The sequel to award-winning Underdead is available today from www.cerridwenpress.com!

It's been a quiet summer for middle-school science teacher Jo Gartner — not a pre-teen or a vampire in sight. Just as she begins to believe that the enigmatic vampire who turned her "almost Undead" was a bad dream, Will shows up on her doorstep, making Jo more determined than ever to avoid all things vampire and maintain a normal life. And what's more normal than doing community service to help a lovesick friend? But getting dressed up in a Halloween costume for a haunted house fundraiser is not what Jo had in mind. Especially as the entire vampire community seems to be drawn to the place.

When one of the haunted house extras turns up dead, Jo's hope for a quiet existence slips away faster than an eighth grader can shoot a spitball through a cafeteria straw. A rash of "accidents" makes it hard for Jo to know whom to trust, especially when her once-reliable detective turns standoffish and sexy vampire Will grows entirely too charming. She must choose allies carefully as she races to unmask the killer…or the next death might be her own!

*****Here's an excerpt:

“Something’s going on with you.” Becky gave my black-topped demo counter a quick, automatic check for spills and leaned against it. “And I think I know what it is.”
“You do?” It came out as a whisper.

“Yes. Let’s look at the symptoms, shall we?” She ticked them off on her fingers. “You haven’t gone on a date in months, you get here at dawn, leave at dusk and spend your weekends sitting alone inside your apartment eating nothing but takeout burgers and chocolate, when you eat at all.”

She narrowed her dark almond-shaped eyes at me. I swallowed convulsively, unable to look away.

“You’ve got chronic PMS,” she said.

“What? I do not have—”

She grinned and then her expression sobered. “I am worried that you’re depressed.”

I grunted in dismissal.

“Not that I blame you,” She looked around my classroom at the solar system dioramas, sagging volcano posters, and dusty mineral display and curled her lip. “Teaching eighth grade earth science would depress anyone. But I have a plan.”

“Oh no.” I knew her plans. It was because of one of them that I now occupied the strange and lonely world between normal human being and vampire. I sank deeper in my chair and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the sharp bite of disappointment. I longed to tell her—tell her what? I couldn’t explain what was really going on. It was too fantastical.

I was too tired to make up another of my excuses. Maybe if I fell asleep she’d just go away.

“Better yet, I’ve already set the wheels in motion.”

My eyes snapped back open. “Becky, what have you done?”
*****


If you need want to catch up in the series, UNDERDEAD is available in ebook and trade paperback.

“UNDERDEAD is certainly not your typical vampire story, it's better…. I guarantee UNDERDEAD will have you laughing out loud, while keeping you in suspense right up until the end.”--Two Lips Reviews

"Hysterically funny…a page-turner extraordinaire." –Myshelf.com

Five Stars! "Amusing fast-paced paranormal whodunit that the audience will enjoy because of the combination of suspense, romance and the supernatural. Jo is terrific!"—Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com #1 Reviewer


Liz Jasper is the award-winning author of Underdead and Underdead in Denial. You can read excerpts and reviews of her mystery novels at www.lizjasper.com

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Mark Twain

Note: Pages one and two were posted last month and can be acccessed by clicking on the September blog archives, on the right. Or you can catch up (and get ahead) on my website, http://www.lizjasper.com/, where I've recently posted all of chapter one. (Or buy the book at http://www.cerridwenpress.com/. :) )

UNDERDEAD is a lighthearted vampire mystery about middle school science teacher Jo Gartner who is bitten by an inept vampire and becomes not undead but UNDERDEAD--all the problems, none of the perks. It's the first night of Christmas vacation and while Jo would like to be at home spending a well-deserved night vegging on the couch, she's at a restaurant suffering through the science department Christmas dinner. Her two best friends at work, Becky and Carol, are making the evening easier to bear. Sort of.

Here's Chapter one, page three of UNDERDEAD:

“No, Becky’s right,” Carol said, eyeing my outfit. “What you’re wearing now really is much more age-appropriate. Not that I blame you.” She smiled. “I did the same thing when I was your age.”

I was trying to work out if she was on my side or Becky’s, when Becky attacked my hair. Literally. “Ouch!” I cried, slapping her hand away.

“And what’s with the granny bun all the time, for crying out loud?” She examined the bobby pin she’d taken from my hair as if it were a rare artifact. “I’d kill for hair like yours, and you hide it away.”

