Reading Until Dawn Featured Author: E.D. Walker

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE... 
of the Reading Until Dawn Con author features here at Alpha Heroes.  

The features continue! As a Featured Blogger (ahem) for the Reading Until Dawn conference, it is my pleasure and my sacred responsibility to showcase the delightful authors that will be hanging out and playing embarrassing SUPER FUN AND AWESOME games with us in October.  We're not doing panels.  We're not doing pitches. We're seriously not doing serious. We WILL be doing games.

If you've read Alpha Heroes for very long, you know I'm not too into author interviews. I'm not very good at them, to be honest. So just pretend this is a game instead of an interview.  I gave my authors a Mad Libs^TM style questionnaire, and here are the results!  (note: truthiness is optional... these are fiction writers after all!)

Please welcome E.D. Walker, author of The Beauty’s Beast fantasy romance series of fairy tale retellings.

The Reading Until Dawn Con is different from typical fan conferences in that it will feature tons of games.  So here are my game-themed questions (truthiness is optional).  

1. No one ever beats me at the game of __Jenga____. (My husband kicks my butt at Scrabble EVERY TIME, but I dominate when we play Jenga.) 

2. Please fill in these blanks: "When I was a kid, and they were picking teams for sportball, I was usually:
a) picked right away
b) not picked right away (to put it mildly)
c) one of the captains   Later in life, I found myself __despising sportball__, and I think it was all because of how the sportball teams were picked.  I so feel you there.

3. The most embarrassing/hilarious game I ever participated in was _dirty Scrabble _.  Everyone was laughing at _...just how many dirty words we could think of.   We ARE going to do this at RUD Con, right? Right. Let's make it happen.   

4. In an alternate universe, I am George R. R. Martin, only my fabulously successful 700-page epic book is titled "Game of _Scones_." it is about _a baking shop_  Mmmmm, scones.  

5. Once,  __my best friend__ suggested that we __go clubbing on a Monday night__, and I could only respond, GAME. ON.  Then what happened? Shockingly, there are very few places to get your dance on on a Monday night. Go figure. I'm pretty sure the last time I tried this, Al Gore wasn't done inventing the internet, and the hottest dance tune in the place was this. Not in a nostalgic way.

6. Would you like to play the 5-words game? Sure. Yay!

The 5-words game rules:

The inimitable Aaron Ritchey challenges you to use the following 5 words in a piece of flash fiction, as long or short as you wish. Don't overthink it :-)

Then, give 5 words for the next victim, er, interviewee to use.  They will have the option to build on your piece or do a stand-alone.
Your words are: lush, ball-bearings, plunge, caterwaul, uvula Meet Belle, P1 from Roselynn Cannes
And THEN this happened, P2 from Katee Robert
The latest installment, P3 from Aaron Ritchey

And now, Part 4:

Belle brushed past Guztavus and hurried down the street, hoping he would get the hint.

Instead he plunged after her into the street. "Where are you off to, ma Belle?" Gustavus let out a loud laugh, clearly pleased with his own cleverness. His mouth opened so wide she could see his uvula swinging at the back of his throat.

Belle restrained a low growl of annoyance. Unassuming maidens did not growl. Unassuming maidens also did not rip people's throats out. More's the pity. "I have an appointment, ah, at the church. Please, don't let me keep you from your shopping."

"Nonsense." He tossed a Clementine from one hand to the other. "I'll walk with you. It's a fine day to walk with a fine lady."

Lord spare me from the wit of Gustavus. But, seeing no graceful way out, she continued walking with him down the street. Her heart thumped with tension with each step they took together, and she glanced around, waiting to catch that ringing sound again. Maybe she'd heard wrong, maybe they hadn't found her, after all.

But, even as she had the hopeful thought, she caught the sound again, a bright ringing of soft bells. The sound should be cheerful, but it only made her stomach lump with dread. She picked her pace up again. A skittering started down the street with a flash of something that caught the sun-- a mass of small, shining ball-bearings rolling toward her. "Gustavus, look ou--"

With a flash, the ball bearings exploded around her, cutting her skin and blinding her with light. Gustavus barreled into her, knocking the two of them down to the hard pavement together. He was howling with pain or fear, a regular caterwaul of sound that grated on her nerve endings. Belle shoved at his shoulder to get him off her while he whimpered in a ball on the street.

Her clothes were torn and she bled from many cuts, but one of the few virtues of her…predicament was an accelerated healing factor. She took off at a run. Maybe there was still time, maybe she could make it to the willow--

Someone slammed into her from the side, slamming her against the wall of the nearest building. She thrashed to throw her attacker off, but he only let out a deep, warm laugh. "Now, now. I just wanted to chat."

She froze, arrested by the rich baritone of his voice. The fiend had deep blue eyes, a chiseled chin like granite from the local quarry, and the fullest, lushest, most kissable lips she'd ever seen.

"You're a very difficult woman to catch up with you know." The stranger smiled as he said it, and her heart sped a little at the sight.

She let her body melt against the wall and he instinctively relaxed his grip on her. "Is that so?"

He smiled again, pleased and smug about her compliance.

That was when she bit him.

Go Belle!  I have to admit it, I love these stories!

A bit more information about the author:
E.D. Walker (a.k.a. Beth Matthews) is a Southern California girl, born and raised. She’s a total geek, a movie buff, and a mediocre swing dancer. She lives in sunny SoCal with her husband and two of the neediest housecats on the planet.

Links:
Website: http://edwalkerbooks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iambethmatthews
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/E-D-Walker/128616687160916

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Are you registered for Reading Until Dawn Con? 

If not, why not?! Join us for fun, games, snacks and possibly pants-optional dancing.  

Register here, and see you there!

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