Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Books and a Beat. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:  
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.
My teaser for today:
"Only a few people were out and about, and theirs was the only wagon.  The further they drove from the depot the more she began to question her decision to throw her lot in with Shai so quickly, especially since the only thing she actually knew about him was that he worked for the person who might be responsible for spiriting away her countrymen -- and doing whatever had put at least one of them in a pine box."

p. 87, "Vermilion" by Molly Tanzer
I've been meaning to get to this book for quite some time.  The book is planted firmly in the two genres I prefer the most, mystery and syfy/fantasy.  And it was written by my cousin (by marriage -  her uncle married my aunt!). We haven't met, but I hope someday we will!  
I was struggling to come up with an overview of the book that would do it justice, and finally gave up and pulled the blurb from Google books:
Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise "Lou" Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she's too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It's an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well... they're not wrong. When Lou hears that a bunch of Chinatown boys have gone missing somewhere deep in the Colorado Rockies she decides to saddle up and head into the wilderness to investigate. Lou fears her particular talents make her better suited to help placate their spirits than ensure they get home alive, but it's the right thing to do, and she's the only one willing to do it. On the road to a mysterious sanatorium known as Fountain of Youth, Lou will encounter bears, desperate men, a very undead villain, and even stranger challenges. Lou will need every one of her talents and a whole lot of luck to make it home alive... From British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer comes debut novel Vermilion, a spirited weird Western adventure that puts the punk back into steampunk.
I couldn't have put it better myself!!!  I will sheepishly admit I had to look up the definition of steampunk.  For those word challenged like me, steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction/fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th century industrial stream-powered machinery.  So there you have it!

Comments

  1. Oh wow! WHAT a very cool book - I'll have to get hold of this one... I enjoy steampunk mysteries:) Thank you for swinging by earlier...

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    1. I'm really enjoying it. I hope she'll write a "prequel" to tell more about the world the book is set in!

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  2. This sounds great and I'm loving that cover art! Two genres I enjoy too:)

    My TT from Girl Of Mine

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  3. Sounds like something I would enjoy too. The teaser on my adult blog comes from a mystery - Cold Girl by RM Greenaway. Happy reading!

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  4. I'm not big into sci fi, but I like steampunk and fantasy. I'll have to check this out.

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    1. I tend to lean more towards the fantasy side myself, Beth!

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  5. This sounds really good! I love steampunk and with a Western twist at that! I will definitely be keeping my eye out for this one.

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  6. Nice teaser! Totally new to me! Hope you enjoy the rest!

    Thanks for visiting my post!

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  7. Hi Linda,

    Thank you for stopping by Fiction Books for the first time this week. I like meeting new people and always enjoy reading comments.

    Don't be ashamed of having to look up new words, it happens to me all the time and I always have a notebook and pen to hand no matter where I am, so that I can jot down any new words to be checked out later.

    Whenever possible, I also participate in a great weekly meme 'Wondrous Words Wednesday' where we share new to us words, with our fellow bloggers and readers. In fact I have made a note of a good new to me word I came across in this lovely post, which I shall be using very soon :)

    Not being a genre I generally enjoy reading, I shall probably pass on 'Vermilion' as intriguing as your teaser excerpts are. However, I do agree with any of your previous readers who have commented on the striking cover art.

    'Happy Reading' :)

    Yvonne.

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    1. I tend to always have paper and pen with me too. Never know when you might want/need to jot something down!

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  8. What an amazing sounding book! The fact that you are loosely related to the author is so cool. It is really interesting to combine the elements of sci-fi and fantasy into a western. I will have to look for this one! :)

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  9. Oh my, this awesomeness is going on my TBR right now! How cool is this book?!

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