The Book of My Heart -- Sinners' Opera

Over 10 years in the making, having started its long life as 1,000 pages, Sinners' Opera was released last Friday by Double Dragon Publishing.  I've been happy dancing all weekend!  In the next week, it will be released in a trade paperback.  A preview of the novel is available at the publisher's web site, and the book is also available on Amazon.  The talented Elise Trissel designed the dynamic cover.

Sinners' Opera stars my favorite hero, Morgan D'Arcy. Let me describe Morgan.  He is tall with long blond hair, sky blue eyes and heartbreakingly handsome.  He is sophisticated, a man-of-the world. In the newbie day of writing, I followed him to every concert, every party and around his house!  That's why I had to cut a LOT from the final product.  It's been a long road to publication, but finally, here is a blurb and an excerpt.

Blurb:

Morgan D’Arcy is a classical pianist, an English lord and a vampire.  He has everything except what he desires most—Isabeau.  When she was a child, he appeared to her as the Angel Gabriel, influencing her life and career choice, preparing her to become Lady D’Arcy.  Many forces oppose Morgan’s daring plan—not the least of which is Vampyre law.  A vampire must not sire a child on a mortal.

Isabeau Gervase is a brilliant geneticist engaged to a prominent attorney. Though she no longer believes in angels, she sees a ticket to a Nobel Prize in the genetic puzzle presented by her long-absent childhood friend. She intends to unravel Gabriel’s secrets, using the DNA contained in a lock of his hair and identify the non-human species she named the Angel Genome.

Morgan is ready to come back into Isabeau’s life, but this time as a man—and a vampire—not an angel.  Will he outsmart his enemies, protect his beloved and escape death himself?  For the first time in eternity, the clock is ticking.

 

Excerpt:  From Chapter 24 - Dead Ringer

 

The hair at my nape rose.  A chill awareness possessed me.  An ecstatic cry upstairs snapped me to attention.  Only a vampire would have heard the faint stain of laughter.  I mounted the elegant staircase and whisked to the first floor landing.  No sound, but the Darkling, as my Irish nurse had called the unnerving sensation, stood every hair on end.

I plunged into the darkness, my footsteps silent.  The night was still, ominous.  Down the hall, I followed my sixth sense, halting at the door to one of several unused bedrooms.  I flung the door open.  Like ghosts, furniture shrouded in sheets crouched by bare walls.  The scent of blood and sex overpowered me.  One enticed.  The other sickened.

Moonlight washed through the tall windows.  Blood and pearly vampire sperm gleamed on the polished oak floor.  Another of my kind had violated my house.  Outrage streaked through my veins.  The rogue would pay.  My left hand fisted, my right gripping the bottle.  Suckling sounds and the orgasmic sigh of a mortal rising to the vampire’s kiss drifted from downstairs.  Expending energy I could ill afford, I teleported to the foyer.  Light leached through the etched glass door, shimmering on a rivulet of blood.

The rogue vampire had disappeared.  I inched toward the woman’s corpse.

A tangle of blonde streaked hair framed a beautiful face—a beloved face.  The ghastly scene seared my eyes.  My heart turned to ice, my blood freezing in my veins.  Horror clawed up my throat on a wretched cry.  Pain lanced my temples, ripped through my guts.  The bottle I’d forgotten crashed to the floor and shattered, blood seeping beneath my feet.

She’d died in orgasm, arms flung above her head.  Vampire sperm smeared her spread legs and clung to the curls on her mons.  A pitiful whine unwound from my throat.  I clamped a hand to my mouth and gagged.  Hating the sight, but unable to look away, I staggered to Isabeau, praying that a breath of life remained.  My knees buckled, and I fell.  The floor was cold.  Her lips would be cold.

“Isabeau,” I whimpered.  “Merciless God, what have I done?”

By all that was holy, I would not allow my dreams to perish.  My hand shook as I lifted her wrist.  No pulse.  And no heart.  A black hole gaped beneath her left breast.  Bile scalded my throat, and a hard shudder rocketed through my numb body.  Dead violet eyes accused me of murder.  If only a spark of life remained, I could steal her from death, but she was beyond my reach.  Isabeau was dead.

 

I have another book from Double Dragon, Gemini Rising, and a self-published novella, The Night Before Doomsday, about the Grigori, the angels who fell for lust...or was it love?  Purchase links are available on my web site http://www.lindanightingale.com, along with a free read (one of the deletions from Sinners' Opea).