BOOK TOUR: Fairview Chronicles by Alexa Piper (Excerpt & Giveaway)

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 1

by Alexa Piper

Genre: M/F & M/M Paranormal Romance, Mystery, RomCom

 

 

 

Somehow after dropping out of college, Cora’s life has become one part Dresden Files, one part Buffy. She thought she was heading for a boring, uneventful future. Instead she tumbles into the supernatural underbelly of Fairview as a PI’s freshly minted assistant. Will she manage to tame the not-so-vampiric lover who has her on his radar?

 

Valerian enjoys his life eating the greed of humanity. When he stumbles into Cora, he happens to find her quite the delectable morsel. He wants to savor her fully and introduce her to the paranormal world she’s never known about before. There are annoying creatures to overcome before Valerian can have his way with her. But nothing will keep him from making Cora his.

 

Content warning: There is brief mention of depression and suicidal thoughts in Cora’s story, but those thoughts are not acted upon.

 

 

 

A deceptively warm January had the city of Fairview fully in its grip. It showed in the way a blue sky haloed all the buildings, in how the parks were dressed in budding green and visited by winter-sick people of all ages, and showed in how even the ocean that was always nipping at the harbor seemed to bring warmth on its waves.

 

The entire scene clashed with Cora’s feelings of dejection and uselessness. Her interview with the Fairview Chronicle editor had gone fine — gone fine until the editor thanked her for coming in and told her she wasn’t right for the position.

 

How did I manage to screw that up? she wondered.

 

She had walked out of the Chronicle building without really knowing where she was going. She was in shock, obviously. She should have just headed back to the subway, should have taken the silver line and gone back home where she could cry in private and consider the best way to approach her parents with the news, but her head had needed clearing, and her feet had just kept on walking. Now, she had no idea where she was or what she was doing there, which more or less summed up the entirety of her life.
Shit, she thought. Which summed up everything even more concisely.
She stopped at a traffic light. Traffic was slow as it always was at rush hour, so when she considered throwing herself in front of a car, it was rather more sarcasm than defeatism. As the light turned green again, she walked to the other side of the road just like everyone else around her. Except all of them are high on the smell of spring air, she thought. And all of them have things to go toward, goals, milestones. After another ten or so steps, she came to a coffee shop, the Queene Bean Fine Coffees & Artisanal Honeys.

 

Their logo was a coffee bean with wings, framed by a hexagon.
Might as well blow my last money on some java, not that it matters much at this point. I’ll probably have to move back in with my parents. She put her right hand on the door, pushed, and entered.

 

Some adventures always start with walking through a door and not knowing what lies behind it. Cora’s adventure was one of those.

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 3

 

 

 

The son of the Lord of Hell, Lark, is engaged to a demon whom he does not love. He escapes hell, his father, and his fiancé. His flight takes him to the human plane, where he finds himself summoned by Chris, former lawyer and current accountant of St. John Investigations.

 

Chris really just wanted to learn about demonic math when he decided to summon one of the denizens of hell, but confronted with Lark, he decides getting the beautiful demon into his bed is far more appealing than accounting.

 

But Lark’s escape from hell does not go unnoticed, and soon the Lord of Hell himself arrives in Fairview to take his son back to the altar. Three wicked witches also come to the city looking for a love that was dragged to hell. It might just be one magical desk that holds the key to everyone’s happiness and happily-ever-after.

 

 

 

Chris was waiting at a crossroads for the moon to reach its zenith. It was a nice night for summoning, or at the very least, it was a nice night, warm with spring, and quiet, perfectly cloudless. Chris didn’t really know what was good for summoning as he had never ever done such a thing before, unless calling forth a witness to the witness stand qualified.

 

Chris brushed chalk from his hands and looked at the design he had drawn onto the concrete. The circle had needed some adjusting — a manhole had interrupted the pattern, and in the end he had moved it just a bit, hoping that it was still close enough to where the roads intersected to get the summoning done.

 

The Vineyard was very cozy for calling a demon, Chris thought. He had considered finding an abandoned spot at the docks, but it turned out rich people didn’t hang out in the streets much after dark. Instead, the streets were very empty, and because it was the Vineyard, they were very clean, made scenic by walled-in or fenced-off front yards, some of which sported a fountain or a pond. All the hedges in the Vineyard were well-trimmed.
Chris liked rich people, and not just for their skill — or their gardeners’ skills — with trimming greenery. He was himself not exactly poor, but he didn’t care much for money. He enjoyed taking care of it, though. He enjoyed accounting, because seeing things balanced just so always flooded Chris with a deep sense of happiness.

 

Thinking that demons should be the best accountants between this world and the one that was called the In-Between was exciting. Chris hoped they did trainings. He would love to learn a thing or two about demonic math or hellish arithmetic.

 

The moon was almost where he needed it to be, and so Chris pulled out the piece of paper he had found tucked way back in a drawer of Cora’s desk. He had not even noticed that drawer when he’d first taken over for Cora while she and Valerian were in China, but it had certainly been there when he’d opened it to clean and organize it.

 

He cleared his throat. “I summon thee like dying night summons morning’s first breath, come anon, Lark, demon of demon borne, demon birthed by witch, meet me at moon’s apex where roads cut crosses in the earth, where paths meet and diverge. I call thee. Come.”

