption. He's after the
demon princes who are stealing the seven vials of holy wrath which, when
perverted, will unleash eternal hell on earth.
About
the Author:
Erica Hayes was a law
student, an air force officer, an editorial assistant and a musician, before
finally landing her dream job: fantasy and romance writer.
She writes dark
paranormal and urban fantasy romance, and her books feature tough, smart
heroines and colourful heroes with dark secrets.
She hails from Australia, where she drifts from city to city, leaving a trail of chaos behind her. Currently, she's terrorizing the wilds of Northumberland.
Excerpt:
Today, of
all days. It was Thursday. The world couldn’t end on a Thursday.
Luniel, the
fallen angel, crouched on the shore of Liberty Island in a hot August sunset
with blood lapping at his feet. It licked the rocks beneath his boots,
clotting. All the way across the bay, to the firelit Brooklyn shore and the
gleaming blue arcs of the Narrows Bridge, what used to be water gleamed sick
and scarlet.
The angel
sniffed the air, and tasted copper. A dead fish bobbed belly-up, pale white
flesh and fins. He poked the warm liquid with his finger, and licked. Yeah.
Definitely blood. And human. There were seaweeds and algae that sported the
same fleshy color. But Luniel had tasted enough blood in his three thousand
years to know this wasn’t algae.
He
straightened. No breeze flicked his long black hair back. In his human guise,
he had no wings. He scanned the distant shore with sharp blue eyes, further
than any human could see, and his nose twitched. Hunting. For something.
Anything. A trick. A college prank. A fish slaughterhouse. Overflow from some
industrial accident, one of the factories along the built-up Jersey waterfront
spilling toxic chemicals.
Not a sign
of the Apocalypse. Not God’s wrath.
Across the
bloody bay, Babylon’s glittering towers razored the red sky, the decadent
sprawl of skyscrapers and spires they once called Manhattan. The sunset flashed
on steel and mirrored windows, glaring in competition with neon lights and
rainbow columns of virtual advertising. Even from here, Lune’s preternatural
ears detected buzzing electrics, the faint digital beep of comms towers,
snatches of conversations, and in his magical angelsight, the city glowed,
green with the living, pulsing energy of human souls.
Helicopters
lasered their searchlights through smoke and heat haze, sweeping over
burned-out housing projects and shining condominiums. Traffic noise hummed, the
groaning subway, horns and engines and wailing sirens, police and fire and the
ever-more-urgent ambulances. At the height of summer, plague had stolen into the
Empire State like a homicidal houseguest, more frightening than California
dengue and deadlier than arctic flu, and people were afraid.
But terror
happened in Babylon, the world’s richest, rottenest city of sin. You only had
to look at the shining glass spire piercing the sky, one hundred and ten
stories high, built back in wiser days where a pair of ill-fated twin towers
once stood. The world had turned ever more rapidly to shit since then, but
Luniel still remembered that day well. That day, angels dived for earth, fiery
wings flashing, but it was too late. Even the fallen, like Lune, were
powerless. The people screamed and died and thought the world was ending.
Horrific?
Yeah. But the monkeys had no idea what they were in for.
What the
end of the world would really be like.
Luniel
shivered. This wasn’t over yet. It couldn’t be.
He dug into
his jeans pocket for his phone, and speed-dialed. Trendy SIM implants in your
ears were all very well for humans, but fast-healing angelflesh rejected
biotech. The irony was pleasing and bitter. “Come on, Ithiel,” he muttered.
“Answer your rotted phone.”
Ithiel was
still on heaven’s A-list, but he and Lune stayed in contact. If anything was
going down, Ith would know. But voicemail kicked in, his brother’s laid-back
laughter: I’m busy. Leave a message. If I give a shit, I’ll
call back.
Luniel
swore—even after centuries, defiance felt good—and waited for the beep. “Party
never stops upstairs, huh. Call me, asshole,” he said, and ended the call.
A week.
Ithiel hadn’t answered for a week. And now this.
It could be
stupid luck. Coincidence. Random events colliding like flotsam.
But after
two millennia spent dealing out heaven’s wrath, and going on another one
walking the earth and seeing it all from the other side, Luniel was wearily
certain that what goes around, comes around to kick you in the balls.
Coincidence
was bullshit. Nothing was random. Everything happened for a reason, and fate
was one dastardly, despicable motherfucker you just couldn’t avoid.
But
inexorably—inexplicably—the blood lapping at his feet made him angry.
Defiantly,
recklessly, sinfully angry.
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i'm glad to discover this series, thank you a lot for the giveaway too
ReplyDeleteI totally love the Shadowfae series! Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteSounds fantastic! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the intro to a new author! Sounds like my kind of book - definitely on my TBR list!
ReplyDeleteLeanne :)