About
the Book
Title:
Immersed
Author: Katie Hayoz
Genre: Steampunk Romance
Melusine
Doré slays monsters for a living. The grim and gruesome don’t
frighten her; she can take on a cyclops or a three-tailed dragon
without even breaking a sweat. But falling in love? Falling in love
terrifies her. Because love has the power to reveal a secret dark and
dangerous enough to completely shatter her world.
Author
Bio
Katie Hayoz was born
in Racine, WI, the youngest of six kids. Originally, she wanted to
become pope (for the awesome hat and fancy robes), but quickly
realized reading—then writing—was her true religion. She now
lives in Geneva, Switzerland and devours speculative fiction like she
does popcorn and black licorice: quickly and in large quantities.
Links
Get VIP access to
Katie’s releases, giveaways and news:
http://www.katiehayoz.com/p/mcembedsignupbackgroundfff-clearleft.html
Connect with Katie
on her website: www.katiehayoz.com
On Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7032949.Katie_Hayoz
On Twitter:
www.twitter.com/katiehayoz
On Facebook:
www.facebook.com/katiehayoz.author
On Pinterest:
www.pinterest.com/katiehayoz/
Buy the Book:
Book
Excerpts
From Chapter One
LEVI CANNON BACK IN
CHICAGO. NO NEED TO FEAR THE BOGEYMAN shouted the headline of the
newspaper spread out on Melusine’s dresser. A skilled drawing of
Mr. Levi Cannon stepping on a monster with one giant eye was directly
underneath the headline. Below that was a quote that made Melusine
fume: “Miss Melusine Doré is now free to learn flower arrangement
and make social calls. There is a man in town to do a man’s job.
I promise you all that the beast found hunting here will be gone in a
matter of days. Unlike Miss Doré, I do not take precious time to
see if a monster has a heart of gold or not. It’s a monster, after
all, and if its heart happens to be gold, well then, I shall rip it
out and sell it for a fortune.”
Grabbing
her fountain pen, Melusine inked warts onto Levi’s nose and cheeks,
and filled in the area between his eyebrows. She gazed down at his
lifeless face and grunted. Warts and all, Levi Cannon still looked
good. Too good.
Once a year or so
Levi would come into town, challenging Melusine, leaving a trail of
dead monsters and smitten women in his wake. But she never rose to
his dares and instead stayed out of sight until he left.
He was too
dangerous, for so many reasons.
Tonight,
however, she had a job to finish. She’d be quick as a bullet, no
dallying. Then Mr. Cannon would have no reason to stick around. She
fastened her scabbard around her right thigh and headed down the worn
wooden stairs on tiptoe, but Mrs. Steed heard her regardless. The
landlady stepped out in front of her, her red-gray hair coiled round
her head like a snake ready to squeeze.
“Where
you off to, Miss Mel? I don’t want you bringing any beastly body
parts back here, you hear me?”
Melusine
sidled past her, stifling a grin. “It was just the once. Every
part of a Silver Spined Dragon is useful; I couldn’t allow the
corpse to go to waste.” The dragon meat was roasted, the claws
carved into weapons, the scales ground up and sold and the vertebrae
made into bullets. The wings paid for one month’s rent and a bag of
butterscotch candy. If Melusine had another beast like that to bring
back, she wouldn’t hesitate.
Mrs.
Steed harrumphed and pointed to the boarding house door. “Pull it
tight behind you.”
Outside,
it was approaching dusk, the smoke and steam of the city blending
into the blue of the darkening sky and the white of the rising moon.
Across the street from Melusine, workers swore, sang and grunted,
preparing a block of buildings to be raised by lifts out of the muck
that was Chicago. Up above, an airship hissed over the city, and
down the street a clockwork horse whinnied a brassy sound.
A
steam carriage huffed its way through the mud to stop directly in
front of the boarding house. As she trod down the steps, Melusine
thought she saw something move in the alley next to the building. A
man, perhaps. Thieves and assassins were common in Chicago, killing
for a penny if they could. Mel narrowed her eyes, scouring the
darkness, but the driver pumped a lever and the coach coughed out a
cloud of hot vapor. “You getting in or not, Miss?”
She
threw her shoulders back and climbed into the carriage. Whatever it
was that was out there was by far less worrisome than the thing she
was on her way to face.
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