The Backup by @EricaKudisch virtual tour | Spotlight, Excerpt & Giveaway { @RiptideBooks | @TTCBooksandmore }

Hi all! Erica Kudisch here, promoting my debut novel THE BACKUP, queer urban fantasy with a side of myth and music. Thanks so much for keeping up with the blog tour! Be sure to swing by the other stops for awesome multimedia content and a $50 prize package giveaway!

I’m supposed to be better than this. I'm supposed to have a tenure-track job teaching music history to undergrads, writing papers about Bach, and proving to kids like me that you can work your way out of Harlem. I'm not supposed to be following a rock star around the country, fetching his mail, making sure his groupies are of age.

I'm definitely not supposed to be sleeping with said rock star, who claims to be the Greek God Dionysus. At first I thought it was a load of crap. Nik's fans might think his music captures their hearts—and souls—but I knew better. Until one of Nik's orgiastic concerts gets out of hand and I don’t know which is worse: that he might be a god after all, or that he has a body count.

Nik doesn’t care what I want or what I should be. He wants to tear down the world I've built, warping all I am, until his music is all that's left of me. I can't let him do that. I shouldn't believe in him. I've seen what happens to the people who believe in him.

But I can't get his song out of my head.

Buy links: Amazon | Riptide 

Excerpt: 

May 13, 2011

Departmental commencement is a robes-and-hoods occasion, and it’s far too hot for the honor. Hertz Hall is air-conditioned, at least, but it’s also packed, and I’m sitting too close to the front and the middle to catch more than the faintest artificial breeze, filtered through five hundred people or so, none of whom are here to see me.

“And one last round of applause for the UC Berkeley Music Department Class of 2011!” the chair commands, and of course he’s obeyed. I’m not immune. “Now, for the graduate program, beginning with those who have completed their master’s.”

The eight master’s recipients are packed in on the left side of my row, and filter out into the aisle. They aren’t giving us our bona fides today, or even tomorrow at the main ceremony. Photo ops and pageantry, that’s compulsory, but the real document comes in the mail in three weeks. I find it amazing that people still do the calligraphy by hand.

Tomorrow will be hours of sitting in the sun with only a ridiculous tam hat for protection, waiting for thousands of undergrads to receive their fake degrees; today means something, to me and the people I’ve toiled beside for the past seven years. Knowing Uncle Paul, he probably thinks tomorrow is the more important ceremony. Then again, he’d texted, Will contact you on Friday when I arrive, which is today, and there’s been no word since, so it looks like he won’t make either. That’s the most recent message in my queue. I’ve been checking for the last fifteen minutes. It’s bad enough that I’ve got my phone in my lap during my own PhD acceptance. I shouldn’t check it every five seconds like I’m waiting for water to boil.

The applause never quite dies down, only swells and diminishes for the clearer sound of the chair reading a name, a field, honors or no honors. They’re almost through calling the master’s. There’s a chance that Paul hasn’t texted me because he’s expecting me to be polite and not answer. He might be here.

“And it also is our privilege to honor four new PhDs,” the chair says, and that’s my cue. First in line: the alphabet has always been on my side. I hold on to my phone but hide my fist in the billowing sleeve since I can’t reach my pocket through the robes, sidle into the aisle, and file down to the stage. “Please welcome, Doctor of Musicology, Anthony Brooks.”

The acoustics of the concert hall are built to send sound out from the stage, not up to it, but applause is always an exception. It starts just before I make it to the short flight of stairs up to the stage and ascend. Despite the handshaking and the genuinely proud smiles, it feels like a rehearsal.

My phone buzzes at center stage. Thank goodness it’s in my left sleeve, and Professor Taruskin is shaking my right.

I wait until I’ve made it through the receiving line and the next name has been called to look out at the audience. It’s always easy to spot Paul in a crowd like this, where almost everyone else is white or light-skinned. By extension, it’s easy to spot when he’s not here, and doesn’t take me long to ascertain it. He’s not.

In the relative obscurity of my seat, I check my phone again.

Work emergency, it says. I won’t make it out tomorrow either. But you have my congratulations and my respect. Call Sunday.

Well, at least I have other people to applaud for.

To read the entire excerpt, learn more about this Author or The Backup, visit Riptide Publishing.

Erica Kudisch lives, writes, sings, and often trips over things in New York City. When not in pursuit of about five different creative vocations, none of which pay her nearly enough, you can usually find her pontificating about dead gay video games, shopping for thigh-high socks, and making her beleaguered characters wait forty thousand words before they get in the sack.

In addition to publishing novellas and short stories as fantastika-focused alter-ego Kaye Chazan (What Aelister Found Here and The Ashkenazi Candidate, both available at Candlemark & Gleam) Erica is responsible for the BDSM musical Dogboy & Justine, and serves as creative director and co-founder of Treble Entendre Productions.

She also has issues with authority. And curses too fucking much.

Connect with Erica:

Facebook: Erica Kudisch

Instagram: hardhandmaiden

Tumblr:  shitmywriterwifesays.tumblr.com

Twitter: @EricaKudisch

To celebrate the release of The Backup, Erica is giving away iTunes and Riptide credit totaling $50! Your first comment at each stop on this tour enters you in the drawing. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on January 30, 2016. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. Entries. Follow the tour for more opportunities to enter the giveaway. Don’t forget to leave your email or method of contact so Riptide can reach you if you win!