Hello, my name is Margo Bond Collins. I live in Texas with my husband, our daughter, several spoiled cats, and a ridiculous turtle. I teach college-level English courses online, though writing fiction is my first love. I enjoy reading urban fantasy and paranormal fiction of any genre and spend most of my free time daydreaming about vampires, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and other monsters. Waking Up Dead is my first published novel. My next two novels include Fairy, Texas, a YA fantasy mystery due out from Solstice Shadows Publishing in February 2014, and Legally Undead, an urban fantasy forthcoming in 2014 from World Weaver Press.
About my book, Waking Up Dead:
When Dallas resident Callie Taylor died young, she expected to go to Heaven, or maybe Hell. Instead, when she met her fate early thanks to a creep with a knife and a mommy complex, she went to Alabama. Now she's witnessed another murder, and she's not about to let this one go. She's determined to help solve it before an innocent man goes to prison. And to answer the biggest question of all: why the hell did she wake up dead in Alabama?
Excerpt:
When I died, I expected to go to heaven.
Okay. Maybe hell. It’s not like I was perfect or anything. But I was sort of hoping for heaven.
Instead, I went to Alabama.
Yeah. I know. It’s weird.
I died in Dallas, my hometown. I was killed, actually. Murdered. I’ll spare you the gruesome details. I don’t like to remember them myself. Some jerk with a knife--and probably a Bad-Mommy complex. Believe me, if I knew where he was, I’d go haunt his ass.
At any rate, by the time death came, I was ready for it--ready to stop hurting, ready to let go. I didn’t even fight it.
And then I woke up dead in Alabama. Talk about pissed off.
You know, even reincarnation would have been fine with me--I could have started over, clean slate and all that. Human, cow, bug. Whatever. But no. I ended up haunting someplace I’d never even been.
That’s not the way it’s supposed to work, right? Ghosts are supposed to be the tortured spirits of those who cannot let go of their earthly existence. If they could be convinced to follow the light, they’d leave behind said earthly existence and quit scaring the bejesus out of the poor folks who run across them. That’s what all those “ghost hunter” shows on television tell us.
Let me tell you something. The living don’t know jack about the dead.
Not this dead chick, anyway.
Ebook and Paperback:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Dead-Margo-Bond-Collins-ebook/dp/B00FOXWLM8/
Paperback:
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/waking-up-dead-margo-bond-collins/1117526839
Books a Million: http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Waking-Up-Dead/Margo-Bond-Collins/9781493750467?id=5868658257083
Favorite Mystery Series with a Female Detective:
My paranormal mystery Waking Up Dead was strongly influenced by other paranormal fiction, books by authors like Laurell K. Hamilton, Carrie Vaughn, Rachel Vincent, Patricia Briggs, and the like. But it also draws on a long line of mysteries with female detectives. Here are just a few of my favorites:
1. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series (http://www.evanovich.com/novels/plum-series/).
One of the things I love best about this series is that the heroine, Stephanie Plum, is not some hard-boiled detective. She is, as other characters often say, a train wreck. She bumbles and she stumbles and she relies as much on luck as she does on any real detecting. She’s real and she’s funny and she is probably my favorite mystery detective ever. The first novel in this series is One For the Money (http://www.amazon.com/One-Money-Stephanie-Plum-Novels-ebook/dp/B000FC0SJ6/).
2. Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone Alphabet Mysteries series (http://suegrafton.com/)
Grafton started this series with A is for Alibi (http://www.amazon.com/Alibi-Kinsey-Millhone-Alphabet-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B002HHPVBC/) and is now up to W is for Wasted (http://www.amazon.com/W-Wasted-Kinsey-Millhone-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00C5R73JC/). I find it interesting that Grafton has chosen to keep Millhone’s timeline consistent—that means that while the rest of the world is in 2013 with iPhones and the internet, Millhone is still stuck in the 80s, doing her detecting without all the gadgets she would have now!
3. Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series (http://www.patriciacornwell.com/)
Scarpetta is a medical examiner, and I love the scientific elements of these novels, and although Cornwell is adept at writing comedy, these novels tend to skew more toward thriller. Postmortem is the first of these novels (http://www.amazon.com/Postmortem-Scarpetta-Mysteries-Patricia-Cornwell/dp/1439148120/)
4. Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan series (http://www.kathyreichs.com)
This series is the basis for the television series Bones, and although the television series and the novels are very different in many ways, they are both fascinating for their look into forensic anthropology. As with Cornwell’s series, the scientific knowledge that the author brings to the books makes for fascinating—and realistic—reading. The first of these novels is Déjà Dead (http://www.amazon.com/Deja-Dead-Temperance-Brennan-Novels-ebook/dp/B000FC0NBY/)
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