Blog Tour: Under My Skin by Judith Graves

It is my pleasure today to be the 1st stop on Judith's Under My Skin blog tour (click here for more details). You can find my review of this an action packed, monster filled story at the bottom of the post.

  

Synopsis:

All her parents wanted was for Eryn to live a normal life...

Redgrave had its share of monsters before Eryn moved to town. Mauled pets, missing children. The Delacroix family is taking the blame, but Eryn knows the truth. Something stalks the night. Wade, the police chief's son and Redgrave High's resident hottie, warns her the Delacroix are dangerous. But then so is Eryn--in fact, she's lethal.

But she can't help falling for one of the Delacroix boys, dark, brooding--human Alec. And then her world falls apart.

A normal life? Now that's the real fairytale.

Interview with Judith:


Mel: Tell us a bit about The Skinned series. Where did the idea come from?

Judith: Skinned was a long time brewing. Between working full time as a library technician, playing in a folk-rock band, and life in general – I’d write scenes, picking away at this idea of different mythological beasties converging on one small town. After reading about a Cree creature, the Windigo, things began to fall into place, and I decided my main character would be a shapeshifter. From there – Eryn pretty much took over. ;)

M: How many books are planned for the series?

J: There are three books: Under My Skin (UMS), Second Skin, and Skin of My Teeth.

M: How do you come up with your character names (Eryn is such a unique spelling)?

J: Ah….the “y” in her name…lol…there’s actually a story to that. In an early draft of UMS, I had her name as “Erin”. She had this snarky line about how writers add “y”s to words to make them gothic – like “vampyre” for example. The line got nixed along the way, but the spelling of Eryn’s name is ever an inside joke to keep me from thinking too much of my writing. ;)

M: Have you ever experienced anything supernatural in your life?

J: If you go to the Class of 2k10 blog (www.classof2k10.com) during my book launch, you’ll hear all about a wicked little incident with a doll my aunt gave me once. Nuf said.

Excerpt from Under My Skin by Judith Graves

For the second time that day, I stared into the werewolf’s red eyes, bright with human intelligence though a wildness flickered in their depths. The stuff of nightmares stared back at me, through me, and called to the beast that lurked within. Finding me out. My body tightened against the urge to flee. To hide.

I waved my dagger to remind the beast, and myself, that I was the one in control. Or at least, I hoped I was. The security lights glimmered off the sharp silver blade, making my point for me.

Flinching, the werewolf turned his massive head away. Thank God, I didn’t have to bluff this time. Now I was all about the follow through. My doubts faded on a mind-blowing rush of power at the beast’s show of fear.

I took a bold step forward.

The beast stumbled backwards, knocked into the bunny cage, and sent the trapped creatures into spastic scuttles.

I had him. We both knew it.

Then I slipped in the bunny blood. I cried out, flailing my hands in the air, trying to regain my balance, but my feet shot out from under me. I crashed to the floor. My head cracked against the linoleum.

I landed in a sprawl under the werewolf’s stinking jowls. His foul breath filled my nostrils as stars spun in front of my eyes. My athame flew from my hand, scraped across the floor, and came to rest a few feet away.

I twisted onto my stomach and reached frantically for the hilt. Oh, this was so wrong! My nails dug into the linoleum floor. I inched closer. My breath escaped in a ragged sob. My splayed fingers trembled. An inch. One inch more. So close. But not close enough.

My Rating: 4 / 5

My thoughts:

When Eryn's parents go missing, the Council decides it's best that she live with her Aunt & Uncle in Redgrave. On the outskirts to nowhere, they suggest a paranorm-free place like Redgrave would keep her safe as they search for clues to find what happened to her parents. When animals & kids go missing, someone needs to take the blame - the Delacroix family. Eryn struggles as she discovers there's more to this sleepy town then meets the eye!

Wow, this debut by Judith is action packed! If you love paranorm, this is one you need to check out. From vampires to werewolves to witches (well there's more but I don't want to spoil it for you), there's no holding back on beasties. Eryn is part wolven (shapeshifter) and part human. Her human father had created concoctions to suppress the wolf inside of her BUT with him gone, so were the meds. Hands down, she was my favorite character in the book, with her kick ass, sarcastic attitude. Her cousin, Paige, is one you love to hate, you can't help but laugh at what she does & sometimes just want to slap her! Of course, there's a hot guy, actually two, but ones a part vampire and we aren't really sure about him. There is a downfall to adding so many characters with so many beastly abilities and unfortunately this means that the plot sorta takes a  backseat for a big chunk of the book. Along the way questions are answered, but there were times when I wasn't sure exactly what the conflict in the story was all about. I think however, the very powerful ending more then makes up for this and I'm dying to see where book two takes us!