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White Rabbit

White Rabbit by K.A.Laity
Cover art by S.L.Johnson

Sometimes the shadows that haunt us

are what lead us back to the light

Disgraced former police detective James Draygo has sunk as low as his habit allows, working as a fake psychic despite his very real talents. When a media mogul’s trashy trophy wife gets gunned down at his tapping table he has to decide whether he can straighten up long enough to save his own skin. He may not have a choice with Essex’s loudest ghost bawling in his ear about cults, conspiracies and cut-rate drugs. Oblivion sounds better all the time…

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Opening Paragraphs of White Rabbit

I was logging some mileage in the luminiferous ether when an urgent knocking derailed my concentration. Cursing Jinx’s name—he ought to know better by now—I tried to ignore the hammering, but I was already back-pedalling in weird space and falling up the rabbit hole into the blinking light.
‘Nothing?’ My client, a wan young man of indeterminate age, looked displeased but unsurprised. Such low expectations deserved disappointment.
‘Apologies for the interruption,’ I murmured, getting up and crossing to the door where my protégé continued to pound with insane enthusiasm. I jerked it open, catching his fist in mid-air and twisting it sharply.
He whimpered.
‘I’m with a client,’ I said through clenched teeth, shoving his hand away from me. ‘What have we said about interrupting me with clients?’ I turned around to smile at the pale young man with the doughy face. ‘I don’t want to be interrupted. Each client is important.’
Jinx winced. Then he leaned forward to indicate we were to confer privately. The effect would have been improved had his breath not stunk of the cheap kidney pie he’d consumed earlier, or if his pasty white face did not resemble an emotionally-stunted panda’s second cousin. I could have done without his presence altogether at that moment. Then he handed me the scrawled note that would change my life.
In his untidy slant appeared the words, ‘Peaches Dockmuir.’

Net Galley: “It reads like the unholy bastard lovechild of Bertie Wooster and Harry Dresden on speed.”

Amazon: “The author has a wonderful sense of humor and the ability to make her lead character crazy with sane overtones so I could sympathize with him and even understand his lyrical and literary references. Even Abelard and Heloise get a quick mention so that should tell you how far afield you can expect to go.“

Paul D. Brazill says, “White Rabbit is a marvelous and potent cocktail of crime fiction, screwball comedy and the supernatural. A cracking yarn choc full of brilliant lines that reminds you of Wodehouse, Preston Sturges and the Coen Brothers and yet is like nothing you’ve ever read before. Fantastic stuff. More please!“

Best Selling Crime Writer, Richard & Judy Summer Read Winner James Oswald on White Rabbit:

‘Being a fan of mashing up genres myself, I was of course delighted to see someone else playing fast and loose with things. The central idea of the story – a real psychic pretending to be a fake – is delicious, too. The mystery was deftly played with just the right balance of action and character interplay to keep me turning the pages. The seedy side of London is nicely worked as well – not too threatening, as befits the style of book, but still gritty enough. The cast of supporting characters are nicely drawn, too. Kate writes with a fluid, easy to read style.’

Alasdair Stuart : This is supernatural fiction mixed with noir, coffee and incense, whiskey and blood, all swirled together in a novel that’s compact, punchy fun. Life is messy, death is too.

Antonio Urias : White Rabbit is fast paced, pitch perfect noir with a well-developed fantasy world and tight characterization. Highly enjoyable.

Crimeculture : Laity’s writing is punchy and readable and she has a knack for slang and banter. The whole style of the genre mash-up keeps the reader on their toes, because with noir, the supernatural and the Carroll-bunny theme all in play, we never know what’s coming next.

Tony Lane : This book is crime noir, but not as you know it. Nothing in this book is as it first seems. It has more levels than Chuckie Egg. For example the main character is a fake psychic detective, except he isn’t either.

White Rabbit on Goodreads
White Rabbit on Amazon

Emily Nation

Emily Nation by Alec McQuay
Cover Art by Jenna Whyte
Layout by Vincent Holland-Keen

Emily Nation is the greatest assassin in a post apocalyptic world. Raised with a gun in her hand and under her adoptive father’s watchful eye, she made a name for herself as an utterly ruthless killer with a firm moral code, never taking a commission against anyone who didn’t deserve it. Armed with an assortment of bizarre weapons provided by an extremely secretive sponsor, nobody is safe once Emily has them in her sights.

When a commission goes south and follows her home to her wife and daughter, everything that kept her on the straight and narrow begins to crumble, uncovering the darker, crueller side of the master assassin. With the precarious balance of her life in ruins she puts the west of England in her rear view mirror and doesn’t look back, until the faces from her past come looking for her. With her mistakes threatening everyone she used to care about, a vicious enemy growing stronger in her absence and her powerful sponsor waiting in the shadows, Emily has to drag herself out of the bottle and back to her feet, back into her armour and finish the job, whatever the cost.

