QSFer Raven Belasco has a new FF historical paranormal book out: That Lesbian Vampire Pirate Story.
Enemies to Lovers has never been so swashbuckling!
Set in 1860s New York, Sadie “the Goat” Ferrell is one of the criminal superstars of the gangs of New York. Gallus Mag is her mortal enemy … and in an epic bar fight Gallus Mag bites off Sadie’s ear — and puts it in the pickle jar of other ears she has bitten off! — as the bouncer for the Hole-in-the-Wall bar in the notorious Fourth Ward.
Sadie takes this as sign, gives up on being a criminal by land, takes over the Charleton Street Gang, and is soon sailing up and down the Hudson River with the Jolly Rodger waving on the mast!
But there is so much more in store for Sadie than just being a small-time river pirate. She and her gang board the wrong ship, and suddenly Sadie is facing an all-too-real pirate queen — who is also a vampire.
Will Sadie survive meeting this powerful vampire and rise to meet her fate? And will she ever meet Gallus Mag again, and find out that hate and love are two very intense sides of the same coin…?
Warnings: graphic violence, blood-drinking, power imbalance
Get It At Amazon | Publisher | B&N | Bookshop.org | Waterstones
Excerpt
Sadie strutted down Water Street.
Everything looked so different, but in a completely dissimilar way than when she’d first come to New York. That old Sadie was so scared, so small. She was, in fact, just like a little she-goat. She laughed out loud, remembering how she’d counted on surprising men simply by head-butting them. How trifling and pathetic that seemed. No wonder Gallus Mag had bested her so easily. Her laughter held sadness for The Sadie She’d Been.
The Sadie She Was Now moved through the nighttime streets not with a fake confidence bolstered by booze, but with the easy stride of a predator who knew she was the apex of her environment. There was no kee here who could hurt her. And while she could recognize any other am’r by scent—and there were some in the City—they were not here, in the fetid, filthy, dear old Fourth Ward.
Eyes followed her. No one called out, “Hey, Sadie tha Goat!” She had not changed in face or form, but her hairstyle was one she’d picked up from the local women on an island no one in the Fourth Ward had ever heard of. She wore a worsted wool walking dress, cream-colored and trimmed in navy like a sailor suit: all buttons and piping and neckerchief. It had been custom-made for her by a tailor in Kingston. The skirt was easily torn off to reveal lightweight but durable drawers, in case fighting should break out. Sadie might no longer be a little she-goat, but the level of violence in her life had not noticeably decreased.
Here was the corner with Dover Street, and here was the Hole-in-the-Wall. She didn’t see Gallus Mag’s looming form on either side of the door, and she was starting to worry that perhaps she had lost her arch-enemy to disease or—even more likely—a knife in the back, but then Gallus Mag came up from the alley where she’d stepped away to piss. Relief washed through Sadie.
“Hey, ya slubber!” she called out, before Mag’d had the chance to recognize the on-coming female form, “Is there a drink in this shithole for me?”
“Why, as I live and breathe! Is it yourself, Sadie the Goat?”
“I am Sadie…but more than just a goat, now.”
“So I sees. But whatever ya may be now…yer still short an ear!”
“I ain’t forgotten the one ya bit off me, Gallus Mag.”
“And I ain’t neither, Miz-Sadie-the-Whatever. I have it in the jar, still. Safe and sound! It’s the prettiest ear I ever got.”
“I should hope so! Still…I’d like it back.”
Gallus Mag leered hopefully at Sadie, “A rematch, is it? Ain’t ya afraid of messing up that pretty dress? Or losing the other ear…?”
“Not particularly.”
Mag wasn’t an idiot. She could see Sadie’s body language was completely relaxed. She wasn’t drunk and bloviating. Indeed, Mag had never seen Sadie like this. And no one knew where Sadie had been in all this time. She was dressed and coiffured as if she now moved in an entirely different level of Society—which had not been a particularly likely fate for the old Sadie. This was both unexpected and incomprehensible. Mag had good reason to be cautious.
