Author Bernita Harris - Guest Blog!

Bednita Harris is a new author to me but the blurb for her debut book, Dark and Disorderly, made me want to invite her over to Amberkatze's Book Blog.

So enjoy this guest blog and drool over the gorgeous cover!

Dark and Disorderly is due for release on the 28th of June. Make sure you check it out! I know I will be!

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Dark and Disorderly - Bernita Harris

When Amber offered me a guest post on this blog to promote my debut novel Dark and Disorderly, to be released June 28th by Carina Press--Harlequin's new digital imprint--I was naturally elated by her kindness and generosity.
Then I re-read the list of famous authors who have been reviewed and interviewed here and quailed.

A new and unknown author has only one chance to make a good impression and here I am, my wee behind naked to all the world. Just like my heroine in the novel's opening line:

I was standing there naked when a dead man sauntered into my bathroom.

You can download the first chapter here.

Dark and Disdorderly--The Adventures of Lillie St. Claire--has been described variously as a paranormal suspense/mystery/thriller/romance. Once, perhaps because of the zombie who appears only briefly, as paranormal horror. Also as magic realism/urban fantasy--but D&D is not about vamps and shifters, it's about other paranormalities, mainly ghosts, an epidemic of them, and the difficulties they cause when they suddenly appear.

I wanted to explore those difficulties. Specters on streets and highways causing drivers to veer into ditches and over sidewalks. Spirits affecting property values and impeding development of new subdivisions. Pathetic, haunting shades showing where the bodies of missing children are buried...

Some spirits would be disorderly and some would be dark and dangerous. A society thus afflicted would demand exorcism; but, naturally, pro-spirit and anti-specter factions would emerge to bedevil any exorcist, perhaps with violent protests.

Lillie St. Claire is the offical exorcist and ghost-buster to the town of Waredale. This is her world. She is both helped and hindered by a Doom Dog named Dumbarton ("Dummie," for short) a banshee who frequently the local laundromat, and by big, ugly psi-crime detective John Thresher.
Because, while Lillie just wants to do her job, someone or some thing wants Lillie dead.

Here's the official blurb:
Lillie St. Claire is a Talent, one of the rare few who can permanently dispatch the spirits of the dead that walk the earth. Her skills are in demand in a haunted country, where a plague of ghosts is becoming a civic nuisance.

Those skills bring her into conflict with frightened citizens who view Talents as near-demons. Her husband has come to see her as a Freak; so when Nathan dies after a car crash, she is relieved to be free of his increasingly vicious presence. Lillie expects to be haunted by Nathan’s ghost, but not to become Suspect #1 for her husband’s murder and reanimation.

But what’s most surprising of all is the growing attraction between her and psi-crime detective John Thresher. He thinks that Lillie killed Nathan—and Nathan must agree, because his zombie is seeking revenge. Now she and Thresher must work together to solve her husband’s murder—before his corpse kills her…

If you would like to explore Lillie's world--where the paranormal has become normal--- Dark and Disorderly is available for pre-order from Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes& Noble and all the usual places where ebooks are sold.