Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros Novels

Let's do the contest details first:

Post a comment in today's blog to be entered to win your choice of one of Rob Thurman's first four Cal Leandros books, signed & personalized by Rob. "I wanna win! or "I love Rob's books" or just comment on the snippets of Rob's first four books that I've posted below for your reading enjoyment. You can do the same on tomorrow's post to be entered to win a signed & personalized copy of Roadkill. The winners on both days will be randomly selected from the Comments section.

PLUS, Rob has a special prize offer -- buy Roadkill from March 1st to March 6th, email Rob a scan of the receipt, and get the first chapter of Cal #6 a year before release.

Now to the post . . . In an effort to help out my author buddies -- and to help you all discover some great books -- I'll be inviting some of my author buds over to guest blog. Today and tomorrow, I'll be featuring Rob (Robyn) Thurman and her Cal Leandros books. Below are the first few pages from the first four books (with their delectable Chris McGrath covers) to give you an idea of what a Rob Thurman book is like. I'll be flat-out honest -- most of you know that Jim Butcher is my favorite author -- well, Rob runs a close second.

Tomorrow, I'll feature her latest Cal & Niko adventure (that I can't wait to get my hands on) -- Roadkill. I absolutely love that title. I'll be posting the first chapter and teaser from Chapter 2. Roadkill hits bookstore shelves next Tuesday, March 2.

As I've told you before, sales during the first week of a book's release are CRITICAL for an author making a bestseller list. You may see copies of Roadkill out there now -- unfortunately, some bookstores are selling it early. This is not good for Rob's sales numbers. I'll be waiting until next Tuesday or Wednesday to pop out to my local B&N and buy my copy. If you're a Rob Thurman fan, and want to get your hands on a copy, do her a HUGE favor and buy it next week from an actual bookstore (online sales don't count toward bestseller status). I dunno why, that's just the way it is.

Enjoy your reading!

Nightlife (Book 1)


Most kids don't believe in fairy tales very long. Once they hit six or seven they put away Cinderella and her shoe fetish, the Three Little Pigs with their violation of building codes, Miss Muffet and her well shaped tuffet; all forgotten or discounted. And maybe that's the way it has to be. To survive in the world you have to give up the fantasies, the make believe. The only trouble is that it's not all make believe. Some parts of the fairy tales are all too real, all too true. There might not be a Red but there is a Big Bad Wolf. No Snow White, but definitely an Evil Queen. No obnoxiously cute blond tots, but a child eating witch…yeah. Oh yeah.

There are monsters among us. There always have been and there always will be. I've known that since I can remember, just like I've always known I was one. Well, half of one anyway. Not that I looked that way. Regardless of what inherited nastiness I might have on the inside, on the outside I was all human. In fact Niko had said, and pretty damn frequently, that I had more human qualities than I had good sense. There was no one like your brother to remind you no matter how godawful that you thought your problems were, you were still his punk ass kid brother. If I wanted to beat up on myself, I'd have to go through him first. Niko was such a boyscout. Albeit a boyscout with a lethal turn and a merit badge in deadly weapons.

Niko, for all his fascination with sharp, pointy things, was all human. Not a drop of monster blood in him anywhere. Of course his father could barely be classified as human in my book, but technically the man met the definition. Worthless bastard. Niko had been two weeks old when his dear old dad had taken off. He'd seen him no more than three times in his entire life. There were some true parenting skills at work. Three times. Hell, I'd seen mine more than that.

Yeah, I'd seen mine all the time, at least once a month. It watched me. There were no father and son chats, no invites to see the monster cousins, no interaction of any sort. There was just a shadowed figure lurking in an alley as I passed. Or maybe a silhouette with lithe, sinuous lines and sharp, sharp teeth cast against my window at night. Of course it wasn't like it was wearing a name tag that said 'Dad' on it or left me birthday presents topped with a bow tied with unnaturally long, clawed fingers. So I had no proof it was my demonic sperm donor, but come on. When your mother is quick to tell you you're a freak, an abomination that should've been aborted on cheap bathroom tile, you have to think…why else would this monster be stalking me? Funny, that monster had more interest in me than my mother ever had.

Over the years I got used to it, the shadowing. A couple of times I tried to approach it; curiosity, morbid death wish, who knew? But it always disappeared, melting into the darkness. Mostly I was relieved. It was one thing to be part monster, another altogether to embrace that less-than-Mayflower heritage. Then when I was fourteen that all changed. After that I didn't look for monsters.

