Glamour Thieves by Don Allmon Virtual tour | Spotlight, Excerpt & #giveaway @RiptideBooks @dallmon

Howdy y'all. I'm Don Allmon and I got a debut book name of The Glamour Thieves. It’s the first of a three book series called The Blue Unicorn. It's a grim kind of fantasy, a cybernetic near-dystopia, a rough-edged romance with few promises except for the ones that matter. Ain't nothin' worth earnin' that wasn't hard won. Join in on the comments and win yourself some loot.

JT is an orc on the way up. He’s got his own boutique robotics shop, high-end clientele, and deep-pocketed investors. He’s even mentoring an orc teen who reminds him a bit too much of himself back in the day.

Then Austin shows up, and the elf’s got the same hard body and silver tongue as he did two years ago when they used to be friends and might have been more. He’s also got a stolen car to bribe JT to saying yes to one last scheme: stealing the virtual intelligence called Blue Unicorn.

Soon JT’s up to his tusks in trouble, and it ain’t just zombies and Chinese triads threatening to tear his new life apart. Austin wants a second chance with JT—this time as more than just a friend—and even the Blue Unicorn is trying to play matchmaker.

Buy links: Riptide Publishing | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Excerpt...

* * * * * * *

Kitchen, dining and living rooms were all the one room. On the dining table, Chinese takeout was unpacked, white boxes everywhere like blown-up origami. Austin had opened everything to make sure there was no meat in his, and he’d arranged the too-many packets of soy and duck sauce in letters: EAT ME.

He was on the couch, and the big-screen was going at the same time he had the VR glasses on. He absentmindedly worked chopsticks on vegetable lo mein. He didn’t even look at the damn box or have to readjust the sticks every minute like JT had to. He never dropped a bit of it or had to fish around to find something easy to pick up. That was his left hand.

His right hand flicked and twitched in the control glove, and Nazi zombies died.

“Are you cheating?” JT asked.

“I only cheat in real life, when it’s actually fun. The kid not eating?” He ate and killed zombies.

“Nah, she’s eating by herself tonight.” He’d set Dante up in a room over the printer lab when the kid had moved in, and Dante retreated there when she needed her space or JT needed his.

“Tonight? But doesn’t she eat with you usually?” Austin asked, implying something, but JT didn’t want to play games, so ignored him. JT speared orange chicken with his chopsticks. The container of rice sat untouched. Rice was elf food. “She could be useful,” Austin said. “Maybe—”

“Maybe nothing. I brought her here to give her a way out of that life, Austin, not a way in.”

Austin turned just a bit and slid the glasses down his nose (and still his hand flicked, and zombies died, and he didn’t), and ran his eyes up and down JT. “You make a cute daddy. I approve.”

“Fuck you. I’m just doing what I can.”

“You didn’t have to do anything,” He went back to his game and his food. “That’s what makes it cute.”

JT started in on the Szechuan chicken, upending the take-away box to his mouth and using the sticks to shovel the food in. He watched Austin play his game and eat.

“Shouldn’t we be planning this protection job?” JT asked.

“What’s to plan? We need to move Buzz from the place he’s holed up in San Fran to Tahoe and his rendezvous with 3djinn. The quieter, the better.”

“Route? Gear?”

“You’re the pilot. As far as gear, I’m bringing a bow, some arrows, and you. Really, JT, this isn’t a break-in. It’s just deliver-the-package. Except the package is Buzz. Pick a car; pick your drones; and we’re good to go.”

That was just too much blitheness, even for Austin. This was a triad they were messing with, not some street gang. Something was up.

“So what’s the story? Why’s the triad after Buzz?”

Austin shrugged. “He stole something.”

“Software?”

“Something. I don’t know. He calls me—”

“He’s got your contact info?” JT didn’t even have Austin’s contact info.

“It’s not that hard to find.” He gave JT a pointed flick of a glance. “If you wanted to find it. So he calls me and says he’s in trouble and needs to get out of town and over to Tahoe. He’d been working for the Electric Dragon Triad and found something, and, well, he might have taken it—”

“So he didn’t just steal from them, he betrayed them?”

“Suppose you could see it that way.”

“I can guaran-fuckin-tee you that’s how they’re seeing it.” The Electric Dragon was going to be excessive in their vengeance. But it was like Austin had said: they just needed to move Buzz quiet, not a shot fired. “So he never said what it was he took? Must have been something pretty damn amazing to throw your life away for it.”

“Must have been.” Austin stopped playing his game and took the VR glasses off. “Things like that exist, JT.”

“Like hell, they do. And you still don’t think we need a plan.”

“I got a plan. You.”

Read the entire available excerpt at Riptide Publishing.

In his night job, Don Allmon writes science fiction, fantasy, and romance. In his day job, he’s an IT drone. He holds a master of arts in English literature from the University of Kansas and wrote his thesis on the influence of royal hunting culture on medieval werewolf stories. He’s a fan of role-playing games, both video and tabletop. He has lived all over from New York to San Francisco, but currently lives on the prairies of Kansas with many animals.

Connect with Don:

• Website: www.donallmon.com
• Twitter: @dallmon
• Pinterest

Riptide giveaway... To celebrate the release of The Glamour Thieves, one lucky winner will receive a $20 Riptide gift card! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on September 2, 2017. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!

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