Title: Wake the Dead
Series: Gamin Immortals, Book Two
Author: Sophie Whittemore
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 05/09/2023
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: No Romance
Length: 83700
Genre: Paranormal, Paranormal, lit, asexual, demisexual, trans, lesbian, gay, siren, ghost, necromancer, shapeshifter, murder, detective, Green Man, Baron Samedi, fae, priest
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Description
An ominous presence awakens in the small town of Gamin.
Fairies murdered by crazed monsters. Magic that makes immortals lose their minds and their heads (literally). Whispers of a vendetta against the fairy crime lords who own the infamous Kraken Club.
One ace siren detective, Lili, is dragged back into defending her turf…and hopefully, she doesn’t die this time around.
Wake the Dead
Sophie Whittemore © 2023
All Rights Reserved
The world is a chrysalis waiting, desperately, for something to happen. And when things happen, that means chaos follows. And when chaos follows, someone inevitably writes something akin to the Book of Revelations.
The Book of Revelations is nestled between the thumb and forefinger of the wandering priest sitting with one leg crossed over the other in the lobby of the Sweeney Inn. A glass cup beads, crying condensation, at his side. He has stubble he probably dreams will, one day, become a beard.
He really shouldn’t have a beard.
I shouldn’t be thinking like that. There could be a mind reader in this very room. Gamin attracts those types more than most places. It attracts the magical like rats to disease. It’s the magic river that does it, the magic hiding us from the human world. So, case in point, there very well might be a mind reader in this very room.
Hey, asshole, if you’re reading my mind, and I smile as I think this, fuck off.
The round-bellied, redheaded, and altogether-too-good-for-her-own-good witch beside me, Patty, scowls at the priest bearing the Book of Revelations. Specifically, she scowls at the mud caking his shoes. “He’s dragging it all over the place.” She watches the floor, how his legs swing across it. “I don’t care if he’s a priest. If he muddies the ground—” She ties her frizzy red hair back from her round face, making me wonder if she really will sock him. Her absolute kickass attitude never ceases to amaze me, and if fate took other chances, I would not hesitate to make her my dream girlfriend.
“He’ll meet his Maker?” I finish for her.
She smirks, leaning her chubby, freckled arms against the front desk. She’s about to answer when the man gets to his feet and crosses toward us. He’s not too tall, about my height, with dark hair, thick brows, and skin that glows like a penny in the sun.
“Welcome to the Sweeney Inn,” Patty declares, a little glint of pride in her eyes. A businesswoman growing comfortable in her power suit. Her brother, Jason Sweeney, keeps the books. Patty leads the running of this place, and she runs such a tight ship that her orders even make me weary at times.
Together, they run the (Evil) Eye Inc., your friendly neighborhood necromancy corporation and local coven business. Being younger, they’ve moved a lot of the business online with tech-wizard friend Erik Borden doing most of the magical for-your-eyes-only monster coding.
You heard me.
Witches are getting into the Silicon Valley big tech startup business.
What’s the world coming to?
I look around the lobby again and notice a tiny ghost rat scurry in one of the corners, still carrying the piece of poisoned cheese that ended its life.
It’s a work in progress.
“Your name?” I ask the handsome stranger, my pen poised over the check-in book.
He points to the paper and pen. “Really, no computer?” He has crooked bottom teeth, but it doesn’t detract from the glow in his smile.
I shrug. “I’m old, therefore, I’m old-fashioned.”
He leans in a little closer at that statement. The Roman collar, a clerical collar, at his neck peeks out. “You look hardly twenty.”
“Many people have told me that. Well, mostly people.” Patty casts me a withering look at the inside joke. I point to the book. “Name?”
“One room.” He falters at how far I’ve already skipped in the usual check-in process. “And my name is Adam. Adam Way.” He pronounces it “Aadom.”
“Father Way?” I ask.
He nods. “As you say.”
Oh, a poet. I hate poets.
“What brings you to Gamin?” Patty takes the crumpled bills he pulls from his wallet, watching him just as suspiciously as I do. This wouldn’t be the first time a stranger tried to pull the wool over eyes. There was a ghūl just last week who tried to party with a selkie during a bachelors’ party…ugh, the teeth on that one, I assure you it was—
“Training.” He fixes his collar.
“For?” Patty shifts over, pressing his change into his open palm.
“The town’s priest—” I’m honestly surprised this town still has priests considering the string of murders that occurred a few months ago. “—he asked me here for a very special reason. He wants me to become a purifier. No, that’s not quite it. You will think it’s silly, like the movies.”
“I assure you”—and here Patty and I grin in unison—“we’ll believe in anything.”
“I am training to become an exorcist. I’m afraid my family back in Lebanon still hope I can become a lawyer or a scholar or something. Fight for justice. Get married again instead of chasing after some spiritual quest.” He lowers his head and looks conspiratorially at me. “But I’m sure your parents act the same way.”
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Sophie Whittemore is a Dartmouth Film/Digital Arts major with a mom from Indonesia and a dad from Minnesota. They’re known for their Gamin Immortal series (Catch Lili Too) and Legends of Rahasia series, specifically, the viral publication Priestess for the Blind God. Their writing career kicked off with the whimsical Impetus Rising collection, published at age 17.
They grew up in Chicago and live a life of thoroughly unexpected adventures and a dash of mayhem: whether that’s making video games or short films, scripting for a webcomic, or writing about all the punk-rock antiheroes we should give another chance (and subsequently blogging about them).
Sophie’s been featured as a Standout in the Daily Herald and makes animated-live action films on the side. Their queer-gamer film “IRL – In Real Life” won in the Freedom & Unity Young Filmmaker Contest (JAMIE KANZLER AWARDS Second Prize; ADULT: Personal Stories, Third Prize) and was a Semifinalist at the NYC Rainbow Cinema Film Festival.
Their prior works include “A Clock’s Work” in a Handersen Publishing magazine, “Blind Man’s Bluff” in Parallel Ink, a Staff Writer for AsAm News (covering the comic book convention was a dream), and numerous articles as an HXCampus Dartmouth Correspondent. Ultimately, Sophie lives life with these ideas: 1) live your truth unapologetically and 2) don’t make bets with supernatural creatures.
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