And welcome back to my world of dragons, intrigue, hot guns, fast cars and a grumpy, slightly anti-social Chimera of a Sidhe and an Unsidhe who really only wants to hunt monsters and go home to his probably carnivorous cat. My name is Rhys Ford and I’ll be your guide today as on July 14th,I’ll take you back to the Kai Gracen series for Book Four — Silk Dragon Salsa.
If you’re following the blog tour from the beginning, you can skip this bit and head to the serialized part of the story but if this is your first time with me, let me ramble a bit about my grouchy special kitten, Kai. I’ve used the past three books to set up his relationships and world and kind of settling him for what should have been a changing environment. He’s never really had a lot of contact with the elfin and never really wanted any. Ryder, the Lord of the Southern Rise Court, blew into Kai’s life like a hurricane with a grudge and Kai’s had to not only learn how to get along with the man but also adjust to the fact the elfin are in his life to stay. Not something Kai ever wanted. He was raised by humans, thinks of himself as human, and was pretty happy about it.
Then his world changed and he was dragged kicking and screaming and probably stabbing into a bit of elfin affairs even as he knew it would probably be the death of him.
And in Silk Dragon Salsa, I really turn his world upside down.
It was a long time coming and Kai, in his true quick-on-his-feet fashion, knows he must change with it. Because the Merged world is going forward — with or without his approval — and this time, he has a chance for a bit of happiness, if he can find it in the chaos storm hunting him down in Silk Dragon Salsa.
Silk Dragon Salsa Giveaway
And what would be a blog tour without a giveaway? Enter to win a $20 USD gift certificate to the online etailer of your choice! Amazon! Dreamspinner! Starbucks! Funko! Where your heart desires so long as I can get the winner a gift certificate there! Enter at every blog on the tour because it’s a gift certificate giveaway for every stop! Comment with your email to win!!!
Silk Dragon Salsa Information and Purchase Links
Kai’s fourth book is being published by Dreamspinner Press and I’ve had the fantastic honour of working with Chris McGrath again for its cover. Chris is a fantastic artist and he totally captured the feel of the book in this cover. I am so very grateful for his contributions in bringing Kai to life.
AND Greg Tremblay will once again bring his talent and gorgeous voice to breathing life and mayhem into Kai’s world as he narrates — nay, acts — Silk Dragon Salsa. I’ll be announcing the audiobook’s release date once I have it so watch my social media for further details.
Silk Dragon Salsa can be purchased at Dreamspinner Press, Amazon and other fine online ebook retailers.
Dreamspinner Link: www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/silk-dragon-salsa-by-rhys-ford-11709-b
Universal Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Silk-Dragon-Salsa-Gracen-Book-ebook/dp/B08BR9QKT9/
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And now… for License to Stalk, A Kai Gracen Short Story
Part One
There was little in life more unexpected than a shotgun jamming while staring down a dragon’s throat as it
pumped up its lungs to bathe you in fire. Some people say living on the edge of death makes them feel more
alive, more in touch with the world around them.
I call bullshit.
Only thing that kind of crap does is ruin a guy’s underwear and if you’re lucky, you live long enough to regret
having to smell the carnage on the long haul back to wherever you stashed your truck.
“Drop, you pointy eared idiot!”
Never let it be said Dempsey didn’t care for me. A lot of people thought that but in truth, I felt the warmth of
his words flow over me. Or, that could have just been the blooming heat wash of his rounds being fired
directly over my head just as I flung myself onto the ground.
Another boom went off and I took the cover to roll myself out of the way of the lizard’s attack. Either Dempsey
would hit it or I would die. Perhaps both. Either way, I wasn’t going to have to worry about the shotgun I’d
flung away. The damned thing failed me for the last time, and it was time to scrape out what little money I had
towards getting a new one.
The dragon screamed, its breath a foul taint of rotten fish and bird eggs. As lizards went, it was a scrawny,
bony thing, more snake with stick-like legs than the brawn and grace of anything found in Pendle but this
particular lizard had one thing that none of the others had.
