A Chip on Her
Shoulder
R.J.
Blain
(Magical Romantic Comedies
#11)
Publication date: September 1st 2020
Genres: Adult,
Urban Fantasy
After a deal with loan sharks
sours, Darlene’s brother is permanently transformed into a chipmunk. Not one to
accept impossibility as a good excuse for failure, she’s determined to rescue
her brother and secure revenge against those who’d poisoned him with grade-a
transformatives.
If she wants to perform a miracle, she’ll need to join
forces with a divine, but the man upstairs and his angels refuse to
help.
None of the other so-called benevolent divines are
willing to help her, either.
Running out of time and options, Darlene prepares to
storm the gates of hell for her brother.
She never expected to fall in love with the
Devil.
Warning: this novel contains a woman with a
chip on her shoulder, humor, and one hell of a hero. Proceed with
caution.
Rather than try to talk my brother out of the money he
rightfully owed them, the local mafia’s loan sharks opted for a more permanent
solution to their problem. They transformed my asshole brother, Jonas, into a
chipmunk and saddled me with the bill.
My brother had lost his human life for five thousand dollars.
What a waste.
Since that wasn’t bad enough, the goons my brother had
pissed off forced me to watch the entire process, which involved forcing him to
drink a vial of clear fluid. The transformation took a matter of minutes, and
he started screaming within seconds of consuming their concoction.
It took until he’d shrunk to half his true size to stop
screaming, and he squealed instead.
Shapeshifting hurt like hell; I went through the
gruesome process every few days, when my thin, human skin drove me to the brink
of madness. Some days, I took on my more hybrid form, sporting a tail and my
feline ears. Sometimes, I tossed in a light coat of spotted fur to ease my
discomfort. Sometimes, I kept the thin, human skin to pretend I fit in with the
rest of the neighborhood, hiding my tail and ears beneath my clothes. One day I’d
give up on hiding my true nature. Every rare now and again, my hybrid
transformation came with a full coat of fur, my ears, and my beautiful tail,
something I loved.
My light coat was a mockery of my full glory, and one
day, I’d master my magic so I decided which parts of me had light fur, no fur,
or a thick coat best suited for wintry mountains.
My spots were my best assets, and I loved each and every
one of them. Life would be so much better when I could wear my spots whenever I
wanted.
When the mood struck me, the night was young, and the
weather was cool, I ran as a snow leopard, displaying every one of my spots and
hunting through suburbia for prey, typically one of the more annoying squirrels
or rabbits to menace my garden.
I’d be hunting for bigger prey soon enough, and I kept
my expression cold and calm. Warning my prey I would be coming for them wouldn’t
do.
A wise huntress gave no warning before the ambush, and I
would use every opportunity to crush the entire mafia. Unlike the local law
enforcement, who played by civilized rules, there would be nothing civilized
about me.
They had destroyed my family, so I would destroy their
family. No, I would do far worse than merely destroy their family. I would
destroy their ambition while I was at it. When I finished with them, ruin and
suffering would be all I left in my wake.
Sometimes, I was not a very good person. Actually, no.
Most of the time I was not a very good person.
I’d learned early on being good left me taken advantage
of, alone, and miserable. When I did good, I did it because I wanted to,
expecting nothing in return, for I’d learned that lesson well enough.
What went around rarely came around, and I’d gained
nothing from any of the good I’d done in my life.
I kept my breaths slow and even, waiting while doing my
best to detach myself from the reality of my situation. Panic would win me
nothing, neither would fear. Patience might win me a lot, depending on what I
learned in the next few minutes.
One of the thugs, someone who’d gotten into a fight with
a fire and lost, held a rather nasty gun to my head to make sure I behaved.
I behaved, but only because we had one rule in our
household of two: survival came first. Once I survived my current mess, I would
add a new rule to our household of one and a rodent: revenge would come
eventually.
I couldn’t win against eight men who’d cut their teeth
on violence, not even if I transformed and put my sharp claws to good use. Not
yet. I’d keep my claws a secret for a little while longer, and when I brought
them out, I would shred their entire outfit.
Revenge would be mine, and I would enjoy obtaining
it.
Revenge wouldn’t save my brother. If I had fought
against the mafia he’d tangoed with, I couldn’t have saved him anyway. They
likely would have killed us both. I’d find some way to do the impossible and restore
my brother somehow. The man my brother had been was gone, replaced by a
chipmunk with a rodent’s puny little brain.
No, he was still my brother, but he possessed a rodent’s
puny little brain. He might remember me. He might even be able to understand
English and allow me to keep him outside of a cage.
Maybe.
That stung.
My brother was an asshole. He probably deserved some
form of punishment at the hands of the mafia, but he was my asshole brother,
and nobody beat him other than me.
I would make that our third household rule, and I would
adhere to it.
I took my time memorizing the faces of those who’d pay
for their crimes. Their scars would make them easy to identify. I wouldn’t
forget their scars, I wouldn’t forget their faces, and I gave it a week for me
to learn their names.
Then the fun would truly begin.
They weren’t the only ones who could get their hands on
transformative drugs. It just cost a little money or having the right
ingredients available. I could get the money, and I could go where the rare
ingredients grew.
So hellbent on revenge, I barely remembered the
conversation leading up to my brother’s transformation into a rather small
rodent. I remembered the part about the money, where they wanted me to bring it
and when, but the rest remained a blur.
I needed to memorize their scarred faces so I could do
what an Esmaranda woman did when she got mad.
I’d get even, and I’d charge interest.
My mother, may her soul rest in peace, had taught me
that from the day I’d busted out of maternal prison and escaped her
womb.
Picking my brother up by his furry little tail, the lead
asshole, who had a rather ugly scar over his nose where someone had failed to
slice his skull in half, tossed him my way. I forgot about the gun pointed at
me, scrambling to catch my brother so he wouldn’t escape. He squealed and
squeaked protests before biting the hell out of my hand.
What an utter asshole. I prevented him from running away
and losing all chance of becoming human again, and he bit me? When I refused to
let my brother go, he took another chomp out of the fleshy part of my hand
connecting my index finger and thumb.
I bled.
The mafia goons laughed, and then they left.
They’d pay for that, too.
Come hell or high water, they’d pay.
GIVEAWAY
Blitz-wide giveaway (INT)
Author Bio:
RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a
pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.
In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Her
contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and
quoting James Bond villains until satisfied.
%20-%20Blog%20Tour%20Poster%202.png)
Bloodlust Storm: A thrilling urban fantasy adventure that will have you hooked by Luanne Bennett
.jpg)
%20-%20CoverReveal_PreOrder%20(1).jpg)
%20(2).png)
.png)
In this thrilling new Night Rebel series set in New
York Times bestselling author
Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress world, sexy and ruthless vampire Ian
finally meets his match!
