Dead Rising, The Templar Series Book 1, is now available for pre-order at Amazon! This is a new series, different from the Imp World.  The first book will release January 15th, quickly followed by Book 2, Last Breath, in March.

Just to give you all a peek at the new series:

Chapter 1

The sun had set by the time I made my way out of the theater. Mist, heavy in the muggy summer air, made the streetlights seem as if they had halos of gold. Music thumped from a club down the block, and the faint aroma of steamy garbage hit my nose.

Baltimore. My new home. A city where it seemed the streetlights were the only things with halos.

The play had sucked. What had possessed me to go see an artistic rendering of the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia, set to Bernstein-style music no less? Ugh. Just, ugh.

I know what had possessed me. Boredom. It was Wednesday night. What else was I supposed to do? Certainly not hang out with friends or go on a date like normal people. No, I was watching people die in three acts. The actors, their careers, the audience. I think a little bit of my soul died in that theater.

And now I faced the prospect of driving through the less-desirable portions of the city, thinking about jaundiced, feverish people coughing up blood clots. Driving back to my tiny, ratty apartment, where I’d sit the rest the evening alone, sleeping and counting down the hours until I put on a scratchy polyester shirt and khaki pants, and went to my minimum wage job.

Why did I think this was a good idea? The whole thing, not just the crappy play. My days were one mind-numbing hour following the other. It was minimally better than the life I’d left back home. No wonder normal people turned to drink and drugs.

It was a sad commentary on my life that I felt a jolt of excitement to see a man standing beside my car, obviously waiting for me. He wore leather several shades darker than his skin with a chain belt. Kinky. Weird. If he’d have been a human, I would have pulled the mace out of my purse in preparation to defend myself. Since he was a vampire, I instead got out my car keys.

Yep, they were very useful when it came to gouging and scraping skin, but it was the heavy, 14-carat gold Celtic cross that hung from the keychain that would serve me best in a fight. Not that I wanted to fight a vampire. The gold cross and a few quick spells were all I had to combat his superior strength, speed, charisma, and those darned pointy teeth.

I could sense vampires who were within a reasonable proximity to me. By sight, definitely, although there was nothing particular about them that should have made them stand out from the other humans. No, it was something else, some kind of sixth sense, some weird feeling that crawled up my back every time one was near.

He turned and I recognized the broad cheekbones and the dark eyes. Dario.

Vampires liked to hang out around the Inner Harbor and Fells Point. I’d seen this one in a lot of the pubs where friendless women like me passed the time, no doubt trolling for tourists to eat. I’d seen him enough during the last six months that I’d started sending over Bloody Marys and leaving notes at his table with “type O Negative