Release day for RJ Astruc's A Festival of Skeletons!

Release day for RJ Astruc’s A Festival of Skeletons!

Dec 1st, 2010 | By Bart Leib | Category: News & Announcements

Crossed Genres is proud to officially release RJ Astruc’s novel A Festival of Skeletons!

When Kamphor’s west end sees a series of prostitutes murdered, its citizens are fearful that a serial killer known as the Knife has returned. But the mortician Sink, owner of Kamphor’s finest morgue, doesn’t believe that the Knife has resumed killing – and he’d prove it, if his former student and current hateful rival Damien Torvault wasn’t getting in the way.

Sink and his two apprentices, handsome-if-loony Joshua Finkle and merkind Vona Urgarth, investigate the murders on their own. Sink’s ability to tell exactly when and how a person will die just by touching them earns him no friends, but it does yield some interesting clues – as does Sink’s other gift. The one which incites him to wear women’s clothing.

The investigation is further complicated when Joshua’s time is taken up running a 15-Step program, and Vona becomes intrigued by a repugnant yet strangely irresistible cook. Even Sink’s next-door neighbor, Policewoman Arifia Fowles, seems hell-bent on not just hindering Sink but arresting him, regardless of a crime.

But Sink presses urgently on, because he senses a strangeness in the air: the magic-smell of necromancy, a magic that has long been illegal in Kamphor… for it requires human sacrifice.

“If you have no interest at all in reading a fabulous, well thought-out, engaging story, stay away from RJ Astruc’s writing – you’ll get sucked in and read it anyway. The moment I started reading, she dragged me along for an extraordinary, outrageous ride through a perfectly ordinary universe filled with murder, madness, mystery, magic, merfolk, and morticians. Dark humor, light humor, macabre doings, cute little outfits, deluded cops, and afternoon tea with reformed alcoholics are all just the tip of the iceberg in this story. I’m not only reserving bookshelf space for the printed edition of A Festival of Skeletons, I’ll be reserving reading and re-reading time for it, too. Be careful of this one, readers; you won’t want to put it down, either!”
–Jean Johnson, New York Times Bestselling Author of the Sons of Destiny series

“…like a love child of Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin – a pacy, intelligent comedy novel that’s crazier than a cat on catnip … Highly recommended.”
– SciFi & Fantasy Books

“The plot follows an even pace with plenty of surprises that are perfectly foreshadowed. I was kicking myself that I didn’t catch on to them earlier, but I was amazed at how wonderfully put-together this story is.“
– Only the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy

“R. J. Astruc is fortunate that I don’t know where she lives. Otherwise I would be besieging her domicile and demanding, with money and menaces, a sequel…”
– Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New Zealand

You can read the first three chapters of A Festival of Skeletons for free!

A Festival of Skeletons is now available in several formats. Please consider picking up a copy of the novel reviewers have called “…a must-read. It’s a cruel, humorous page-turner for the wicked at heart.”

TITLE: A Festival of Skeletons
Author: RJ Astruc
Publisher: Crossed Genres
Pages: 175
ISBN-13: 978-1453757352
ISBN-10: 145375735X
Release date: December 1, 2010
Edited by Kay T. Holt
Cover Art by Jonatan Iversen-Ejve
Design & layout by Bart R. Leib

* Zipped bundle contains 7 DRM-free formats: EPUB, LIT, LRF, MOBI, PDB, PDF and PRC.

Tags: A Festival of Skeletons, novel, release day, RJ Astruc, serial, Serials

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