#WriterWednesday... with Addie J. King

Happy Hump Day, and welcome to another installment of #WriterWednesday!

This week, I'm happy to introduce you to the fabulous Addie J. King, whose first full-length book - The Grimm Legacy - was just released earlier this month.

Back about three years ago, when Addie first started working on it, I had the pleasure of reading the first chapter while doing critiques for the Killer Nashville conference. Addie, bless her heart, had asked to have her work evaluated by yours truly - bwa-ha-ha! - and the rest, as they say, is history.

We'll both be there again this year, by the way, if you want to meet either of us.

But I digress. Without further ado, here's Addie: 

Thanks so much to Jenna/Jennie for hosting me as a guest. She’s an awesome writer and a great friend, and I’m so looking forward to reading her next book!

As for me, I can say that THE GRIMM LEGACY is my first novel, and was released in all ebook formats just a week or so ago from Musa Publishing.  It’s sort of like Once Upon a Time meets law school, with a talking frog who likes NASCAR and imported beer. There’s a mystery to solve, an art heist, a fairy court trial, and all kinds of fun in between.

I’m currently working on two novels, the sequel to THE GRIMM LEGACY, which is tentatively titled THE ANDERSEN ANCESTRY, and an unrelated novel, working title, DEMON BUSTERS, INC. That one, I’ve described as Angel meets Ghostbusters with demon exterminators fighting the seven deadly sins.

I’m so excited that my first novel is out! It’s so cool, and amazing and wonderful at the same time…I can’t wait to see what people think of it! It’s also surreal to show up in the morning for the day job and have a co-worker letting out a squee when she saw me…because she’d been reading the book and loved it. I’ll definitely take that reaction any day!

Addie has shared an excerpt of The Grimm Legacy with us; enjoy! (And then run out and buy the book. Links below.)

Set up: Janie Grimm is the main character, and a first year law student, who has just finished a disastrous first day of law school, and has just met Bert the frog.

Excerpt:

I didn’t have the time to deal with being crazy. I had fifty pages of case law to read for tomorrow, and I didn’t understand any of it. “Will you kindly shut the hell up?”

He blinked at me slowly and kept singing, “Hey there Little Red Riding Hood, you sure are lookin’ good…” It took me a minute to place it as “Li’l Red Riding Hood” from Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, a band Dad used to listen to on the oldies station when I was a kid.

I saw my neighbor, Chris, as he pulled up in his Chevy extended-cab truck. The frog winked at me, slowly turning to face Chris as he came up the sidewalk. Rather than risk Chris thinking me ready for the funny farm (hey, he was cute and had impressive chest muscles that he showed off in tight t-shirts), I scooped up the frog and ran inside, barely swallowing the “Ew, ew, ew” that came to my lips when I touched him. I’m not big on slimy things, so sue me.

 I got back inside, closed the drain on the kitchen sink, and placed the frog in the sink. Before I got back to the door, he was already talking again.

 “Boy, are you paranoid, Janie Grimm. Makes me think they’ve already got to you or something. Got a beer in this place?”

 “A beer?” I settled one hip against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re a talking frog, you know my name, you showed up out of nowhere, but the only thing you can say is ‘you got a beer in this place’?”

 The frog belched, long and loud. Great. Not only did I have a talking frog in my apartment, he was also an obnoxious pig. Er, frog. Whatever.

 “Are you done?” he asked.

 “Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?”

 “That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said today, Janie, and believe me, I should know. That was pretty embarrassing this morning in Contracts class when you didn’t have a clue. Though that professor of yours did seem to know what he was talking about.”

 I gritted my teeth. I could add know-it-all to the rapidly growing list of things I didn’t like about this frog. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

 “I guess I didn’t, did I? Well, tenaciousness will serve you well in trial, future counselor. You can call me Bert.”

* * *

Addie J. King spends her days as an attorney in Urbana, Ohio, and writes paranormal mystery and contemporary fantasy whenever she can. Her blog can be found at www.addiejking.com. Her short story, “Poltergeist on Aisle Fourteen” was published in the anthology, MYSTERY TIMES TEN 2011, and her novel, THE GRIMM LEGACY, was just released from Musa Publishing. You can find it on AMAZON - BARNES AND NOBLE and SMASHWORDS.