Small-town life can be hard for a dead girl...
For Veronica Fischer the night to night life of a bloodsucking madam in Middle America is tough enough before she adopts Rachel Gregory, an eight year old ghost.
After her house is set on fire and Rachel disappears, all signs point to foul play. When she finds herself with a hit out on her unlife and warrants for her arrest, it becomes clear she’s going to need help.
Now she has to contend with horny zombies, violent spirits, and murderous grave robbers if she’s ever going to find Rachel and discover the awful truth of the coming storm.
A raucous ride through the dangerous lives of the lecherous undead.
Here’s the trailer for Blood and Spirits. I have mixed feelings about this trailer. To be honest, I don’t always watch book trailers, because I don’t like getting a preconceived notion of what the characters should look like before I read about them. This is a perfect example of this sort of thing happening. The actor who portrays Garret sooo doesn’t look like who I pictured. The trailer itself has its ups and downs. I like it overall, but there were places where it sounded off. Like the actor speaking was in a bathroom or tin can.
Melanie’s Review
Blood and Spirits turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I expected it to be entertaining, as I do any book I read, but I didn’t necessarily expect it to blow me away. But it totally did! I love it when I get more than I expected instead of less!
There are so many great things about this book that I’m having trouble deciding where to start. So I’ll start at the beginning. The cover of this book is totally bad ass. I absolutely love it. I know that we aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but whom are we kidding really? We both know we are more likely to read a book with a cool cover than a book without one.
Veronica is a vampire Madam. As in prostitutes. As in she runs a brothel. And she’s a vampire. She sounds SMOKING hot, as I think vampires should. Apparently, she has some enemies and such, so this book focuses on one of those enemies and the nastiness they are trying to get away with.
Blood and Spirits isn’t a one-dimensional book, by any means. It has multiple layers, and different concepts throughout the book and really keeps you guessing as to what is going to come next. There are multiple conflicts, peaks, and resolutions so the story continues through several well set scenarios. I like how the author sets everything up for explanation and back story throughout the book. There is a variety of paranormal elements and species to give the story a more complex world in which Veronica and friends reside.
There is one thing with which I had a small problem. At one point Veronica is telling the story of what has happened to cause her to feel the need to involve Julius, her maker. She is telling it to him so that he can “see” her memories. This goes on for quite a while so at some point, I realized that I forgot what going on and the role Julius was playing. I asked myself, “Why did she go pick him up? Where is he now?” At that point, I remembered what was going on, but for a minute, I was confused.
I’m not going to lie, at first, I was surprised that this book was written by a man. I had actually forgotten who wrote it while I was reading it, as that’s not necessarily something I think about. For whatever reason, in my head, I had assumed Blood and Spirits was written by a woman. When I realized Dennis Sharpe wrote it, who, I am under the impression, is NOT a woman, I was surprised until I started to think more about it. He pulled off something many men cannot. He wrote a book from a female’s perspective and didn’t completely screw it up. His action scenes were well thought out and planned. Veronica kicks ass all over the place and she looks good doing it. I’m pretty sure it’s a fantasy for some men to see a super hot chick kicking ass.
Regardless of the author’s sex, Blood and Spirits was a great book. There was action, emotion, mystery, multiple paranormal and horror-esq elements that all came together to create a wonderful book that I will recommend to anyone who likes female Vampires who can kick the crap out of people both physically AND mentally! I highly recommend this book to all vampire lovers out there.
Excerpt
I’m only vaguely aware of the fact that he’s calling me a dirty whore. A little laugh flitters inside that he would call me dirty; the irony is lost on him but not me. I’ve almost completely tuned him out, focused on the job I’m here to do.
And then he makes a mistake; he hits my face, hard. If I were still alive, it would have done some damage, broken bone, maybe even knocked me out.
This isn’t playful anymore – this bastard actually likes to hurt women – now, I’m done playing.
I pull back slowly from him, looking at his fist wrapped around what looks like a roll of quarters. He’s using every ounce of strength and leverage he has to try to hold me on my knees. He has no more effect holding me down than the weight of my clothes. His eyes begin to widen and he lets go of my hair as I rise slowly and determined. His fist is still drawn back, but we both know he’s not going to swing. I’m going over all the painful ways I can drive home the point that he doesn’t get to hurt the girls he plays with, all the while considering how much I love this dress and don’t want to ruin it.
Standing in front of him I wipe his liquid from the corner of my mouth and stare deeply. I can see the panic in his eyes. I can smell his fear, deep, rich and growing, and for the first time tonight, I’m actually aroused.
“Now, Buck, what could possibly have made you think that was a good idea?” I ask in a cool and controlled voice.
“Get back on your knees whore! I ain’t paying you to fucking talk!” He spews the words out loudly, in a vain attempt to regain control as he tries to force me back down with one hand, while still menacing with his fist. He only succeeds in ripping my dress.
Not this dress, not tonight. He’s decided it for me; tonight is the end of his story.
“I’m used to the rough stuff, Buck.”
In an instant, I have his throat in my hand and his back against the wall. He’s beginning to shake as he draws back to swing.
“I was just going to let you off with a little pain and a warning about hurting working girls, and look what you’ve done.”
The fear pours off of him in waves as I disregard his raised fist and calmly show him my torn dress. It’s enough to make even my body react involuntarily to the stimulation. “You want a pretty girl to throat fuck, you pay for it. We’re all good. You like it a little rough, that’s fine. But slapping a girl around hard enough to actually hurt them? We just don’t do that, Buck. You’re incredibly lucky I don’t bruise easy.”
I flash him a smile and for just a moment I can see he thinks it’s all going to be okay.
“We had a perfectly good deal worked out, and now you’ve ensured that I’m the last thing you’re gonna see, and given me the extra work of dealing with your corpse.”
He shudders and wets himself.
It really is dirty how hot this has gotten me. I’ll blame it on my state of mind, certainly not wanting to give this bastard any credit.
I peer deeply into his eyes, and his mind unfolds to me. I see all that he had planned for me; I know all that is ‘Buck’. The last restraint I had left is gone. He’s from out of town, no one here knows him, and only his trucking company will miss him.
About Dennis Sharpe
Born and raised in the middle of the American Midwest, Dennis Sharpe has been a writer as long as he can remember. His mother has told many people about the fantasy and science fiction stories he'd write on scraps of paper, and staple together as his 'books', before he'd attended his first day of formal education.
He has spent many late nights at diners and dives, drinking coffee with a tattered notebook to put a voice to his feelings of himself and the world around him, and other worlds that can exist only in fiction. The voices in his head don't ever stop talking to him, and so sooner or later he has to get out onto a page all that they've filled him up with.
Inspired by Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, Frank Miller, Chrissie Pappas, Charles Bukowski, Stephen King, Issac Asimov, and countless classic literary influences, Dennis continues with the ability to write what at a glance might seem absurd, but quickly begins to resonate with our own thoughts and emotions. He writes people we know, love we've known and lost (and found again), and places we've been in our lives and in our heads. Even his fictional characters and worlds carry enough of the grey areas we experience in day-to-day life, to let us find the truth in his words, no matter how fantastic.
These days he can be found still writing, drinking coffee with friends, or spending time with his children (the true joys of his life), in Western Kentucky.
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