Howdy y’all. I’m Don Allmon and I got a debut book name of The Glamour Thieves. It’s the first of a three book series called The Blue Unicorn. It’s a grim kind of fantasy, a cybernetic near-dystopia, a rough-edged romance with few promises except for the ones that matter. Ain’t nothin’ worth earnin’ that wasn’t hard won. Join in on the comments and win yourself some loot.

Two Truths and a Lie

 

It’s trivia night kiddos! Here’s 2 Truths and 1 Lie.

 

1. JT, Austin, and the gang all lived in San Francisco at one time or another. Roan and Buzz shared an apartment in Mission that was based on an apartment I’d almost rented. Victor the Wizard has an apartment on Kearny Street on Telegraph Hill which I chose because Telegraph Hill was where the Tales of the City characters lived. I, myself, used to live in the Dubose Triangle neighborhood. My landlord never pasted spliffs to my door, only nasty letters about the rent. And my roommate was a hashish addict who’d fry up four whole goddamn chickens at three o’clock in the morning because he’d gotten an attack of the munchies. Hashish and fried chicken. Fuggin’ vile.

 

TRUTH or LIE? I moved to San Francisco on the day of Pride Parade. Nearly the first thing I saw worth any mention was Dykes on Bikes.

 

2. JT is a fan of monster trucks (but don’t use the word “monster” around JT) and muscle cars. A big fan. A *really* big fan. To bribe JT into helping him, Austin steals a 2074 Corvette Dawnstrike FX27. And the bribe works, of course, in all kinds of good ways. As a kid I was crazy for monster trucks and racing. Originally, I was going to model JT’s car after the ’67 Jaguar Roadster, but a friend of mine pooh-poohed the choice—said it was “too soft” for JT—and showed me a pic of the 2014 Corvette Stingray. Instantly, I knew she was right. *That* was the car Austin would steal for JT.

 

TRUTH or LIE? My first car was an ’84 Mustang GT. The most beautiful Mustang ever made.

 

3. The covers for The Blue Unicorn series are by a wonderful artist named Simoné. You can find her work here: http://www.dreamarian.com/. The cover request forms were 11 pages long and each one took me two hours to fill out. But the covers of all three books are almost exactly what I requested, and I love them all. As an SF/F reader, cover art has always been important to me. Fantasy art in general has always been an inspiration all the way back to Vallejo, Frazetta, and Heavy Metal Magazine. I collected a bunch of inspirational art for The Blue Unicorn series out on Pinterest. You can find it here: https://www.pinterest.com/donallmon/blue-unicorn-inspiration/.

 

TRUTH or LIE? Pinterest removed a bunch of artwork I’d pinned because they violated their nudity policy. Which is why God invented Tumblr.

 

About The Glamour Thieves

 

JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day.

 

Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.

 

Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT—this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.

 

Available now from

Riptide Publishing.

Amazon

[Number 2 is the lie. The ’84 Mustang is hideous. And my first car was a 1980 Mazda RX-7, which was about as fucking hot as a sixteen year old kid could possibly expect.]

About Don Allmon

 

In his night job, Don Allmon writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance. In his day job, he’s an IT drone. He holds a master of arts in English literature from the University of Kansas and wrote his thesis on the influence of royal hunting culture on medieval werewolf stories. He’s a fan of role-playing games, both video and tabletop. He has lived all over from New York to San Francisco, but currently lives on the prairies of Kansas with many animals.

 

Connect with Don:

• Website: www.donallmon.com
• Twitter: @dallmon
• Pinterest

 

 

To celebrate the release of The Glamour Thieves, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 2, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!