Giveaway (US/Int): Regan Summers shares “The Rules According to Sydney Kildare”

Please help me welcome Regan Summers, author of Don’t Bite the Messenger, to GraveTells today!

Thank you so much for having me!

One of the most interesting parts of writing is getting to know your characters, finding motes and shards of them over the course of weeks or months as you write their stories. Each scene reveals a bit more, until you’ve got their history, their thoughts, their hopes and their fears. They rarely turn out the way you expect them to when you first drop them onto the page and, on top of that, they evolve.

Slippery little devils, characters.

Sydney Kildare, the twenty-six year old vampire courier (a courier for vampires, not a vampire who runs packages) who narrates Don’t Bite the Messenger was nothing but fun to write. She works in a fast-paced, dangerous industry, and humor is both a defense mechanism and a way to test the people around her. But there’s more to her than snappy comments. She surprised me with her drive, her ingenuity and with the true depth of her suspicious nature.

I considered putting together a mock interview with her here, but it’s virtually impossible to get her to sit still. Instead I assembled a list of her governing rules. For those of you who’ve read DBtM, you’ll know that Syd’s big on rules. Rules keep her focused, and focus keeps her alive.

Please note that this list includes foreshadowing, as in Hints of Big Things to Come for Syd and the people around her.

THE RULES ACCORDING TO SYDNEY KILDARE

1. Don’t trust vampires. Or humans. Or people who wear scarves in the summer. Basically, don’t trust anybody who hasn’t proven his- or herself. Repeatedly.
2. Don’t judge a courier by her car. Judge her by how many nights she stays alive to drive.*
3. Don’t listen to a man who offers you flash and baubles. Run in the other direction. Or punch him in the liver, then run in the other direction.**
4. Don’t drink well liquor when you can afford top shelf. Your liver will thank you.
5. Don’t be predictable. Fake right, go left, then take another left, circle around and pull a Crazy Ivan if you can’t shake the tail. Always assume you have a tail.
6. Don’t accrue debts; gather favors. The day will come when you’ll need everything anybody’s ever owed you. Even that might not be enough.
7. Don’t get into a pickled egg-eating contest. Just…don’t.***
8. Don’t waver. Yes or no, stop or go. Hesitation kills.
9. Don’t waste time. Fate is unfair and unkind. If you find someone worth loving, someone who truly loves you back, make the most of it. You never know how short your time together might be.
10. Never stop fighting for the people you love. Believe they’ll never stop fighting for you.

* And by how well she maintains it. Low tire pressure is never acceptable, people!
** But only if he offered in an offensive way, otherwise you’re the rude one, sweetheart.
*** And don’t ask.

Read an excerpt…

Download (DOC, 25KB)

About the author…

Regan Summers lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her husband and alien-monkey hybrid of a child. She can suspend disbelief in the space of a heartbeat, and believes that hard work leads to happiness. After all the misery of hard work, that is.

Regan Summers can be found at: Website, Facebook, Twitter

Don’t Bite the Messenger is available at: Carina Press, Amazon,  B&N, Powell’s Books

Giveaway:

Regan is giving away one ebook copy of Don’t Bite the Messenger to a commenter today!  To enter, leave a comment below telling us what your favorire of Sydney’s Rules is and why, then fill out the Rafflecopter below.


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