Vampire with a Haversham complex? Strange and Beautiful Excerpt

by JoAnne Kenrick
With just one more week-ish until Strange and Beautiful releases, I thought it time to share the series trailer and give a FULL excerpt. As a Six Sentence Sunday girl, this is the first time I've shared such a long snippet from Tales from the Coffin -- I hope you enjoy! It's PG/13 rated. But the books are definitely ADULT only!
I must pre-warn you, though. Estella and Lucy are rather...different.

Excerpt

© JoAnne Kenrick, ALL rights reserved. No reposting or sharing allowed without direct permission from the author or publisher.

Strange and Beautiful

“Fancy bursting into my boudoir and expecting me to entertain on demand.

The cheek of it. You people have no manners.” Estella puffed her raspberry-red

hair into something that resembled an up-do and readjusted her breasts, shoving

her plump flesh back into her once-upon-a-time-white corset. “I know. The word

is out. I give great story. I do understand. You’re excited, who wouldn’t be? I am

rather marvelous, if I do say so myself.

“In my day, though, the men held doors open for ladies, and the ladies tilted

their necks to offer supper. Oh, no need to wrap that sweater farther up your

jugular, dear, I’ve already eaten, so I’m not hungry…at the moment.” Estella

stretched her arms out, licked her canines, and hoisted her moth-hole-ridden

skirt to expose her alabaster thighs decorated with stockings laddered at the

knees and splattered with fresh blood. “I can’t vouch for Lucy, though. She’s

always hungry, aren’t you my little Deady Bear.”

Lucy groaned, burped, and stretched her neck out—to the right. Crack. To the

left. Crunch—and dragged toward her mistress.

“Quit being disgusting and help me out of this coffin, would you?”

“Yes, boss.” Lucy, her mostly-faithful servant, shuffled across the neglected

basement in their decaying house in the outskirts of York—the supernatural

center of England—to her mistress while cursing her gammy leg and zombie

disabilities. Minutes later, she parked her behind on the edge of Estella’s coffin

and snaked her hand up her leg, smearing the blood as she went. “Finger-licking

good,” she crooned before trailing her tongue over the torn material decorating

Estella’s skin. She paused and held her hand up. “Shame I’m missing two of

them. Wonder where I lost them? You’d think I’d feel them snapping off,

wouldn’t you? Have you seen them?”

Tsking, Estella kicked her off and turned her nose up. Not because she needed

to dominate Lucy—she had already put her in her place—but because she knew

where those fingers were. And she didn’t want the poor dear to read the truth in

her eyes. “I ordered you to help me out of my coffin, not to suck my joint. My

goodness, your hunger for flesh is insatiable. What was I thinking taking in a

zombie? Blonde and curvy you may be, but you’re always trying to gobble me up.”

She reached out for Lucy to aid her in standing, her taffeta dress falling to her

ankles and crinkling with every movement. Dust specks filled the air around her,

dulling the oak finish of her coffin and its ornate metal skulls and wooden

crosses. Zombies were poor servants for housekeeping, but they had other talents.