I glared at her and rubbed the tender spot on my scalp. “I wear it up because it gets in the way and tickles my face. But I’ll wear it down for you tonight. Happy?” I pulled out the rest of the pins and thick red-gold waves tumbled to the middle of my back. I pretended not to notice as midway up the table, Bob stopped talking sports with Kendra long enough to watch my unintentional imitation of a shampoo commercial. According to the students, Bob’s the reigning HTOC (Hot Teacher On Campus). I suppose he’s attractive, if you like the beefy football player type. I didn’t.

Becky said, “Let me take you shopping and then I’ll be happy.”

I held out my hand for my hairpin.

“All right.” She sighed and handed it back. “It’s Christmas. I’ll back off. For now. Will that do?”

“Fine.” I said it to keep the peace, but there was no way I was ever going shopping with her. My goal at work was to be inconspicuous. I didn’t think I’d help the cause by bearing my midriff or whatever was in fashion just now. As a five-foot-ten redhead, I had a hard enough time as it was. You can probably guess what my nickname was growing up. No, not Ariel of The Little Mermaid fame. Think more vegetable. And, though my mother says my eyes are a romantic green, they look like plain old hazel to me. So, in sum, giant, hazel-eyed carrot.

Becky reached for the nearly empty margarita pitcher and snuck a glance behind me as she topped off our glasses. “Hot man, still heating up the room, still checking you out.”

“Still not looking.” I slumped further in my chair. If I sank any lower, I’d be under the table.

“Besides, what happened to waiting until Roger goes home before starting the real party?” I said, trying to put her off before she did something awful, like wave him over to join us.
Becky opened her mouth to object, but I cut her off. “I’m not about to willingly provide fodder for the Bayshore gossip hotline.”

That at least was true. Schools are gossip pits without equal. If I showed any interest in a man, and I mean the slightest bit, the rumor mill would have us engaged by the time school started up again. It’s like that children’s game “telephone”. But instead of a phrase getting humorously distorted as it passes from person to person—Jo met a man; Jo met a can; Jo ate a can—the story gets cruelly embellished on each pass—Jo met a man; Jo and a man were holding hands; Jo and a man were making out in the parking lot; Jo and a man were buck-naked in the backseat of a Porsche having wild sex that’s banned in ten states.

***

Read page four of UNDERDEAD next Sunday, October 14. I'll also be blogging on food. (And getting crumbs on my keyboard.)

This is the first page of UNDERDEAD, my cozy mystery about science teacher Jo Gartner who thinks her students are monsters… until an inept vampire leaves her UNDERDEAD and bodies start piling up—the traditional way!

UNDERDEAD

Chapter One

I would have shot him then and there if I thought it would do any good, but Roger was such a troll the bullet would have bounced off his thick, ugly hide. Maybe poison…

Becky interrupted my pleasant daydream with a whack on my arm. “Okay, don’t turn around and look,” she said, “but a guy is staring at you. And he is hot!”

“How nice for him.”

All I needed to cap off this fabulous evening was Becky’s matchmaking. I knew her taste. He probably wore chains and had a Mohawk. Becky herself was dressed in what was best described as slightly toned-down punk, not exactly your typical high school chemistry teacher garb. It went with her spiky hair, which she wore bleached and dyed silver, though a red fringe had been added in honor of the holidays. I should mention that she is Korean, so the dye job isn’t exactly subtle. The headmaster turns a blind eye to this display of “personal expression” because she’s a first-rate teacher and, at twenty-seven, cheap.

Around us, hip twenty-somethings in denim and black sipped cappuccinos and talked knowledgeably about the band that was setting up in the bar area. But we weren’t sitting with them. We were at a long rectangular table in the back of the restaurant, where a small balding man in a hideous sweater was lecturing passionately about the insidious evil that was grade inflation. If I’d ever imagined a fate worse than death, this was it—the science department Christmas party.

****

Short page, but the first always is. All that space taken up by...printing conventions (Who wants opening words to start way at the top of a page?). I'll be posting page two on Tuesday, Sept. 25th. For more information about UNDERDEAD or to purchase the ebook from Cerridwen Press, visit my website at http://www.lizjasper.com/.

Happy Sunday,

Liz, who is at work on the sequel.