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$35 #Giveaway Graves’ Anatomy by Jace Anderson & Adam Gierasch @XpressoTours Ends 11.26

November 16, 2020 By Mary 44 Comments



Graves’ Anatomy
Jace Anderson & Adam Gierasch
Publication date: November 17th 2020
Genres: New Adult, Urban Fantasy

Tattoo artist Luna Graves’ life turns upside down when her estranged father dies and she learns it’s her destiny to be a doctor…to monsters.

Destiny? Fairy tale endings? Things that go bump in the night? Luna Graves doesn’t believe in any of them. Her father took off when she was three, and she’s worked hard to become one of the best young tattoo artists in Los Angeles. Of course, there was that mysterious exchange she had when she was 12 with Heath Guillaumet, who might not have been human…naw, that was just her imagination.

When her estranged father dies, Luna discovers that he led a secret life as an uphir, a doctor to the shadowkind — what we would call monsters. Now that he’s gone, she has to take his place — or be killed by the powerful Council. Thrust into a world she doesn’t know, the stubborn Luna refuses to give up on her original dreams. Soon Heath Guillaumet will return to unleash a disease last battled by the Knights Templar…the Black Death.

Goodreads / Amazon

 

BOOK TRAILER:

—

EXCERPT:

The ornate padlock dangled from Luna Graves’ neck, suspended by a silver ball chain. It was a beautiful piece, really, so she usually didn’t have to explain why she wore it. The truth was, Luna didn’t know why she had held on to it for the past dozen years, and she’d started wearing it to justify keeping it for so long. If anything it reminded her to listen when a little tingle rose up in her stomach, to pay attention to that little flinch of fear.

Most people wouldn’t think of Luna as scared. Here she was in her element, the tattoo parlor, leaning over hulking Tony Ramirez with his three-quarter sleeves of horror movie creatures. But Luna knew it didn’t take courage to deal with Tony. Talk to him for two minutes and you’d realize that, behind the all-black clothing and hardcore punk T-shirts, he was just a sweet guy who liked make-believe monsters.

Monsters. Luna didn’t believe in them – of course she didn’t. Over the years she’d pushed the memory of that strange man Heath down into the recesses of her mind and scrubbed it clean of those elements that didn’t make sense. If the needle-sharp teeth entered her consciousness – a fleeting thought as she sketched one of Tony’s new designs, maybe, or a half-formed nightmare – she dismissed them. Her scared twelve-year-old mind had seen things that weren’t there. End of story.

Luna’s arms told a different tale: like Tony’s, they were covered with deliberately macabre designs. A Lovecraftian being, all tentacles and scales in bright colors of emerald green, purple and burnt orange, was splashed across Luna’s right shoulder. One long tentacle snaked all the way down her arm to encircle her wrist, where a needle-toothed, looming vampire peered out from a rocky precipice. Bats circled a harvest moon on her elbow, and a rugged scaly creature emerged from a lake on her forearm. The theme continued on her left arm, where two bristling hellhounds bounded down her triceps, nearly colliding with the ghoulish hag with backwards feet on her lower arm.

The designs were beautiful, haunting, each one a Luna original…and each one taken from her nightmares. Creatures had started peppering Luna’s dreams after her encounter with the strange man in the alley. She’d wake up panting with fear, her eyes probing the darkness, seeing flashes of monstrous faces at her window. Her parents would tell her they were just dreams, but they didn’t feel like Luna’s other ones. She felt that she could reach out and touch these creatures. Drawing them was the only thing that allowed her to go back to sleep; it was as if getting them on paper got them out of her head, if only temporarily. Getting them on paper also transformed them from terrifying to beautiful – under the influence of her pens, paints and pastels, the monsters that tormented her during the night became as spectacular as strutting peacocks.