I ran from them. Actually we ran from them, Niko and I. For three years that felt more like thirty, we ran. Ran until it was a way of life. It wasn't the kind of life Niko deserved. But did he listen to me when I told him so? Shit. Hardly. My brother had made a career out of trying to protect me. Talk about your minimum wage, no benefits occupations.


Moonshine (Book 2)


I was born a monster.

No big deal, right? Monsters were everywhere in this world. I'm not talking your sweaty pedophile with twitching fingers or your serial killer with a cold and silent harem buried in his crawlspace. No, I'm talking about the real deal. Creatures that had scuttled across the surface of this world when the air was sulfuric acid and the nighttime moon all but blocked out the sky. Scales and fangs, blood that doubled as venom, minds and bodies twisted in concert, dark legends come to life. These legends had always been a reality, but refused to register on modern human eyes. Monsters, they existed all right, and they were legion, so what was one more?

Although truthfully, I was only half-monster. My mother was human, my father something . . . else. When we were younger my brother and I had called them Grendels; the rest of the supernatural world called them Auphe. You say tomato, I say murderous death incarnate. It's all good fun. Auphe were the seed of the elf fantasy, believe it or not, but this seed was poisonous, and it would kill anything it touched. There was no blond hair or limpid blue eyes, no silken voices like a temple bell. There was only skin as palely transparent as that of a salamander, eyes the red of lava that had claimed a thousand virgin sacrifices, and a mind blackened and putrid as a rotting swamp. Okay, they did have the pointed ears; I'll give you that. Sometimes legends do get the facts right, but that's not much comfort when a thousand metal teeth are buried in your throat.

Half monster or whole, in the end it didn't matter. I had my weaknesses, same as anyone else. And I was facing one of them now.

Clowns.

Yeah, that's what I said. Clowns. I hate clowns. Always have. Point one out to me at the age of three and I would run wailing in the other direction as if the Hounds of Hell had been set on my diapered ass. I'd even once punched one with a tiny fist on its big round nose when it bent down to leer at me. The thought still gave me a chill, and wasn't that pretty damn ludicrous? I'd fought creatures more monstrous than the mind could grasp. And I was related to things even worse than that. That didn't stop me from holding onto my gun with the tightest of white knuckled grips. Bottom line, none of it mattered. I just hated clowns. And, honestly, what self-respecting person didn't? Name one, just one that didn't have a deep down slippery crawl at the sight of them. Those puffy, bloated hands. The tiny gleaming eyes buried in pits of black paint. That maniacal grin awash in lurid scarlet, red as blood. Whose blood, you'd wonder uneasily to yourself. Could be yours if you didn't waddle away fast enough on chunky toddler legs. Then there were the people dressed like cartoon animals, lolling plush tongues, glassy saucer eyes, and thick, unhinged laughs. They were nasty in their own right, but they still had nothing on clowns. Jesus Christ. Don't kids have enough to warp them in this world?

"They're only bodachs, Cal," Niko's voice came with a cool amusement that had me throwing him a black scowl. "You could handle a bodach long before you were potty trained. Granted that was less than a month ago…."

My brother, his bedside manner was less handholding and more a nice brisk thwap to the back of the head. "They're not just bodachs," I gritted. "They're bodachs in clown makeup. And that, Cyrano, makes all the difference in the goddamn world."


Madhouse (Book 3)

I hated kidnapping cases. Hated them with an unholy passion.

And trust me, unholy was something I knew about--hell, I wore it like a faded old T-shirt. One I'd had since birth. There were those who said I couldn't let go of that, and that it was long past time I did. But, hey, if you can't bitch about your monster half, what can you bitch about? As for kidnappings, no surprise there on how I felt about them. Several months before, someone I knew had been kidnapped--two someones actually. Although the second taking had lasted less than an hour, the first had lasted two weeks. Despite the difference in time, they both had left their mark, physically and mentally. My shirt and jacket hid the first. I wasn't sure anything hid the second, but I gave it my best shot with caustic sarcasm, brittle bravado, and good old-fashioned denial. That was a triple threat that had done well by me for a long damn time, and I had no plans to give it up now.

A swat smacked the back of my head briskly. "I'm curious, Cal, do you plan on paying attention anytime soon or would you like to have the kidnappers reschedule? I'm sure they'll be amenable. Kidnappers so often are." Niko. He had been one of those who had disappeared on me, even if only temporarily. As brothers went, he was a good one, despite a horrifying obsession with health food, meditation, and things generally not revolving around pizza and beer. But we all have our crosses to bear…mine was to be smacked when I wasn't with the program, and his was to be over-educated, as self-aware as the Dalai Lama, and to keep my ass alive. Poor bastard.

