Vortex Blues

by Tina Gerow

After punching his last boss in the mouth, Detective Mitch Guthrie is transferred to what he considers the worst position available for a cop—the SPOOK Squad (Special Paranormal Operations & Otherworldly Contact.) As a human with special gifts that allow him to sense non humans things get interesting when he’s assigned a partner who is a succubus, and his first case involves a succubus serial killer. Between the Sedona, Arizona vortexes, his captain—the actual Cleopatra, a gargoyle bartender named Rocky, and a fear demon who gives off a urine smell, Mitch isn’t so sure he’ll survive the week with all his body parts still in tact.

Genres: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

84 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 8, 2008

About the author

As far back as I can remember, I've had a love affair with books. I loved to live vicariously through each character, and dreamed of the day when I'd write my own books. I loved to write and make up stories, a talent which was both loved and hated by many of my English teachers. As I got older, I had teachers encourage me to write, but they admonished me to ‘stop writing the weird stuff and tone down the sarcasm!' But what fun is that?

However, my other love was music, and playing clarinet and saxophone ended up paying my way through college by way of a scholarship. As is often the case, life happened and I didn't get back to writing until 2003, when my husband and son encouraged me to ‘stop talking about it, and go do it!' So, I joined my local Romance Writers of America chapter and poured myself into learning everything I could about writing and publishing, and both the business and creative side of being a writer.

I worked hard, and in ten months wrote INTO A DANGEROUS MIND, and set about the business of submitting and entering contests while I moved on to writing STONE MAIDEN. I entered dozens of contests and rewrote and revised that book several dozen times. I also received tons of great rejections from both agents and editors. Yes - you read right - GREAT rejections. Most of them saying, "we really liked your story, but it has the following weaknesses..." With every one, I refined and rewrote and learned everything I could. Then in October 2004, I received the fateful ‘call.' Okay, it was an email, but thus began one of the best chapters in my life. Since then, I've hit the ground running and never looked back. I also write under the pen name Cassie Ryan.

I currently live in sunny Arizona with my two favorite men--my husband and my son--and our two cats.

Reviews

[Melindeeloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Police cop Mitch's ability to sense the paranormal has gotten him kicked out of his old job, so he has little choice but to accept a new job with the SPOOK squad as the sole human in an agency staffed by paranormals. And even though Mitch has good reason to hate paranormals and even though his first case - hunting a succubus serial killer - is going to remind him of all of those reasons, some how around his sexy succubus partner Molly those reasons just don't seem to matter.

This story has good bones an interesting idea and a good potential conflict between Mitch and his partner but this story is really short, so there just isn't time fore much development or depth - but we do get a sex scene and a forever love in just three elapse hours. The beginning of the story put me off a bit- since it starts straight off with a FU and there is a fair amount 'man part' references in the first few pages - succubuses (succubi?) are very fond of them. I can handle some language (F bombs and male body parts don't bug me much) but too much seems just like a lazy way of making characters edgy, still it was free so I stuck it out and about of a third of the way through the favorite word switched to 'lava', so I made it through.

And for what Vortex Blues was - a light short free read - it ended up being pretty good, and I am thinking that if it had been longer with lots more sex it might not have worked for me anyway since I am not really an erotic reader and Tina Gerow also writes erotic romances for Aphrodisia as Cassie Ryan. And now I have my 'V' title for my 2012 A-Z reading challenge:)