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Reviews

The Tentacled Tribunal ‘McQuay’s novel bears the grungy, post-apocalyptic DNA of 2000AD, Shadowrun, Tank Girl, or Mad Max.* These are post-apocalyptic cyberpunk westerns, where the plains are nuclear ash wastes, and the bandits and crooks jostle for position between cyborgs, mutants and crazed artefacts from a bygone age of horror and violence. But where 2000AD is entwined with 80s satire and brash Americana, and Mad Max has a more arid outback mania to proceedings, McQuay’s Emily Nation is intrinsically bound to the author’s home; Cornwall.’

Tony Lane ‘ In short this book is like Tank Girl, Mad Max and DOOM mashed together and set in the old west. Except in this case the west in question happens to be Cornwall. What’s not to like?’

The Elkie Bernstein Novels

The Elkie Bernstein novels by Jo Thomas explore what happens when a normal teen is suddenly targeted by weres. In 25 Ways Elkie just needs to survive, but once she has managed that things get really complicated!

25 Ways to Kill A Werewolf by Jo Thomas
Cover Art by Sarah Anne Langton

‘My name is Elkie Bernstein. I live in North Wales and I kill werewolves.’

When Elkie finds herself fighting for her life against something that shouldn’t exist she is faced with the grim reality that werewolves are real and she just killed one. Part diary, part instruction manual Elkie guides the reader through 25 ways you can kill a werewolf, without any super powers, and how she did it.

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A Pack of Lies by Jo Thomas

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

Things are going sideways at Dr. Olsen’s Institute in Norway, a home for wayward werewolves in all but name. Ben is being held for playing dangerous games, Dave is being held for not playing well with others, and Elkie is not entirely sure whether she’s there as a prisoner or a guest. Angry and afraid, she struggles to cope now the games are over. But are werewolves really capable of rehabilitation or redemption? What does Olsen really want from Elkie and those she feels responsible for? Can she trust anyone any more?

Life was simpler when it was just about killing werewolves.

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Fool if you Think it’s Over by Jo Thomas

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

As far as Elkie’s concerned, it’s all over and her happy ending is just around the corner. She’s on her way back to Wales having freed Ben from the clutches of the controlling Dr Olsen and ensured that Dave, her ex-everything, will never be in a position to kill again. She’s even managed to find herself a (somewhat unwilling) father figure in Conn, the one werewolf in the world who seems to have his shit together. All she has to do is say “thank you” to the Valemon, a company so at odds with Olsen they were willing to support her, then get on a plane for home. Easy, right?

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Opening paragraphs of 25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf

Method 1: A Stake Through The Heart
I found out that werewolves exist when I was still fifteen, just about a week before my sixteenth birthday in fact. It was too young to cope with what happened but I don’t suppose anyone is ever ready for werewolves.
So. The first day.
I woke from a dream I don’t remember but it probably involved local golden boy, Ben Lloyd — at that time, they usually did — as my hormones gave me my wake-up call. Yeah, it will have involved masturbation. I’m only human.
I got up, showered, dressed and grabbed a piece of toast on the way out the door. I ate my toast as I sat on the garden wall and waited for Dave. I counted weeds on the lane and wondered whether the potholes were bigger than the same time last year.
‘Bore da,’ I said when Dave arrived.
‘Bugger off,’ he said back, ‘Mornings’re never good.’
In those days, Dave was just the boy next door and next door was the farm at the end of the mile long lane. The decrepit ex-labourer’s cottage my mother rented belonged to that equally decrepit farm, my mum not being able to afford anything better and Dave’s parents not being able to afford to fix up either place. Asset rich, capital poor, what with sharing the meagre profit from a small Welsh hill farm among ten cousins.
‘Meet in the copse, tonight?’ Dave asked.
Before you get the wrong idea, neither of us was sure about this puberty thing or ready for the pairing up the kids at school were doing. Sure, we had our fantasies but who doesn’t?

Buy 25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf

Buy A Pack of Lies

Reviews

Kate Laity : Fun, engaging and open-ended enough that we could have further adventures of Elkie, but we don’t have to rely on them to feel satisfied. Just curious

March 16, 2013April 20, 2016

Announcing – 25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf

You may have spotted mutterings and rumours about this, but I am pleased to formally announce that Fox Spirit will be publishing ’25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf’ a YA novel by Jo Thomas (@journeymouse) later this year.

I’m delighted Jo will be joining us at Fox Spirit, she has written an unusual and entertaining novel that is perfect for readers who prefer their werewolves to be primal killers and who like their heroines smart and capable.