On the other hand, Sadie was still a delicate-looking little bloss. There she was, in all her feminine finery, looking no sturdier than she had the last time Mag had buttered her so easily. And Mag was always game, always more than ready to let loose her unquenchable rage.
Mag shot out a hand to grab Sadie’s glamorous mass of braids, planning to bite the other ear off, as well. Sadie might hold herself different, but she was still nothing but a girleen, and even though she had foolishly come back for more, there was absolutely no way the little goat-girl could best Mag in a fight.
Mag’s hand sank into the braids and started pulling Sadie’s head over to the left—to add the right ear as well to the pickle jar—when Sadie’s slender arm landed on Mag’s and knocked the appendage away, an appendage which was suddenly limp and throbbing.
Mag was stunned in more than just her arm, for a moment. It felt like she’d been hit with a metal bar. How could Sadie have built up such force? And, after a strike like that, Sadie’s arm should also feel a similar pain radiating out to shoulder and wrist as Mag’s, but instead she was just standing in front of Mag, calm, with an annoying little smile.
Mag shook off the astonishment. It must be a freak chance; Sadie had accidentally hit her somewhere full of nerve endings. Mag transformed the pain into more rage, and with no warning, spun back towards Sadie’s irritating smug mug with a full haymaker of a blow…
Only to feel her fist meet nothing but air, as Sadie leaned impossibly back and back, and Mag’s arm shot over her backwards-curving body.
Sadie didn’t waste the moment, but snapped her torso up, grabbed the extended arm, twisted with cruel strength, and torqued it up behind Mag’s back, sending her stumbling head-first into the wall of the pub, the rotten wood of which shook under the impact.
Mag rolled to her back, both to protect it and to hold herself up so she did not drop to the mucky street. She panted one breath, but before she could properly fill her stunned lungs, Sadie had closed her face in to Mag’s ear, and gave it a sharp little nip, like a cat. She breathed into Mag’s now bloody ear, “I could have it off soooo easy. But I don’t have a jar for it! And I don’t want coves thinking I’m stealing yer trademark move. But yer slowing down, Mag—I’m disappointed. Is this the best ya got?”
A new wave of rage flowed through Mag from deep within, a raw, pure wrath that removed all confusion and dismay. She had twisted away from the sharp teeth and nasty, insinuating words, but that gave her room to bring her right elbow back a bit, ready to release it with a sudden unexpected momentum.
Mag drew in one sharp breath, then released her bent arm forward, a sharp blow to Sadie’s liver that not even a corset would protect it from. It should leave the little bloss gasping and crying, back down in the filth of Water Street where she belonged.
Author Bio
Raven Belasco has been described having as both “a dark, lyrical writing style” and at the same time “an easy, breezy writing style; a more colloquial and relaxed John Scalzi.” A degree in Comparative literature and a lifetime devotion to genre fiction fused into her unique style: constructed with the same dedication as literary fiction, yet easily accessible for any reader.
Belasco wanted to be an author since she was a little eight-year-old bookworm. When she turned seventeen she became chronically ill, and reading and writing “saved” her. After college, she had success with many published articles and short stories, but she always wanted more. Her first novel, Blood Ex Libris, was a genre-blending mix of dark fantasy, horror, historical, and action-adventure. It turned out to be very hard to get an agent to consider that, and it was only through dedication and a stubborn refusal to quit that Belasco finally found a publisher who understood her fresh voice and message.
Belasco writes about the complexities of being human as viewed through a dark mirror. She is known for her dedication to keeping the monstrous aspects in vampire fiction, for exploring themes of love and resilience, immersive world-building, nuanced character dynamics, and diverse perspectives.
Raven Belasco is also known for a deep connection with her readers through a very personal newsletter, regularly asking for their input in the upcoming stories. Her Blood & Ancient Scrolls Series has a deeply loyal fan base who are equally enthusiastic about both the characters and their author.
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