Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Blog Tour ~ Stoker & Bash: The Fangs of Scavo by Selina Kray (Guest Post, Review + Giveaway)

Blog Tour ~ Stoker & Bash: The Fangs of Scavo by Selina Kray (Guest Post, Review + Giveaway)
Hi, romance lovers! I'm Selina Kray, and this is the latest stop on the Stoker & Bash blog tour. A huge thank you to the lovely people at Bayou Book Junkie for hosting me today. I thought I'd talk a little bit about some of the inspiration for Stoker & Bash: The Fangs of Scavo, namely the detective duo.

Holmes and Watson. Poirot and Hastings. Adrien and Jake. Bryant and May. Whyborne and Griffin. We mystery buffs love our detective duos, and it's not hard to see why. As the Doublemint gum jingle goes, "Double the pleasure, double the fun!"

Putting on my writer's cap for a moment, one of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got was to give my hero a foil. The foil can be a villain or a friend or a love interest. The important thing is that their personality contrasts with that of the lead detective. Someone for them to banter with, bounce ideas off of. Someone to call them on their nonsense. Someone to rescue in a feat of derring do, or to be rescued by. This is particularly effective in a mystery novel, since there are so many clues and theories of the crime to be discussed. It's especially good in a mystery romance, where chemistry is everything.

While the lone wolf detective is also a classic of the genre, those stories tend to be bleaker, more tragic, exploring darker themes like revenge. But if you're looking to inject a little chaos into your narrative—not to mention a one-way ticket to character development—a detective duo, if not an entire team, is the way to go. And probably why both members of a given pair are equally beloved. For who is Sherlock Holmes without John Watson's humanizing influence?

In Stoker & Bash: The Fangs of Scavo, DI Tim Stoker is initially sent to investigate London's newest consulting detective, Hieronymus Bash. After a string of lucrative solves that embarrassed the detectives at Scotland Yard, i.e. the professionals, Stoker is sent undercover to find out whether Bash is indeed who he claims to be. And gets a lot more than he bargained for when sparks fly between them.

Falling for the man he's supposed to be discrediting could spell the end of Tim's career. Or the beginning of a partnership for the ages...




Length: 100,000 words


Blurb

At Scotland Yard, DI Timothy Stoker is no better than a ghost. A master of arcane documents and niggling details who, unlike his celebrity-chasing colleagues, prefers hard work to headlines. But an invisible man is needed to unmask the city’s newest amateur detective, Hieronymus Bash. A bon vivant long on flash and style but short on personal history, Bash just may be a Cheapside rogue in Savile Row finery.

 When the four fangs of the Demon Cats of Scavo—trophies that protect the hunters who killed the two vicious beasts—disappear one by one, Stoker's forced to team with the very man he was sent to investigate to maintain his cover. He finds himself thrust into a world of wailing mediums, spiritualist societies, man-eating lions, and a consulting detective with more ambition than sense. Will this case be the end of his career, or the start of an unexpected liaison? Or will the mysterious forces at play be the death of them both?

 And just who is Hieronymus Bash?


4 Stars!!!

 This was a really good suspense/mystery with some romantic undertones. It's not quite a romance as the focus is mainly on discovering who is behind the Fangs of Scavo thefts and on unmasking Hieronymus Bash, more than on Tim and Hiero's relationship. 

 I really liked both Tim and Hiero. The attraction between the two of them was undeniable and the sex scenes were hot, hot, hot! But that's not all, they also worked great together to solve the mystery and it was really nice to see their interactions morph throughout the book. 

 Stoker & Bash: The Fangs of Scavo is without a doubt a very good, engaging, solid novel for Ms. Kray and a great start to the series. I was a tad disappointed by the ending, as I do like my endings to be less open to interpretation. Still, very recommendable for fans of mystery/suspense historical books. You won't be disappointed!

 *** Copy provided to Bayou Book Junkie for my reading pleasure, a review wasn't a requirement.***


Author Bio

Selina Kray is the nom de plume of an author and English editor. Professionally she has covered all the artsy-fartsy bases, having worked in a bookstore, at a cinema, in children’s television, and in television distribution, up to her latest incarnation as a subtitle editor and grammar nerd (though she may have always been a grammar nerd). A self-proclaimed geek and pop culture junkie who sometimes manages to pry herself away from the review sites and gossip blogs to write fiction of her own, she is a voracious consumer of art with both a capital and lowercase A.

Selina’s aim is to write genre-spanning romances with intricate plots, complex characters, and lots of heart. Whether she has achieved this goal is for you, gentle readers, to decide. At present she is hard at work on future novels at home in Montreal, Quebec, with her wee corgi serving as both foot warmer and in-house critic.

If you’re interested in receiving Selina’s newsletter and being the first to know when new books are released, plus getting sneak peeks at upcoming novels, please sign up at her website: www.selinakray.net
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