Tia Reed's The Grotesque's Blog Tour with a Spotlight, Excerpt and Giveaway

 

I am so excited to have Tia Reed here at Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews with a Spotlight, Excerpt and Giveaway.

Thanks Tina and Goddess Fish Promotions for allowing me to join The Grotesques Blog Tour!

Please take it away, Tia!

The Grotesques 
by Tia Reed
GENRE: Urban Fantasy 

BLURB

Discredited journalist Ella Jerome isn't thrilled about working at Adelaide's fanciful tabloid The Informer. So when zoologist Adam Lowell seeks her help in finding his missing cousin, she's cynical of his claim a monster lurks near the Church of the Resurrection. The trouble is, solving the gruesome case could be her best shot at restoring her shredded reputation.

With her old instincts resurfacing, Ella combs the Port for clues. Experience tells her the only monsters are the human variety, and the bloodied stonemason certainly raises her suspicions. But when her investigation turns up everything from petrified remains to the headless carving of a dragon, the truth threatens to steal both her sanity and the man she's falling for.

After all, gargoyles can't be anything other than harmless stone. Or can they?

Excerpt

The old man rose, rusty trowel in hand. Dirt showered off his knees. “You’re not here for the cult?”

“Cult?” She threw a doubtful glance at the house.

He eyed the new grey skirt and white polyester blouse she had bought at Target this morning. Typical male, he never noticed her old shoes didn’t match. “You don’t look like one of them.”

“I’m not one of them. I have business with Mister and Missus Travellian. Perhaps I should come back later.”

“Won’t make no difference. They’ll be at it till midnight, then back at it tomorrow. And the next day and the next. Never let up. Whack jobs all of them.” He twitched his wrinkled nose.

“At what, exactly, Mister...?”

“That crazy chanting séance thing.”

“I see.”

He thrust the rusty trowel toward her. “Don’t you go getting involved with the likes of them.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Have you tried calling the police?”

The trowel did a frustrated dance. “Officers just knock on their door and ask them to turn it down, but they just shut the window and lower the volume and keep right on doing whatever it is they’re doing because no one leaves. It’s no good I tell you.” His eyes narrowed, and he raised the trowel a fraction. “Who did you say you are?”

Ella adopted a confidential lean. “I’m a reporter. Investigating for an exposé on chanting and séances and chanty...séance-y cults,” she finished lamely. She fished a plain card without the name of her newspaper out of her tote and pressed it into his dirty glove. “You’re aware how much pressure the press can put on the government to act?”

“You’d do that?” The point of the trowel came down.

“Naturally I’d keep any information confidential. You needn’t fear any reprisals.”

“This used to be a good neighbourhood, this did. Now me kids don’t want to bring the grandkids over coz of them.”

“What I’m really looking for is a connection to the Church of the Resurrection.”

“Jean and Bill go there regular like. Can’t stop raving about it.”

“Did they ever mention anything unusual about it?”

The soothing strains of a flute drifted across the road. “Isn’t that unusual enough for you?” He dropped the trowel. It clanged against a flimsy saw. She had seen the tool advertised in a catalogue. It could be a godsend for her own garden if it did what the marketers claimed.

“Did you ever see any of them with Mister Genord?”

“That church man on the TV?” The old gardener shook his head. “You just get back in your car and drive away before you’re murdered too.”

“Do you really think they had something to do with their daughter’s disappearance?”

“You ever heard of anyone celebrating that way after a death that didn’t?”

“Hmm.”

The old man squatted and picked up the saw and one of the pavers he was arranging as a border. Ella thanked him and hurried across the road.

AUTHOR Bio and Links

Tia Reed loves nothing better than burying her nose in a story of her own imagining, cuddling her bossy cat and rescuing chewed pillows from her hyperactive dog. She takes every opportunity to do all three when she is not teaching English as a second language. Her other hobbies usually take a back seat but include trying to tame her beast of a garden, hiking and travelling. The latter has thrown her many interesting, sometimes hair-raising experiences, which she loves twisting into stories. She was born in Malta, but lives in Adelaide, Australia.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8099993.Tia_Reed

http://tychebooks.com/product_author/tia-reed/

https://www.facebook.com/Tia-Reed-1718346235054078/

https://www.amazon.com/Grotesques-Tia-Reed/dp/1928025390

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-grotesques-tia-reed/1122744363

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/588948

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Tia will be awarding a $20 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f1915

Please follow the rest of the tour here, thanks:

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2016/09/excerpt-tour-grotesques-by-tia-reed.html