 

Chris looked around. The Vineyard was still quiet. Nothing stirred. A fountain twinkled happily behind a ruler-straight hedge. “Too bad. A demon would’ve been fun,” Chris said and stuffed the paper back into his jacket pocket. He looked at the circle, chalked just like one of Rafe’s books had said to chalk a demon-summoning circle. Chris wondered what the residents would make of it. Perhaps he should leave some of Rafe’s cards in a few mailboxes nearby. It might get them a concerned client who wanted a PI to make sure the neighbors were not Satanists.

 

Before Chris could take a step away from the chalk circle and toward a mailbox, the air stirred and began to sizzle with electricity. A scent of earth and mulch permeated everything, and rumbling thunder rolled through the cloudless climes. In the circle, someone took shape.

 

“Wow,” Chris said. He had summoned a demon, he really had. Had Cora been there — or Valerian for that matter — he’d have high-fived them. “Life’s good.” He had another thing to scratch off the old bucket list.

 

“The human plane!” the demon said when he had become fully corporeal. He stood in the center of the circle and looked around with bright blue eyes. His raven hair appeared feathery soft. Fuck. Are demons supposed to look this good? I hope this one isn’t taken. The demon looked at Chris. “You summoned me. Thank you, I am in your debt. My name is Lark. What’s yours?”

 

Chris looked the demon up and down. I hope this hell creature is open to doing a bit more than just going over the books and the math. Quite a bit more. “I’m Chris. Your clothes are muddy.”

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 4

 

 

 

 

Cora, who has newly discovered she is a powerful mage, and her boyfriend and most notorious antihero and soul-eating greed-demon Valerian, travel to China, where Cora is supposed to learn everything there is to learn about being a mage.

 

Yet they have barely set foot on the ground when they attract unwanted attention. Jirou, fleeing from family obligations, is reeled in by the looks of the pretty couple. Bastien has much darker intentions: a long-held grudge against Valerian makes him want to steal Cora and make her his.

 

Figuring out why they have suddenly become a target halfway around the world leaves Cora and Valerian to discover all the strangeness of Beijing in this fast-paced tale of creatures, mages, and magic.

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 5

 

 

 

Cora has become a potent mage while away in China, but upon returning to her job as a PI’s assistant, she finds things have changed quite a bit. Her best friend has become engaged to a demon he summoned, her boss is taking a trip, and her favorite barista is one of the magical denizens of Fairview.

 

Valerian is just about ready to let life get comfortable around him. With his mage girlfriend Cora and their pretty and impressionable lover around him, that shouldn’t be a problem. But when Cora tells him she doesn’t love him and never did, comfort is the furthest thing from his mind.

 

Will Fairview’s premier private investigator’s office ever be the same with the accountant marrying a demon? Will a trickster’s games ruin the happy reunion several people are looking forward to? And most importantly, will the desk ever be satisfied? The Fairview gang is ready to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fairview Chronicles Book 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like any hunter, Eris enjoyed perching. He was doing it — perching on a fire escape — and watching the alpha bitch below who’d snatched his heart in her werewolf claws. Eris held his bow loosely in his hand as Lindsey, all serious Fairview Police detective with her tight ponytail, took in the corpse. It was a nice, distracting corpse, which made it even easier for Eris to remain unseen.

 

“The fuckery,” Lindsey was saying. It was quite some fuckery indeed. Not that the sight of a torn ribcage particularly troubled Eris, nor the sight of a Dumpster and a good chunk of the sidewalk decorated with guts. But he could agree with Lindsey’s judgment. It is probably wise to get used to agreeing with her. She will expect it, once I woo her, Eris thought. Of course, Eris had dated a hellhound before, like most archers, but a werewolf alpha was a different kind of fletching altogether. I think I might be looking forward to agreeing with her, Eris thought.

 

A pigeon landed next to Eris, interrupting the newly found agreeable state of the archer’s mind. The pigeon’s pink claws curled around the iron banister, and he looked at the archer with hungry bird eyes and made a pigeon noise while the alpha bitch discussed the bloody fuckery with the medical examiner who was poking and prodding the corpse.

 

“I don’t have any food,” Eris told the pigeon.

 

The pigeon stared with his beady eyes and cooed.

 

“Seriously. I don’t. Go away. I’m perching here.” Eris shifted a bit and adjusted his grip on his bow.

 

The pigeon did not move. Eris’s bow hand was beginning to feel the tingling need for an arrow, no matter how scrawny the pigeon’s feathery ass was.

 

“Go. Away.” He was being nice, wasn’t he? Surely even a Fairview pigeon could appreciate that.

 

The pigeon was being stubborn, however. Down below, Lindsey was cursing some more before she told the medical examiner to let her know the moment the autopsy was done. Then, the alpha bitch pulled out her phone.

 

“You know, I don’t hate pigeons, but your kind really shouldn’t be all this territorial,” Eris said.

 

The pigeon cooed.

 

“Fucks and feathers,” the archer said. Below, Lindsey ended the call and walked away from the fuckery. “Looks like I’m getting coffee. So long, pigeon.”

 

Eris, rather than descending, went up. Archers like him had an easy way when it came to high ground, and their kind rarely fell, if ever. And Eris felt pretty sure he knew where Lindsey was headed.

 

The pigeon stared after him. Then, his territory successfully defended, he cooed once more.

 

 

 

 

 

Alexa Piper writes steamy romance that ranges from light to dark, from straight to queer. She’s also a coffee addict. Alexa loves writing stories that make her readers laugh and fall in love with the characters in them. Connect with Alexa on Facebook or Instagram, follow her on Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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