Hey y’all!
I’m Julia Talbot, and I’m always tickled to be here at Love Bytes doing a guest post!
Today I’m talking about one of the shared universes I play in called Midnight Rodeo. The series also features BA Tortuga and Kiernan Kelly, and we take turns writing stories about the Darque and Knight, which is a rodeo where paranormal creatures ride demon bulls and nightmare horses.
So. Darque and Knight are a vampire and a demon named Cody and Phillip. They used to be a thing, but these days Phillip stays at corporate and Cody runs the day to day operations. The stock manager is a horned demon named Thack. He has an assistant named January, who’s a brownie. The head bullfighter and his crew are werewolves, and the whole midway is run by werekitties, including Brax the mountain lion and Dmitri the tiger.
Intrigued yet?
So my latest installment in the series is called Vampire Protection. I was super jazzed by the idea of a small, relatively young vamp who got into trouble. All the time. By young I mean just over a century old. He asks his friend Cody if he can hide out at the rodeo, and Cody agrees, offering a bear shifter named Grizz as a bodyguard.
This was the very best thing for me. Bears are, by nature, a little lazy. Grizz? We’ll. He’s a bear. Like, all over and twice inside. He loves naps and fish and berries and his trailer, which has a huge bed. He’s not doing so well at the rodeo, so he takes the job, agreeing to protect Peyton.
I love the idea of taking the bodyguard trope and turning it on its head. I’ve seen a lot of vampire bodyguards out there, and some shifters, but Grizz is just totally ill suited to it and ends up possibly doing more harm than good while we get to see if Peyton can defend himself.
I hope y’all will check it out and see what happens when shifters and vampires run the rodeo… If you want to know what it’s like to read a shared universe, and want to begin with book one, start with Welcome to the Pack, by BA Tortuga.
Midnight Rodeo: Vampire Protection
Vampire Peyton gets into trouble. A lot. When he offends an entire East Coast clan of vampires up Boston way, he decides he needs a place to hide out for a bit. So he goes back to his Texas roots and calls upon his best friend, Cody Knight, to help him stay safe. Cody runs the Midnight Rodeo, Darque and Knight, and happily agrees to let Peyton come along, even assigning him a bodyguard.
Grizz is a bear shifter, big, strong, and maybe a little… well, bearlike. Who better to watch over Peyton and keep him out of trouble? If Peyton gets out of line, Cody figures, Grizz can just sit on him. Grizz has no idea how much work Peyton will be, or how Peyton will invade his heart. The problem is, Grizz is pretty sure he doesn’t need a beautiful vamp complicating his life. Can he and Peyton find their happy place before it’s too late, or will Peyton’s past catch up with him?
Buy links
http://www.evilplotbunny.com/index.php/vampire-protection-midnight-rodeo-book-8/
Julia Talbot lives in the great Southwest, where there is hot and cold running rodeo, cowboys, and everything from meat and potatoes to the best Tex-Mex. A full time author, Julia has been published by Samhain Publishing, Dreamspinner Press, and Changeling Press. She believes that everyone deserves a happy ending, so she writes about love without limits, where boys love boys, girls love girls, and boys and girls get together to get wild, especially when her crazy paranormal characters are involved.