It always nested in coal deposits and sometimes in the heat of its dung-packed nest, it formed small flawless
diamonds.
Normally, a coal snake-lizard wasn’t enough of a prize to bother but we were broke, running low on food and
packing enough ammo to start a revolution. Bullets and shells don’t make a good dinner and neither do they
buy gas for Dempsey’s pain-in-the-ass truck so when I’d spotted the trail of black grit in the air when the
skinny dragon lurched up to take down a pigeon, it meant dinner wasn’t going to be canned refried beans on
a hot dog bun again.
“Screw the gun,” I muttered, reaching behind me. “Steel’s better.”
Rolling up to my feet, I came up with the two long knives I kept sheathed in the holster straps on my back,
ignoring Dempsey’s spitting disgust. Shaking the hair out of my eyes, I found myself out of striking distance of
the dragon but well within sprinting distance of its nest.
“Go in there!” Dempsey shouted at me, drowning out the coal snake’s hissing. “See what you can scoop out
while I hold it back. I’ve only got so many rock salt shells before I start using birdshot and we don’t want to kill
the golden lizard now, do we, boy?”
The Badlands weren’t known for their dragons before the Merge but the damned things sure as hell found
them after the elfins’ Underhill smashed into the humans’ Earth. Maybe the place used to smell sweet. Now, it
was an aromatic sea of sunbaked bird cage coated in vomit and l couldn’t imagine actually heading into the
dragon’s cramped cave was going to smell any better.
Another blast from Dempsey’s shotgun left an echoing chime bouncing around in my ears and I snarled back
at him, sheathing my knives. Whatever I found in there was going to have to tide us over until we got a job
and I was sick of sharing the inside of a tent with the old man’s gassy innards.
“Swear to God, there better be a damned pot of gold in there, Dempsey,” I growled then took a deep breath,
readying myself to dig through the piles of lizard shit I had waiting for me. “Because from what I hear, dead fat
old Irish men make really good carnitas and I’ve got plenty of tortillas back in the truck.”
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Follow the Silk Dragon Salsa Blog Tour
SoCalGov Stalker Kai Gracen always knew Death walked in his shadow. Enough people told him that, including his human mentor, Dempsey. Problem was, the old man never told him what to do when Death eventually caught up.
Where Tanic, his elfin father and the Wild Hunt Master of the Unsidhe Court, brought Kai pain and suffering, Dempsey gave him focus and a will to live or at least until everything unraveled. Now caught in a web of old lies and half-truths, Kai is torn between the human and elfin world, unsure of who he is anymore. Left with a hollowness he can’t fill, Kai aches to find solace in the one elfin he trusts, a Sidhe Lord named Ryder but he has unfinished business with Dempsey’s estranged brother, a man who’d long ago swore off anything to do with the feral elfin child Dempsey dragged up from the gutter.
Reeling from past betrayals, Kai searches for Dempsey’s brother, hoping to do right by the man saved him while trying to keep one step ahead of the death haunting his every step. Kai never thought he’d find love or happiness as a Stalker but when Death comes knocking at his door, Kai discovers a fierce need to live life to the fullest — even if that means turning his back on people he calls family.
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and is a two-time LAMBDA finalist with her Murder and Mayhem novels. She is also a 2017 Gold and Silver Medal winner in the Florida Authors and Publishers President’s Book Awards for her novels Ink and Shadows and Hanging the Stars. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.
She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Harley, a grey tuxedo with a flower on her face, Badger, a disgruntled alley cat who isn’t sure living inside is a step up the social ladder as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.
Rhys can be found at the following locations:
Blog: www.rhysford.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author
Facebook Group: Coffee, Cats, and Murder: https://www.facebook.com/groups/635660536617002/
Twitter: @Rhys_Ford
For more information and to keep track of his upcoming releases, visit Greg Tremblay at: https://gregtremblay.com/
