Huntsmen By Michelle Osgood
Summary
Months after saving Jamie and Deanna from crywolf, Kiara and her brother Cole have moved into the city. While clubbing one night, Kiara is stunned to see her ex, Taryn, onstage. But before she can react, Jamie notices a distinctive tattoo in the crowd: an axe rumored to be the mark of the Huntsmen, a group of werewolf-tracking humans. The girls need to leave immediately—and since Taryn is also a werewolf, they need to take her with them.
The Huntsmen are more than a myth, and they’re scouring the city for lone wolves just like Taryn. Until the General North American Assembly of Werewolves lends a plan of action, Kiara’s small pack is on lockdown in a friend’s apartment, where she and Taryn must face the differences that drove them apart. Furthermore, the longer the group waits, the more it seems the Huntsmen haven’t been acting entirely on their own.
Excerpt
The hallway was eerily quiet. At this time of day Kiara’d expected at least a few people headed off to work. They rode the elevator in silence down to the garage level. She was taking Nathan’s car, something she knew he wouldn’t thank her for, but the car keys had been on the same keychain as the house keys, and it had seemed too perfect to resist. Besides, once they got far enough away she’d dump it and find something else.
For the first time since that night at Kings of Hearts, there was no tension between her and Ryn. The silence as the elevator moved could have been awkward, but their shared purpose burned away any discomfort. Kiara felt herself falling back in sync with Ryn. A part of her worried at the ease of it. Would it be as easy to pull back if—when—she had to? But she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. For now, she had one goal, and that was to get Ryn as far from the Huntsmen and GNAAW as she could.
The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out into the empty lobby. The parkade was through another door, where the pop of lime-green glowed bright in the concrete lobby, and Kiara pushed through it. She jogged down the few stairs before she stepped out into the parkade. “Nathan has a Mazda3 hatchback,” Kiara said. “I don’t know where he parks it, but—”
“Kiara.” Ryn’s voice was sharp. Kiara froze, all her senses suddenly on alert. They weren’t alone.
Character Bio
Today we’re visiting with Michelle Osgood, author of Huntsmen. Hi Michelle, and thanks! Tell us a little about yourself, your background, and your current book.
Hi! Thank you for having me. I’m a queer romance writer from Vancouver, BC. My first novel, The Better to Kiss You With, was a F/F paranormal romance published by Interlude Press in 2016. Huntsmen, the next book in the series, is a F/NB romance with a bit more of an urban fantasy feel, and follows Kiara, the Alpha-designate of her werewolf pack as she’s forced into hiding with her genderqueer ex-lover, Ryn.
As a teenager I was obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. I thought my love of Kiera Knightly’s Elizabeth Swan and Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner was because I wanted to be Elizabeth and be with Will. But… that didn’t exactly explain why I was fixated on them both so strongly, and in such similar ways. Surprise! Turns out I am attracted to multiple genders. And polyamorous. I wanted to be with both of them!
Understanding my attraction to those two was a fairly recent revelation (if you realize you’re queer in your 20s, everything before then becomes foreshadowing), but I followed their careers for a number of years – and still do. They say you never forget your first love(s) 😉
Sandra Oh is another actor I adore. Cristina Yang is one of my all-time favorite Grey’s Anatomy characters, as one of my favorite characters from any show. I loved Cristina Yang’s ambition and independence, and the way Sandra Oh portrayed her with such dignity and fierceness, as well as giving respect to Cristina’s softer side. I’ll happily watch Sandra Oh in anything, and will quietly, desperately hope that one day she’ll return to Grey’s and get a scene with Meridith.
And, from anyone who knows me from my fandom days, I’m a huge fan of Dylan O’Brien, and Jensen Ackles. Both actors breathed so much life into their characters, Stiles from Teen Wolf and Dean from Supernatural, respectively. Stiles and Dean are characters who appear flippant and even careless on the surface, but underneath carry a great deal of responsibility and are very, very controlled. I love it when actors are able to give nuance into the roles they play, and can demonstrate so much with their actions and facial expressions. While script writers obviously do so much to create characters, there are some actors who seem to truly embody the soul of the characters they play, and turn them into so much more than words on a page.
And a final shout-out to Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black, who is beyond incredible. Her ability to embody over a dozen different, distinct characters, is unreal. She’s also Canadian! As is Sandra Oh, I’ll point out 😉 I was lucky enough to see Tatiana speak at the Vancouver International Film Festival late last year, where she was promoting her film The Other Half, which is a beautiful, heartbreaking look at a relationship between two broken people who find themselves in each other. I would watch Tatiana in anything.
About the Author
Michelle Osgood writes queer, feminist romance from her tiny apartment in Vancouver, BC. She loves stories in all media, especially those created by Shonda Rhimes, and dreams of one day owning a wine cellar to rival Olivia Pope’s. She is active in Vancouver’s poly and LGBTQ communities, never turns down a debate about pop culture, and is trying to learn how to cook. Her first novel, The Better to Kiss You With, was published by Interlude Press in 2016.
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Huntsmen is available from Interlude Press on April 13, 2017. Connect with author Michelle Osgood at michelleosgood.com; on Twitter @osgoodmichelle; and on Facebook at facebook.com/osgoodmichelle.
Purchase Links:
Interlude Press: https://store.interludepress.com/collections/huntsmen-by-michelle-osgood
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2p7jyU0
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/huntsmen-michelle-osgood/1125707920?ean=9781945053191
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/huntsmen/id1209244488?mt=11
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/huntsmen
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/702368
Book Depository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Huntsmen-Michelle-Osgood/9781945053191?ref=grid-view&qid=1491523998912&sr=1-2
Indiebound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781945053191&aff=interldepress
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