"I'm paying attention," I lied instantly, rubbing the back of my head with a wounded glare.

He snorted, but didn't call me on it as sharply as I deserved. Apparently the swat was punishment enough. "Then let's move on before you pay so much attention that you fall asleep where you stand."

Like I said, a good brother, and good brothers, besides keeping your ass alive, also don't let it get away with much. But there was no denying he was letting me slide a little. Why? Because he knew me, and he knew a case like that wasn't going to trigger any good memories. Grunting in reply, I moved along at his side. "So they kidnapped the mistress of a vampire," I grumbled. "She's a lamia. I've seen lamias and I don't know why the hell anyone would want that back." Lamias were similar to vampires in that they fed on blood. These days vampires had found a better way, most of them anyway, but lamias weren't looking to improve themselves. And although they fed on blood, there the similarity to vampires ended. A lamia's bite, usually on the chest--or if they were really into you, other, more sensitive parts--had a chemical in their saliva that paralyzed their victim. Like a leech they would stay fastened to you and drain your blood…very, very slowly. It could take days--days in which you couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't beg for a faster death.

Sure, that's my dream girl. Bring her on.

But obviously a vamp felt different and here we were.

Deathwish (Book 4)

Once, when I was seven, I was chased by a dog.

We lived in a trailer park then, my brother, our mother and me. There were lots of dogs around, most of them running loose. I didn't mind. I like dogs. But dogs…dogs don't much like me in return. Puppies do Puppies like everyone. They'd crawl in my lap, chew happily on a finger or the tattered edge of my sneaker. Dogs are different--one sniff of me was enough. More than enough. The upper lip would peel back, ears would flatten, and the warm brown eyes would go glassy and slide sideways as they hunched with tail tucked beneath their legs. Dogs don't just not like me, they're afraid of me.

Except for Hammer. Hammer wasn't right, not right being flat out crazy. One hundred pounds of Shepherd mixed with Rottweiler mixed with God knew what else. Black and gray with a wide chest, a flat head, and empty amber eyes, Hammer wasn't afraid to look at me like the other dogs were. No, Hammer liked to look at me. He liked to think about me. If anyone thought animals didn't think, didn't plot, didn't plan, then they'd never met Hammer. Two trailers down and one of the few dogs in the park kept on a chain, he watched me every day as my brother and I walked to school. He never barked. He never growled. He never even moved. He just watched.
With a lack of any apparent aggression, any other kid might have been tempted to pet him. Not me. Even at seven I knew a monster when I saw one. It didn't matter if his owner had made him into one or he'd been born one like me, Hammer was Hammer. You didn't pet him any more than you petted a rabid grizzly bear. You just walked by and kept your eyes on the ground. You never looked…just like Hammer never moved.

Until he did.

Hammer was bad inside, wrong, and like I recognized him, he recognized me. And when drunk old Mr. McGee let the chain finally rust through, Hammer came for me. I had my dollar store sneakers and a bagged lunch my brother had made for me, but I didn't have my brother. He'd gone ahead, although still in sight. He never failed to make sure I was in sight. This time I'd forgotten my backpack like kids do. I'd catch up. I always forgot things. I always caught up. No big deal. Yeah, no big deal, but Hammer made it one.

He ripped the backpack off of me. He'd been lying in the same position he lay in every day. Bowl of dirty water, gnawed club of wood. I saw it from the corner of my eye as I walked past. That day, like every day, I wondered why he didn't like me. We were both twisted. Both wrong. So why? I didn't get a chance to wonder any further than that. There was a blur of fur, jaws clamped into my backpack, and my body thrown sideways. He dragged me several feet before he tore the pack completely off of me.

I didn't think. Like I said, I'd seen monsters. You didn't hang around and ponder the situation. I got up and ran. While I'd seen monsters before, been followed, watched, I hadn't ever been chased by one. It was my first taste of death at my heels, my first taste of running for my life.
It wasn't my last.

In fact, I ended up spending a vast amount of my life running. Not just living my life on the run, which I had, but actually running. I wasn't seven anymore, but I was still flat out hauling ass. Like the wind--like the fucking wind. Running from this, running from that--usually from something with teeth, claws, and the attitude of a Great White on steroids. Things that made Hammer look like a toy poodle.