“Ow!” Tony whimpered. Luna flipped her hair – naturally blond but currently dyed with streaks of aqua-blue that set off her pale green eyes – over her shoulder. She was dressed for work in old overalls and a tank top that showcased her ink-splashed tawny arms; just a bit of lipstick and mascara adorned her face.

“Deep breaths in and out,” she instructed, adjusting the position of the tattoo gun. “Focus on your breathing, not the pain.”

Tony was her last appointment of the day. It had been a busy Saturday at Tattoo du Monde, and Luna had spent most of the day inking standard flash on bewildered tourists. (Tattoo du Monde was located on Hollywood Boulevard just west of Highland, flanked by not one but two smoke shops, and as such was frequented by tourists confused as to why Jennifer Lawrence and Ryan Gosling weren’t getting pizza across the street.) Working on Tony was a treat – it was the first original design she’d done all day – even if he loathed needles just a little less than he loved tattoos.

Tattoos had been Luna’s calling since she got her first ink at sixteen, much to her mother Ramona’s chagrin. She and her best friend Jess had ventured east into trendy Silverlake, exploring dusty record shops and secondhand clothing stores, when Luna had spotted Mizayaki Tattoo, its windows filled with colorful custom flash. Even though the art was beautiful, Luna already knew that she wanted to use one of her own drawings as the basis for her tattoo. She had flipped her notebook open to a detailed drawing of an orange demon. “I want this.”

For the next hour she had gritted her teeth, listening to the steady buzz of the tattoo gun and regretting every extra stroke she’d put in her drawing. The demon had been a frequent visitor to Luna’s dreamscapes, but it took her three weeks to realize that once the devilish imp resided on her body it no longer visited her at night. After the hellhounds took up residence on her right arm, they disappeared from her dreams as well. The logical part of Luna’s brain knew there couldn’t be a correlation between the two and that there had to be another explanation for her newly uninterrupted nights of sleep…but deep down she believed that by permanently fixing the horrific creatures on her body she’d pulled them out of her dreams. In the space of eighteen months, her body had become host to her most frequent tormentors and Luna slept better that she had since she was a little girl.

 

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Comments

  1. bn100 says

    November 16, 2020 at 10:25 pm

    okay

    Reply
  2. Judy Thomas says

    November 16, 2020 at 10:28 pm

    I can’t wait to read it! That is a very unusual story line. Thanks for sharing it.

    Reply
  3. Sbo says

    November 16, 2020 at 11:38 pm

    An interesting premise, thanks for sharing your thoughts

    Reply
  4. LeonieT says

    November 17, 2020 at 12:13 am

    Interesting concept for a story.

    Reply
  5. Pat Lieberman says

    November 17, 2020 at 4:28 am

    A very different storyline.

    Reply
  6. Maria Malaveci says

    November 17, 2020 at 4:36 am

    Sounds like a wonderful read! Love the cover!

    Reply
  7. Bea LaRocca says

    November 17, 2020 at 4:55 am

    A beautiful book cover and an intriguing synopsis and excerpt, this sounds like an excellent read. Thank you for sharing the book and author details.

    Reply
  8. nyfoodhistorian says

    November 17, 2020 at 4:59 am

    Fascinating plot, good cover. I can relate, I had nightmares that seemed so real as a child.

    Reply
  9. kim says

    November 17, 2020 at 6:42 am

    Interesting story line.

    Reply
  10. Nancy says

    November 17, 2020 at 7:08 am

    The cver of your book is colorful and has lots of detail.

    Reply
  11. Molli Taylor says

    November 17, 2020 at 7:27 am

    this looks like a great read!

    Reply
  12. Veronica Lee says

    November 17, 2020 at 8:03 am

    An imaginative and interesting plot!

    Reply
  13. Elaine G says

    November 17, 2020 at 8:11 am

    Sounds like an interesting book

    Reply
  14. shannon zeidan says

    November 17, 2020 at 8:36 am

    This sounds like such a good book! I can’t wait to read it.

