#TBT Throwback Thursday – The Recruit

Posted on August 29, 2019August 28, 2019 by Addison Albright 2 Comments

I’ve got no outside promo booked for today, so you get a Throwback Thursday post from me instead! We’re not going too far back—just a bit over a year—but since a fresh 5-star review just came to my attention, this seems like a good one to feature.

Linda at Paranormal Romance Guild reviewed The Recruit on August 1. You can follow the link to read the whole thing. Here’s the bottom line:

“This was such a unique take on vampires, they can be in the sun, they use blood from a blood bank, they only recruit those that are dying and they stay together as a family. Short but wonderful.”

Here’s a short excerpt from The Recruit. For context. Albert (a vampire faction leader) has approached Phillip (a human with only a week or two to live) and made a bid to recruit him. Phillip is the first speaker, Albert is the other:

The Recruit

“How long do I have to make a decision?”

“I’m afraid I’ll need an answer before we part company today.”

Phillip bit his lip and gazed around the park. Albert had looked around before the arm demonstration, presumably to make sure nobody was watching. But, the same people Phillip had noticed before had remained in their same positions, and Albert hadn’t been concerned about them.

Phillip wasn’t sure how they’d do it, but clearly he wasn’t walking away from here if he declined the offer. They had too much on the line. He’d planned on killing himself within a few hours anyway, so that didn’t actually frighten him.

But did it turn him off from wanting to become one of them? Knowing that, despite Albert’s words, they weren’t entirely above killing people to protect their secret?

Killing someone who was dying anyway wasn’t a valid excuse in a court of law. But could it pass his own ethical bar?

If he’d wanted to let his disease run its course, he’d have had maybe another two weeks to live. Personally, he felt they would be doing him a favor, but there were people who would have wanted to hang on to every last minute.

Did those few weeks of a single human’s life weigh more than the potential lives of what was likely hundreds…maybe thousands of vampires? Worldwide it could be tens of thousands. Or even hundreds of thousands. And if a legitimate claim to the vampires’ existence was made, it could truly cost them all.

He didn’t like it, but he understood it. Maybe he was being selfish, but it wasn’t a deal-breaker.

If you read the full blurbs, it’s important to understand that “Phillip” who’s mentioned in the blurb for The Recruit is the same person as “Neil” who’s named in the blurb for The Choice. New recruits get new identities, and all vampires relocate and acquire new identities as needed so their lack of aging will not raise eyebrows. My vampire world is all about explaining how they coexist in modern human society without being detected.

The drama in The Recruit is fairly mild with Phillip/Neil navigating an early misstep that’s seemingly easily handled. The Choice ramps it up a bit after we learn that the issue wasn’t as resolved as they’d thought.

Both novellas are in Kindle Unlimited, but not through KDP, so it’s not an exclusive deal. If you want EPUB or PDF, you can get that, too. They’re also available to read for free with your library card through Hoopla or Overdrive.

And since I kinda cheated by only going back one year for a Throwback Thursday feature story, I’ll go way back and share this picture of your intrepid writer/blogger circa 1990. It was shortly after the birth of my 3rd and final kid (I’m holding him, but he’s trimmed out of the image):