Hungry Business by Maria DeBlassie - Book Tour + Giveaway

Hungry Business: A Short Story

by Maria DeBlassie

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GENRE: Gothic, Horror (Cozy)

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BLURB:

From the multi-award-winning author of Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic & Daily Conjurings comes a cozy Gothic short story about searching for soul, meaning, love in a world that's forgotten the power of everyday conjuring.

Looking for love can be deadly…

You know how it goes. You go out, hoping to meet someone. You wade through your fair share of brainless automatons, lifeless bodies, and ravenous undead good at passing as human.

The more you go out, the less hope you feel and the colder your body gets. But you keep at it. All you need is one beating heart to match your own before yours stops pumping altogether. How hard can it be to find one living, breathing human in a city full of bodies?

Dating.

It’s hungry business.

CW: Assault

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EXCERPT

At home, you take a bath as hot as you can stand and read an old bodice ripper until the warmth returns to your veins, and the flames of hope have been fanned enough that you can crawl into your flannel jammies and be grateful you are still alive. The light in your apartment slowly seeps into your chest, and you settle into your perch on the window. 

You inspect the damage to your pinky finger as you wait for the cat to appear.  The bath stopped the spread of the decay but the tip is gray and blue.  There is puss where your fingernail should have been.  You smother it in aloe vera, grated ginger, and bandages, hoping it will be enough to bring life back into your appendage. You don’t really know how to treat something like this.  You sigh and lean back against the window frame.  Your orange tabby cat has made its appearance—yours, yes, thought you know you shouldn’t feel so possessive about a creature you only know from a distance.  It’s just nice to know it’s there.

Here’s the thing you love about the cat across the way: It’s proof that there are other beating hearts out there.  Cats won’t settle where Hungries live.  Perhaps their feline instincts tell them they’re easy prey for the things that are never satiated.  That’s why you never see alley cats in the humanless neighborhoods.  In fact, it was their strange mass exodus from certain parts of the city that first alerted officials to the virus now plaguing them.  And this cat—bright orange like a flame with a soft, full belly—seems happy enough in its home.  You wonder what kind of human it belongs to.

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Author Interview
1. If you could tell your younger writing self, anything, what would it be?
If I could tell my younger writer self one thing, it would be to have confidence in your writing vision.  Stories are magic and your words will find the right audience.  Those who need your medicine will always find you.

2. What fantastical fictional world would you want to live in (if any) given the chance?
Hobbiton, hands down.  Although I feel like I’m cheating a little bit with this answer, as I often feel like I already live in my very own Bag End.  I’m a hobbit at heart, loving hearth and home, good food and good company, good stories and good conversation.  I’m all about the simple pleasures of daily life and creating a cozy sanctuary to enjoy them in.

3. Did you want to be an author when you grew up?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until I was in high school that I decided it wanted to be a Serious Writer. Reading was always a huge part of my life, so I think I just fell in love with the idea of telling stories.  I wrote every morning before school for twenty minutes a day, and longer in the summer—a habit I       continue to this day!  I turned to blogging after finishing graduate school, and my first book, Everyday Enchantments, was born out of my daily musings on the things that made me happy from my blog.  Now, I’m excited to be moving into fiction, my first writing love, with Hungry Business, a Gothic short story about searching for soul in a world that’s forgotten the power of everyday magic.

4. If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Bruja. Writer. Dreamer.

5. What is your most unusual writing quirk?
I have to have a clean apartment.  A full stocked pantry.  A pot of hot water on the stove for tea.  This might seem unrealistic to some, but I can’t write if things are messy!  In some ways, tidying up helps me transition from my work day to writing. Dusting shelves feels like I’m clearing proverbial cobwebs from my brain and washing the floors feels like I’m washing away any negative of heavy energy from the week.  Once my sanctuary is cleansed, I’ve got the fresh perspective to write a new page.

6. If you could own any animal as a pet, what would it be?
I’m pretty happy with my familiar, Smoke.  He’s a lovely black cat and an excellent companion.  He’s always there to help me consult the tarot or curl up with me to read a good book. He’s named after John Silence’s cat.  I’m a sucker for a good occult detective story and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence series was my introduction to the genre.  I think my cat, like Silence’s, knows how to see beyond the veil and safely navigate the spirit realm.  His talents come in pretty handy in my bruja life!

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Maria DeBlassie, Ph.D. is a native New Mexican mestiza blogger, award-winning writer, and award-winning educator living in the Land of Enchantment. Her first book, Everyday Enchantments: Musings on Ordinary Magic & Daily Conjurings (Moon Books 2018), and her ongoing blog, Enchantment Learning & Living are about everyday magic, ordinary gothic, and the life of a kitchen witch. When she is not practicing her own brand of brujeria, she’s reading, teaching, and writing about bodice rippers and things that go bump in the night.  She is forever looking for magic in her life and somehow always finding more than she thought was there. Find out more about Maria and conjuring everyday magic at www.mariadeblassie.com.

Social Media Links:

https://linktr.ee/mdeblassie

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7rY-gLkSH-w8uuVyrhVALA

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17535853.Maria_DeBlassie

https://www.facebook.com/EnchantmentLL

https://twitter.com/EnchantmentLL

https://www.pinterest.com/mdeblassieell

The book is $0.99 during the tour

Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Business-Short-Maria-DeBlassie-ebook/dp/B08L48MVHD

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION

Maria DeBlassie will be awarding a free ecopy of Hungry Business to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway