Blurb
There’s
“hard to kill”—and then there’s Bellamy Vale.
After
narrowly preventing the destruction of Cold City, PI Bellamy Vale
needs a rest. Or rather, he needs a plain and simple vanilla case—no
monsters or otherworldly creatures involved! When foreign businessman
Eli Smith shows up at his doorstep with a thick wallet and a request
to find his missing sister, Vale doesn’t think twice before
agreeing. If he’d known body-hopping demons and smoke monsters came
attached to this job, however, he might have.
Review
by Lisabet Sarai
Private
investigator Bellamy Vale is a man who knows too much –
specifically too much about the dark supernatural forces that exist
in parallel with our ordinary world, and which occasionally spill
over the boundaries into the light of day. He has just finished
mopping up after an apocalyptic rift in the fabric of reality that
released incalculable evil – and incidentally leveled the entire
downtown area of Cold City in the process. Now all that Bell wants is
a shower to wash off the ectoplasmic goo, two aspirin for his painful
bruises, and some sleep.
Instead
he gets a new client, a cadaverous gentleman with an unusually acute
sense of smell who wants Bell’s help to find his missing sister.
The PI is pretty sure there’s something weird about this guy, but
the client has cold cash, and his story stirs Bell’s sympathy. As
the two pursue the slender leads they have available, Bellamy learns
that Eli Smith and his sister Sarit are both djinn, and that the hot
shot fashion designer who has kidnapped her is the vessel for an
ifrit, an ageless evil being whom the djinn have been battling for
eons.
This
is definitely not what Bell signed on for, but what can he do? It’s
his destiny to fight creatures of darkness – and to hide the fact
that such creatures exist from the mortals around him, including his
girlfriend, Police Sergeant Melanie Ramirez.
Evil
Embers is
a lively, surprising urban fantasy with an engaging hero. I really appreciated Cristelle Comby’s creativity. She brings all sorts of
supernatural elements into the mix: Middle Eastern demons, Greek
gods, Cherokee shamans, ghosts, poltergeist, zombies... honestly, you
never know what you’re going to run into in Cold City!
Superficially
Vale is modeled after the classic cynical and hard-boiled PI of noir
detective novels, but in fact he’s got a soft heart and a strong
moral compass. He hates the fact that he has to lie to his
girlfriend. He hates even more the way this destroys his
relationship. However, he has no choice For one thing, his soul is
more or less owned by Lady Death, who has promised him he won’t die
as long as he does her errands. This enigmatic femme
fatale
(quite literally!) only shows up twice in the book, but those were my
favorite scenes. I also greatly enjoyed the character of Zian, the
computer whiz who’s the estranged son of Hermes, Messenger of the
Gods.
I
had two complaints about the book. First, I had a hard time following
the (many) fight scenes. Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough
attention, or maybe they weren’t described clearly, but I found
myself becoming confused.
Second,
the book needed better editing. I noted multiple grammar errors
(mostly related to verb tense) as well as some incorrect word usage.
It’s possible these problems might not catch the attention of the
average reader, but since I’m also an editor, I couldn’t help but
notice.
Neither
of these issues spoiled what was for the most part a very
entertaining read. If you like magic in myriad forms, you’ll likely
enjoy Evil Embers.
Excerpt
So
what if it was mid-February? The way I was feeling that morning, I
planned to sleep until New Year came around again. Hells, as far as I
was concerned, I earned it ten times over. I put an end to a string
of gruesome killings, prevented the apocalypse our former mayor
intended for us, and I’d stuck around long enough to clean up the
mess she and her minions left behind. All that thinking took out the
last bit of energy I had. I closed my eyes, found a way to lie down
that didn’t hurt too much, and let sleep throw its soothing blanket
over me.
And
then someone knocked at the door.
I
groaned at the wrong timing but kept my eyes shut. There was no way
in Tartarus that I was getting back up again so soon. Whoever it was
could get lost.
The
knocking came again.
It
was more insistent this time. I could hear a sense of urgency to the
motion. I forced one eye open and frowned. The sunlight streaming in
from the window was too bright for it to be morning and the angle it
bounced off the floorboards was all wrong. I opened my second eye and
glanced at the clock on the bedside table…Three in the afternoon.
“The
hells?” I muttered, wondering where the day went while I shook my
head to clear out the cobwebs.
The
knock came a third time and I got up, grumbling all the way to the
door. I didn’t bother to put clothes on or to tidy myself up before
opening it. I was clad only in an old pair of sweatpants with a
variety of cuts, bruises, and bandages on full display throughout my
upper body. I hadn’t shaved in a week, and I was sure my hair was a
sweaty mess of brown locks and dried blood.
Who
knows, I thought, maybe the sight of me will convince my uninvited
guest to let me get back to my coma.
If
the man in the hallway took notice of my state, he didn’t let it
show. He was tall and sickly thin under his rumbled three-piece suit.
His pale skin provided some severe contrast with the purple bags
under his brown eyes. He was somewhere between forty and forty-five.
His angular face wasn’t familiar, and my frown deepened.
He
looked like a potential client, the I-want-to-know-who-
my-wife-is-banging type, but they rarely showed up to my private
address unannounced. I made a lot of enemies in my professional
career, not all of them on this side of the border, so my business
card only listed my cell number.
The
suit he wore appeared brand new, but I frowned more as I realized
something didn’t add up. I was no fashion expert, but the matching
of colors between the vest and shirt was off, brownish orange shirt
covered by a purple jacket. Oh, and he wore a tie that matched his
jacket…ugh. The light brown shoes were also at odds with the indigo
blue pants. And there was the smell on the guy. It wasn’t a garbage
smell—I’d been around enough of that over the last month to know
it at first whiff—but there was a smoky quality about it that stood
out.
I
filed the information away for later and looked the man squarely in
the eye. “What?” I croaked, my tongue feeling too thick and my
mouth too dry.
“Bellamy
Vale?” he asked, with an accent that wasn’t from around
here…Middle Eastern, maybe?
I
jerked my thumb at the bell next to the door. It had my name on it.
The
man peered down at it perplexed, then pressed the round button. A
shrill ringing shot out of the tiny plastic box above the door, and
the sound sent sharp needles dancing through my brain. I winced in
pain.
“Yeah—yeah,
that’s me.” I rushed the words out, eager to make the noise stop.
Damn, but my head was killing me. My odd gentleman caller took his
finger off the button to look at me again.
“I
need your help,” he said, “to find my sister.”
I
needed help too, preferably in the form of another round of
painkillers. But that was going to have to wait. I waved my potential
new client inside.
About
the Author
Cristelle
Comby was born and raised in the French-speaking area of Switzerland,
on the shores of Lake 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.
Cristelle
Comby will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner
via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
