✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hiya! Thank you, Addison, for allowing me back on the blog! I’m Holly Day, and I write MM Romance, most often paranormal, but the occasional contemporary story slinks through. I’m here to tell you a little about Rufus the Dead, which is my April release.
So far, I’ve managed one release per month. Not novel-length, of course. The length varies from month to month, from story to story, and if I write in a series, I try to match the length somewhat to the previous book/books.
When I started writing as Holly Day back in 2021, I told myself I’d only write standalone stories. Quick, fun, and easy with minimal pressure. But I have this flaw… I often love the best friend or colleague or what have you. The one who sticks with the MC through the ups and downs, who might say stupid things but has a good heart.
So when I’ve written a story and think I’m done, that secondary character remains with me. And then comes my biggest problem of all, because I have no problem writing that story, and I often do. Which means I have several two-book series that need to be continued. No one wants a two-book series. They either want standalone stories or full series (whatever that means). Or that’s at least my interpretation.
The expectations of the next story often make me hesitant to write it. Sad but true. And since I’ve done all these two-story series, I filled up my publishing schedule for the year pretty darn fast because all series need a new story.
What’s different this time around, though, is that I’ve already written book two. Maybe that’s how series authors do it. Write more than one book before they publish the first. It’s quite freeing actually, and something I think I’ll take into consideration for next year.
I already have all my days booked for this year, so I can’t continue this series until January 2025 at the earliest, but book 2 will be out in June. So yay!
In case you don’t know me, and don’t know what I write, and therefore didn’t understand what I mean by having all my days booked. I write a story a month, and they’re all written for a specific day. Rufus the Dead, for example, is written for Kiss Your Mate Day, which is celebrated annually on April 28th.
When I decided I was gonna write a story for Kiss Your Mate Day, I figured I’d write a shifter story, but nope. We have a claustrophobic vampire named Rufus the dead who’s been staked in a coffin for seven years, and Jaki, who is a pretty useless psychic.
Rufus’ coven leader is a slightly insane woman who wants someone to form a blood bond with a psychic of her choosing. No one wants to. A blood bond lasts forever, and there is no way to break it.
When Rufus’ best friend (yes, you realise who book two will be about) suggests Rufus, he’s more than willing to agree. Anything to get out of the coffin, even if it means tying himself to a person he’s never met for the rest of his life.
Jaki has lived all his life in a medical facility known as the house of horrors among the… patients? Inmates? Psychics. They’re all psychics, and the warden is selling their services. One day, there is a vampire on his dancing card, and moments later they’re on the run.
Jaki might have hated living in the house of horrors, but he’s dropped in the middle of a political vampire war, and apparently, he’s mated to one of them.
There is a lot of hurt/comfort here, an arranged mating, traumatic past, evil vampires and some stakings and beheadings and such 😁 So if that’s your cup of tea, give it a go!
Rufus the Dead
by Holly Day
Publisher: JMS Books, LLC
Release Date: April 27, 2024
Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance
Length: Novel / 50,695 Words / 185 Pages
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
Rufus will do anything not to remain staked in a coffin, including stealing a psychic and forming a blood bond with him.
Rufus Mabuz was a badass assassin until his coven leader had him staked and stored away in a coffin for seven years. He was still a badass assassin, only he couldn’t move. Then one day, the coven leader makes him an offer — bond with a psychic or stay in the coffin for years to come.
Jaki Sage is kept prisoner together with a group of psychics. He’s a psychic too, but a crappy one. He can’t foresee anything. The only thing he can do is look back in time to see what the weather was like around a certain event. Not useful. But then his friend, who can foresee things, tells him to go with Rufus the Dead.
Rufus isn’t sure why he’s stealing a psychic and forming a blood bond with him, but anything is better than being staked. Jaki might not know much about vampires, but he thinks he’s better off with Rufus than if he hadn’t run away with him. But then the coven leader demands he uses his skills to find someone, or she’ll put Rufus back in the coffin. How will Jaki be able to find anyone when all he can see is weather?
