Hey guys! We have the amazing Rhys Ford and the blog tour for her upcoming release (tomorrow! tomorrow!) Mad Lizard Mambo (yessss Kai’s back!), we have a short intro from Rhys, part 2 of When Kai Discovers He Does Not Bounce, and an awesome giveaway! So peeps, check out the post and leave a comment to enter the giveaway! <3 ~Pixie~

Mad Lizard Mambo

Rhys Ford

Kai Gracen has no intention of being anyone’s pawn. A pity Fate and SoCalGov have a different opinion on the matter.

Licensed Stalkers make their living hunting down monsters and dangerous criminals… and their lives are usually brief, brutal, and thankless. Despite being elfin and cursed with a nearly immortal lifespan, Kai didn’t expect to be any different. Then Ryder, the High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, arrived in San Diego, Kai’s not-so-mundane life went from mild mayhem to full-throttle chaos.

Now an official liaison between the growing Sidhe Court and the human populace, Kai is at Ryder’s beck and call for anything a High Lord might need a Stalker to do. Unfortunately for Kai, this means chasing down a flimsy rumor about an ancient lost Court somewhere in the Nevada desert—a court with powerful magics that might save Ryder—and Kai’s—people from becoming a bloody memory in their Merged world’s violent history.

The race for the elfin people’s salvation opens unwelcome windows into Kai’s murky past, and it could also slam the door on any future he might have with his own kind and Ryder.

Rhys Ford!

Thank you for following the Mad Lizard Mambo tour. My name’s Rhys Ford and well, we’re going back to the first character I wrote for this genre, Kai Gracen.

When I first began to write seriously, I went with an urban fantasy featuring a bisexual elfin character named Kai Gracen. The first book was Black Dog Blues and to make a long story short, DSP Publications approached me about publishing it after I’d self-pubbed it following my publishing a few books with Dreamspinner. DSP Publications hadn’t started yet but it suited their catalog and well, it’s a Dreamspinner Imprint so of course I was on board.

Now, after a few years, I would like to introduce to you Kai’s second adventure, Mad Lizard Mambo. It takes place a little bit after Black Dog Blues and well, life’s just gotten more complicated for Kai. I hope you enjoy it as well as the three short pieces I’ve done for this tour.

The first, When Kai Fell in Love, is written a little bit after Dempsey took him in. He’s young in this section and while his Singlish isn’t great, he understands a lot of what he hears. This is two parts.

The second, When Kai Discovers He Does Not Bounce, is when he’s about in his early teens(ish) and he’s on a disaster of a hunt with Dempsey. This is in four parts.

The third, That Time Kai Rescued A Shoe, is a few months after Dempsey retired and he’s moved into his warehouse in San Diego. This is in three parts.

Hope you enjoy and don’t forget to enter the giveaway on this blog! Follow the stories as they unfold on the tour and enter to win a $20 USD Gift Certificate at the e-retailer of your choice at every stop!

When Kai Discovers He Does Not Bounce (part 2)

The crack of a shotgun snuck in between the pounding rain of hooves and my shoulder burned. The howlers were almost on me, and despite the wrenching pain coursing through me, I forced my body into a tucked ball. I’d survived being skinned, carved apart like one of Dempsey’s badly roasted holiday birds and had my bones screwed together with poisonous iron. In the small bit of my brain overriding my panic, I guess I figured I only needed to protect my head and I’d survive.

Of course I’d never come back from being smeared along a Borrego Springs dune but there was always a first time for everything.

The herd drew closer, a hot mass of flesh, fluff and rage and as I snuck one last peek in the wild hope they’d shifted course, another blast went off behind me and the howler bearing down on me stumbled, its head—or somewhere between the black jutting horns poking out from its maybe-skull—exploded.

The howler’s intense blue blood splattered my eyes, coating my arm with a thick stew of brains, fur and bone. I wasn’t going to die by being run over. No, my demise would come from being crushed by a rotund, ball of white fur as its death throes carried its body over mine and grinding me into the sand I was lying on. The howler fell but the momentum of its powerful gallop drove it forward, kicking up a wave of sand and dirt.

It hit me, hard and by some freak twist of physics, the thing’s fur cushioned me against the bulk of its body, a reverse bumper padded by fluff. Still, the howler’s strike only layered more pain on top of the already throbbing rawness of my skinned arms and legs. I was shoved a good twenty feet, the grit sanding off probably every inch of flesh I had left on that side of my body.

The herd continued, leaping over their dead companion’s body as if it were nothing more than a pebble. I shoved myself as far into the bulky monster’s hot flesh as I could, trying to shelter myself from the deadly hooves flying above me. One caught my shoulder, the same one the first bullet creased and I began to bleed from that wound too.

It seemed like an entire week went by as I waited in partial terror for the herd to pass over me. After a few minutes, I realized I was actually getting bored, then the pain hit again, reminding me I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Finally the last of the bouncing, deadly poof-balls leaped over the dead howler and I was safe.

I couldn’t breathe through the detritus in the air. The rains hadn’t hit Borrego in months and any sign of life burrowed down away from the SoCal heat. Even under the pinking skies of an early morning sun, the desert was already too warm to be comfortable and within a few hours, the howler and I would be cooked to leathery husks. The jeans and short-sleeved shirt I’d tugged on that morning were threads and I was bleeding everywhere, oozing really if I wanted to be technical.

Problem was, there I lay, skinless and breathless with only the screaming in my mind to keep me company because Dempsey and his fucking truck was nowhere to be found and Pele only knew who’d been shooting…and at what…me or the howler.

About Rhys

Rhys Ford was born and raised in Hawai’i then wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of books, a lot of odd food, and a stray boyfriend or two, Rhys eventually landed in San Diego, which is a very nice place but seriously needs more rain.

Rhys  admits to sharing the house with three cats of varying degrees of black fur, and a ginger cairn terrorist. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, a Toshiba laptop, and a red Hamilton Beach coffee maker.

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | My books can be purchased, folded and first chapters read at Dreamspinner Press

Giveaway!

Win a $20 USD Gift Certificate at the e-retailer of your choice!

(Comment/click at each stop on the tour as each stop has a giveaway)

Check out the other blogs on the blog tour