Grave Humor
R.J. Blain
(A Magical Romantic Comedy)
Publication date: May 12th 2020
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Paranormal, Romance
Most days, Anwen regrets working at a funeral home despite the good pay. With the residents no longer inclined to stay in their coffins where they belong, she’s got her hands full making sure everyone follows the rules:
In the funeral home, there is no screaming, no murdering, no mutilation, no possessions, no kidnappings, no resurrections, and no cursing of any type. Be quiet and stay polite.
The day Old Man McGregor decides to take a walk and disturbs her peace, Anwen learns there’s a lot more to the basement in the funeral home than a vampire and a handsome gentleman on ice.
If she’s not careful, she’ll learn first-hand why ‘eternally yours’ is the most potent of threats.
Warning: this novel contains romance, humor, bodies, shenanigans, and mythological puppies. Proceed with caution.
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Google Play
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.
EXCERPT
Lemon smelled
so much better than rot. As far as the restless dead went, Old Man McGregor
hadn’t left me with too much of a mess to clean. He’d stayed mostly intact,
limiting his oozing to a spot here and there. It took me twenty minutes to
erase the evidence he’d gotten out of his coffin and taken a walk.
Five minutes
later, Direct Hammel and his merry band of somberly dressed assistants arrived.
Why did Direct Hammel need four men to stand around? Most viewings, even the
big ones where the whole town showed up, only needed two attendants. The rest
of the time, I could handle the work without any help at all.
While the
viewings sometimes had upwards of the town’s full three hundred people, I
couldn’t think of a single funeral with more than twenty attendees since I’d
started working at the place. The old stayed, the young left, and with a world
full of magic to discover, who wanted to stay in Sunset, Alabama? If my college
fund hadn’t been bled dry on drugs and hookers, I would’ve been on the first bus
out along with the other six seniors in my class.
“Any
problems?” the director asked, sniffing the air.
I bet he
smelled the lemon and wanted to know why I’d been cleaning. “No problems,” I
replied. Any other day, Old Man McGregor rising and coming out of his coffin
for a chat would’ve counted as a problem, but I was too worn and tired to care.
Like with all things, problems were relative. If the restless dead hiding in
his coffin decided to cause a problem, I’d back up and watch the fireworks. “I
finished my other work for the morning, so I cleaned to make certain everything
was ready for the viewing, sir.”
“Good job. Our
clients will arrive soon. We’ll handle the rest from here. Mr. McGregor’s
family is rather conservative, so if you could handle inventorying and cleaning
the preparation and refrigeration rooms, that would be useful. Otherwise, go
home.”
I didn’t need
a diploma to read the writing on the wall. If I went home, I wouldn’t be
invited back to work, which meant someone hadn’t done their job cleaning the
basement.
The funeral
home went through inspections once a month to keep its license, and we were due
to have a government worker poking around the place. Plastering a smile on my
face, I nodded. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me, sir.”
“Good. Call
the main line if there are any problems.”
Once again, I
read the writing on the wall: if I had any problems during the viewing, I would
be in need of a new job.
I struggled to
maintain a neutral, professional expression. To keep guests from wandering into
the restricted parts of the funeral home, Director Hammel locked the stairwell
door and turned off the lift. I’d spend the next six hours in the basement.
After the surge of restless dead and corpse possessions, the funeral home
boasted reinforced lower level walls and doors, fashioned of a mix of concrete
and steel to keep the bodies contained should they decide to get up and take a
walk.
Fortunately,
excluding Old Man McGregor, we only had two bodies in storage, and John Doe had
been in our freezer since before I’d been born. If he decided to get up, they’d
hear my screams in the next state. While the rules kept changing, one thing
stayed the same: the older the corpse, the stronger the undead it became. I
hadn’t seen Mr. Doe, but I sometimes heard Director Hammel talk about him in
hushed, fearful tones.
Nothing scared
Director Hammel except our John Doe.
The other body
we had didn’t worry anyone; the vampire wasn’t going anywhere until someone
reattached his limbs and revived him with a lot of blood. I wasn’t sure why we
kept the vampire on ice, but someone from the CDC came once a month, along with
the funeral home inspector, to make sure he remained as alive as an undead got.
I’d gotten to take a look at the vampire, as Director Hammel wanted to make certain
I knew to avoid the sleepers in the freezer.
All in all, I
didn’t care about either corpse. Unless I put my throat to the vampire’s mouth,
he couldn’t hurt me. As for John Doe, I wasn’t sure what I thought about him.
While I wanted
to curse over my foul luck, I kept smiling, grabbed my purse and coat, and
descended into the basement. I made it all of two steps before the lock clicked
behind me.
“Asshole,” I
muttered, shaking my head and reaching for switches. I flipped three of the
five, bathing the stairwell and landing below in a yellowed light. The stench
of embalming fluid burned my nose, and I turned on the ventilation fans so I
wouldn’t suffocate before the end of the viewing.
When I found
out who had left the basement a reeking hell hole, there’d be a third body in
the freezer. In prison, I could study and pretend I had a future, and I’d do so
on the government’s dime until they kicked me out and made me finish my term
doing community service. Curling my lip in a snarl, I stomped down the steps and
aimed for the disposal bin meant for the latex gloves. I caught it with my foot
and launched the damned thing through the open doorway.
It crashed
onto the metal table bolted to the preparation room floor.
“What’s the
fucking point of having a three-inch thick containment door if it’s open all
the time? I’m surrounded by brain-dead idiots.”
“Yes, you
are,” a husky, deep voice replied. “I was wondering who they’d sacrifice to me
first. I knew the scarecrow would hide, but I thought he’d betray the whiner
first. How disappointing.”
GIVEAWAY!
$50 Amazon gift card and a signed collection of 13 magical romantic comedy (with a body count) books:
Playing with Fire
Hoofin' It
Hearth, Home, and Havoc
Serial Killer Princess
Whatever for Hire
Owl Be Yours
Last But not Leashed
Blending In
Fowl Play
Cheetahs Never Win
Burn, Baby, Burn
No Kitten Around
Double Trouble
This is not a Stuck In Books giveaway. Stuck In Books is not responsible for selecting the winner or delivering the prize.
