
Demon slaying powers should come with an instruction book …
Seriously. Why does a new hair dryer have a twelve-page how-to manual, but when it comes to ancient demon-fighting hocus-pocus, my biker witch granny gives me just half a dozen switch stars and a rah-rah speech? Oh, and a talking terrier, but that’s another story. It’s not like my job as a preschool teacher prepared me for this kind of thing.
So I’ve decided to write my own manual, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, because no one tells me anything. Dimitri, my “protector,” may be one stud of a shape-shifting griffin, but he always thinks he can handle everything by himself. Only he’s no match for the soul-stealing succubi taking over Las Vegas. If I can’t figure out how to save him – and Sin City – there’ll be hell to pay.
Angie Fox gets into trouble. Again.
Thanks so much for having me back on Novel Thoughts and Book Talk. I’m really excited to be here and to give away a copy of my new release, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers.
This book was a blast to write, and I learned a valuable lesson too: be careful what you write…because it may just send you to some, ahem, unusual places. See, I write about a reluctant demon slayer forced to run off with a gang of geriatric biker witches. Add that to the fact that I tend to write what amuses me and you have a recipe for trouble.
When I was writing the end of my first book, The Accidental Demon Slayer, this joke about Las Vegas popped into my head and I thought, “why not?” Lizzie is just about to kiss her man when she’s interrupted and told she and the gang have to head to Las Vegas to save her long lost uncle from marrying a succubus. Kind of fun. At least it made me smile. I was an unpublished writer at the time.
But then the book sold. Better still, The Accidental Demon Slayer hit the New York Times bestseller list. My publisher wanted more. Heck, I wanted to write more. I remember being on the phone with my editor and she said, “so you’re going to Las Vegas, right?”
Oh yeah.
I admit it. I had these images of cool hotels and shows in my head. Then reality hit. I write about biker witches and a preschool teacher turned demon slayer. These folks don’t have a lot of spare cash lying around. This wasn’t my trip – it was theirs. Good thing I like odd adventures. And my friends do too.
One in particular – my friend Aileen – is a sucker for anything strange and unusual. So I talked her into a long weekend and we headed to Vegas to see and experience the biker witch version of Sin City. We stayed in the cheesiest hotels we could find. We ate at Bob’s Big Boy. We even visited a dude ranch with armadillos, a boar and several very old chickens.
We were able to talk our way into some behind-the-scenes places as well. The climax of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers takes place inside the Hoover Dam, and we were lucky enough to be invited to see first-hand what I’d be writing about. A guide took us far down into the inspection tunnels they used in the 1930’s and 40’s, when the cement was still curing. It was amazing to see the notes these inspectors made on the walls, to hear the stories of those that didn’t quite make it out and to walk the same old metal steps that they did. All of that made it into The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, along with lots of things I had a blast making up (this is fiction after all).
And to celebrate the release of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, I’m going to give one away. Just take the quiz Are You Part Demon Slayer? and tell us your score in the comments section. We’ll pick one winner at random. Oh and if you post that same score to my author blog, you’ll be entered to win a walk-on role in the next Accidental Demon Slayer book. Good luck!
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