Excerpt
Jaki had no idea what was going on, but he hoped the coffin wasn’t a real coffin. Or maybe vampires slept in coffins like in some of the movies they’d watched. Jaki had seen a lot of movies—movies, books, and newspapers were their only sources of entertainment.
When Rufus snarled, he pressed his back against the wall. Private sessions often got out of hand, but after Rufus had bitten him and stepped away, he’d hoped it would be all he had to do.
“I need someone who can answer my questions.” Rufus glared at him, and Jaki braced himself for a blow. They always got frustrated when they realized he couldn’t help them. He understood, he was frustrated too, but it didn’t matter how many people beat him up, his skill wouldn’t change.
“Sorry.” He flinched and lowered his gaze.
Time stopped.
Jaki waited and waited until his lungs screamed for him to take a breath. He slowly pulled in some air and glanced at Rufus who was watching him with a vicious expression.
“We’re leaving.” Rufus stepped toward the door with the coat flowing and the flaming hair moving like a flag in the wind. He stopped by the door and glanced over his shoulder at Jaki. “Are you coming?”
“There are guards.”
Rufus nodded, then he yanked the door open, the deadbolt tearing. There was an exchange of words, quickly followed by the sound of fists hitting flesh. Jaki reached the doorway in time to see Rufus punch the guard in the face hard enough to knock him out.
“I don’t think he had time to alert anyone. Let’s go.”
Jaki’s gaze jumped between Rufus and the guard. Minerva had said go with Rufus the Dead, but… “Where—”
“Gregory is waiting outside. Come on now.” Rufus nodded in the opposite direction of the wing where Jaki was staying. He hesitated, but as Rufus walked away, he followed. His heart was banging hard, and his sock-clad feet slid on the hideous linoleum floor.
“Hello! Eh, hello.” A short, round woman with gray hair hurried toward them from behind a counter to their right. Rufus kept walking with determined steps. Jaki had a hard time keeping up and met the woman’s gaze.
“Stop! Blue patient, stop.”
That would be him. Blue. Everyone on his wing wore blue scrubs. In the canteen, there were sometimes people in green or pink, but it wasn’t often. They kept them divided as much as they could.
A strong hand wrapped around his wrist, and Jaki hadn’t realized he’d stopped until then. Rufus peeled his lips back and showed fangs to the woman before yanking Jaki along.
“Sorry.” Jaki’s whisper was met by a grunt quickly overruled by an alarm sounding. Shit.
Rufus stopped so abruptly Jaki ran into him. A second later, he was in Rufus’ arms and the doors along the corridor swished past as he ran.
Jaki swallowed a protest. Rufus might be massive, but Jaki wasn’t small by any means, and being carried was wrong on so many levels. Realizing they moved faster when Rufus was carrying him than they had been when they’d been running didn’t sit well with him. He was a failure when it came to predictions. He didn’t like being a burden during an escape too. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. When had he ever been an asset?
He surrendered once again. It was his life, surrender, give himself over, take whatever was given to him.
An impact jarred him as Rufus ran shoulder-first into a door that didn’t open. “Fuck!”
Jaki’s feet hit the floor, and he swayed at the same time as Rufus kicked the door with his huge Doc Martens. So surreal. The first kick did nothing, but the second broke the deadbolt. This was a sturdier door than the ones to the private session rooms.
What greeted them on the other side was a staircase. Jaki’s lungs expanded, but before he could analyze what he was feeling, Rufus tossed him over his shoulder and ran. He scaled the stairs in no time, and when Jaki looked around, he saw a furnished house. He’d wanted to take a moment to study it, but Rufus moved fast enough for it to blur.
Chilly, fresh air washed over Jaki, and he pulled in a breath as Rufus’ shoulder knocked the air out of his lungs again. A memory of looking at the sun rose in his mind, making him believe he’d been outside at some point.
Shouts came from behind them, and Rufus cursed. His hold on Jaki tightened, and then he ran faster than he had before. It could be it was easier for him to run across a parking lot as he did now than through corridors or up a flight of stairs, but damn, he was fast.
Jaki was too overwhelmed to do anything but hold on.
About the Author
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
This sounds like so much fun!
I agree! ❤️