    Reply
  15. KariLorr says

    November 17, 2020 at 8:53 am

    Such a unique angle for an entrance into the world of monsters. Sounds like a good read.

    Reply
  16. Audrey Stewart says

    November 17, 2020 at 10:46 am

    Jace Anderson is a new author to me, but I look forward to reading this. I always love meeting new authors. Thanks to this blog for the introduction.

    Reply
  17. Ellen Stafford says

    November 17, 2020 at 11:03 am

    Sounds like a great read!

    Reply
  18. Karen H says

    November 17, 2020 at 11:48 am

    Love the cover.

    Reply
  19. Sandra Dufoe says

    November 17, 2020 at 12:49 pm

    Sounds like an interesting story and the cover is nice.

    Reply
  20. Dianne Casey says

    November 17, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    Sounds like a fascinating read. Looking forward to reading the book.

    Reply
  21. heather says

    November 17, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    This sounds like my kind of read and I love the cover too.

    Reply
  22. heather says

    November 17, 2020 at 2:41 pm

    I follow on Instagram as @oldblueeyes070

    Reply
  23. heather says

    November 17, 2020 at 2:42 pm

    I follow bookhounds.net on email.

    Reply
  24. Latifa Morrisette says

    November 17, 2020 at 6:13 pm

    Sounds very intriguing

    Reply
  25. Glenda M says

    November 17, 2020 at 6:59 pm

    I really enjoyed the excerpt!

    Reply
  26. Bonnie says

    November 17, 2020 at 7:34 pm

    What a fascinating book! Great excerpt. I’d love to read more.

    Reply
  27. Eva Millien says

    November 17, 2020 at 7:44 pm

    Nice to meet you, Jace! I enjoyed reading the excerpt, sounds like a great book to read! Thanks for sharing with me and good luck with the Blitz!

    Reply
  28. Barrie says

    November 17, 2020 at 10:23 pm

    I love the blurb! It sounds like an interesting read! Will this become a series?

    Reply
  29. Christina Gould says

    November 18, 2020 at 8:01 am

    I like the beautiful artwork on the cover. Thanks for the giveaway!

    Reply
  30. Cali W. says

    November 18, 2020 at 3:33 pm

    Great excerpt and giveaway. 🙂

    Reply
  31. Victoria Scott says

    November 18, 2020 at 3:40 pm

    Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  32. Deb Pelletier says

    November 18, 2020 at 7:43 pm

    nice book cover and the book sounds interesting.

    Reply
  33. Tammy M says

    November 19, 2020 at 10:20 am

    This book sounds interesting. Thanks for the chance to win.

    Reply
  34. clynsg says

    November 19, 2020 at 10:27 am

    I am always interested in learning about new books that I might want to read.

    Reply
  35. Jace Anderson says

    November 20, 2020 at 4:59 pm

    Thanks everyone for blitzing with me!

    Reply
  36. Jaclyn Mercer says

    November 20, 2020 at 7:28 pm

    This sounds delightful.

    Reply
  37. shelly peterson says

    November 21, 2020 at 1:45 pm

    This is a great cover.

    Reply
  38. Stephanie Jones says

    November 22, 2020 at 2:54 am

    great book cover!

    Reply
  39. Jolanda says

    November 22, 2020 at 11:56 pm

    Sounds like a wonderful read!

    Reply
  40. Peggy Nunn says

    November 23, 2020 at 4:46 am

    I like the girl and the tattoos on the cover.

    Reply
  41. Antoinette M says

    November 23, 2020 at 6:38 pm

    Sounds like a great read!

    Reply
  42. Leela says

    November 24, 2020 at 12:27 am

    It looks like a good read.

    Reply
  43. Daniel M says

    November 24, 2020 at 4:58 pm

    sounds like a fun one

    Reply
  44. Amber Terry says

    November 25, 2020 at 12:20 am

    You had me at “monster”. 🙂

    Reply

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