Virtual Book Tour + #Giveaway: Hostile Takeover by Cristelle Comby @Cristelle @GoddessFish

Hostile Takeover

by Cristelle Comby

GENRE: Urban Fantasy

BLURB:

P.I. Bellamy Vale isn’t your everyday investigator. Moonlighting as Death’s earth-bound envoy, he specializes in the weird, wacky, and slightly unhinged.

When a mysterious beast savagely mauls random residents of Cold City, the police assume that these are the killings of a rogue wolf. But experienced private investigator, Bellamy Vale, is unconvinced.

Ordered by Death herself to investigate, Vale has no choice but to obey, for his boss is not someone to disappoint—if he wants to keep breathing, that is.

With friend and computer hacker Zian, nosy journalist Candice Kennedy, and homicide sergeant Melanie Ramirez by his side, Vale has no choice but to end the killings or face the wrath of the demon who holds his life in her hands.

Excerpt:

I was having a bad day.

The ugly thug facing me readied himself for the next swing. “What did you say, bastard?” His red-splattered knuckles were ready for the next round; my body wasn’t.

“I’m haffin a fah fay,” I managed to repeat through a mouthful of saliva and blood.

That made Julian Ragazzo, former welterweight boxing champ and top bodyguard to the city’s prime Italian Mafia family, smile. His wet beard glistened with sweat beads around stained teeth. Glad one of us was happy.

I took stock of the damage Ragazzo had already done. Broken nose, check. Split lip, check. Swollen eye, check. Broken rib, double check, and the list went on and on. It could have been worse. The injuries, though painful, weren’t enough to put me in the hospital. Sure, I’d hurt for a week or four, but I’d live to tell the tale outside of a body cast. I knew that, and Ragazzo did, too. This was a game we’d both played before … not that I’d gotten any better at it.

I caught a reflection of myself in the glossy surface of a cabinet door. My messy mop of brown locks was matted with blood on one side and the five o’clock shadow had a hard time concealing a fast-bruising chin. One eye was swollen shut and the other had a pale blue, haunted orb dancing amidst a sea of red veins. I was a mess, and not a hot one.

I closed my good eye and waited for the next blow. The bodyguard didn’t disappoint. A second later, he delivered a power punch and I saw stars. It didn’t help that I was tied to a chair and my already sore shoulders screamed in protest at the added strain. In a noise that only I could hear, my body cried out, ‘How in all the hells was this part of the plan?’ Fair question—it wasn’t.

In truth, there may have been a few glitches here and there. Like those two extra guards at the office building’s back entrance, plus that wrong turn I took on the fourteenth floor. Yeah, okay … the plan was just as screwed as I was.

Ragazzo followed up his haymaker with another kick in the guts. It would have ripped a scream out of me if I’d had any breath left for it. Instead, my lungs just took in short, choppy gasps I couldn’t control.

“Well, well, well … look what the cat dragged in,” taunted an Italian-lilted voice.

I recognized the lazy drawl and opened my good eye to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, Alonzo Vitorini, Cold City’s resident wannabe kingpin, stood near the entrance in a dark-green pinstriped suit. Shit, looking at his ugly get-up hurt worse than any of Ragazzo’s blows.

Vitorini sauntered into the room, smiling as he noticed my stare. “Like the suit?” he asked, doing a little pirouette to show off this walking insult to fashion.

I wasn’t going to reply, but the second my eye caught sight of the finishing touch, a pair of black-and-white spectator shoes, my mouth kicked into gear on its own.

“Al Capone called,” I wheezed out. “He wants his brogues back.”

Vitorini laughed, the corners of his muddy-green eyes wrinkling. Not sure if he was laughing at the crack or the fact that he was going to kill me for it in another minute or two.

Interview with Cristelle Comby

Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in Hostile Takeover?

The main character, Bellamy Vale used to be in the US Marine Corps. Now he’s a private investigator in Cold City. A couple of years ago, desperate and at an all-time low, he made a deal with Death. In exchange for a favor he agreed to work for Her. Now he solves vanilla crimes to pay the bills and he goes up against monsters and Gods with nefarious plans to please his boss of a dubious nature. And the only reason he’s employee of the month is that no-one else was foolish enough to take the job. The other ones, you’ll have to discover in the book.

Can you tell us a little bit about your next books or what you have planned for the future?

I’m currently editing the second book in the series and working on the outline for the third one. You can expect the next Vale Investigation book to hit the shelves in 2019.

How long would you say it takes you to write a book?

About a year. Outlining and doing the research takes me about a third of the time, then another third is spent writing, and the last third is for stuff like editing, proofreading, cover art and promotion. Normally, I’m always working on two books in parallel. One that I’m outlining or writing and another that is at the editing stage.

What is your favorite childhood book?

Nothing stands out, but I remember reading a lot of the Famous Five by Enid Blyton. And also the French Fantômette series by Georges Chaulet. I was into mysteries already back then.

If you could spend the day with one of the characters from Hostile Takeover who would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular character, where you would go and what you would do.

Funny question. I don’t really fancy getting shot at or stabbed or getting myself thrown out of a window… so, I’ll stay away from Bellamy Vale.

I guess the safer choice is Zian, the computer hacker. He owns a club, the Indigo, in the fictitious town of Cold City, USA. He could give me the VIP treatment and then teach me a thing or two about hacking.

What was the hardest scene from Hostile Takeover to write?

The first ones. It took a couple of re-writes to get the tone right. 

What made you want to become a writer?

As far back as I can think of, I’ve always loved writing. It took a while for me to get any good at it though.

Just for fun

(a Favorite song: Dead Man’s Eyes by Apocalyptica

(b Favorite book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

(c Favorite movie: The Lord of The Ring Trilogy

(d Favorite tv show: Breaking Bad

(e Favorite Food: Salmon Tartare

(f Favorite drink: Strawberry Milkshake

(g Favorite website: IMDB.com

Thanks so much for visiting with us today!

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Cristelle Comby was born and raised in the French-speaking area of Switzerland, in Greater Geneva, where she still resides.

She attributes to her origins her ever-peaceful nature and her undying love for chocolate. She has a passion for art, which also includes an interest in drawing and acting.

She is the author of the Neve & Egan Cases series, which features an unlikely duo of private detectives in London: Ashford Egan, a blind History professor, and Alexandra Neve, one of his students.

Currently, she is hard at work on her Urban Fantasy series Vale Investigation which chronicles the exploits of Death’s only envoy on Earth, PI Bellamy Vale, in the fictitious town of Cold City, USA.

Website ~ Twitter ~ Amazon

Giveaway:

$20 Amazon/BN GC

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