Interview, Excerpt & Giveaway ~ THE UNLIKEABLE DEMON HUNTER: NAVA KATZ by Deborah Wilde

The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz, #1)

by: Deborah Wilde

Series: Nava Katz

Genre: Urban Fantasy Romance

Release Date: April 18, 2017

Publisher: Te Da Media

Amazon | Goodreads

Bridesmaids meets Buffy with a dash of the seven deadly sins.

The age-old story of what happens when a foul-mouthed, romance impaired heroine with no edit button and a predilection for hot sex is faced with her worst nightmare–a purpose.

Ari Katz is intelligent, driven, and will make an excellent demon hunter once initiated into the Brotherhood of David. However, this book is about his twin Nava: a smart-ass, self-cultivated hot mess, who is thrilled her brother is stuck with all the chosen one crap.

When Nava half-drunkenly interrupts Ari’s induction ceremony, she expects to be chastised. What she doesn’t expect is to take her brother’s place among the–until now–all-male demon hunters. Even worse? Her infuriating leader is former rock star Rohan Mitra.

Too bad Rohan’s exactly what Nava’s always wanted: the perfect bad boy fling with no strings attached, because he may also be the one to bring down her carefully erected emotional shields. That’s as dangerous as all the evil fiends vying for the bragging rights of killing the only female ever chosen for Demon Club.

Odds of survival: eh.

Odds of having a very good time with Rohan before she bites it: much better.

Hi Deborah.  Welcome to Read Your Writes Book Reviews.  How are you?

I’m great. Thank you so much for having me!

No problem.  Congratulations on your upcoming release, The Unlikeable Demon Hunter, Nava Katz.  What can you tell me about this book and The Unlikeable Demon Hunter series itself?

It’s age-old story of what happens when a foul-mouthed, romance impaired heroine with no edit button and a predilection for hot sex is faced with her worst nightmare–a purpose. I describe it as Bridesmaids meets Buffy with a dash of the seven deadly sins.

The story idea came about because I’d been thinking a lot about what makes a female character “likeable” and why certain traits that seem to be so accepted for male characters are held against women, for example, their level of sexual engagement. Even in fiction, there seems to be a double standard that women are held to. Out of that, my opening scene just popped into my head fully formed. The trick then became, how do I take this idea and create a fully realized, three dimensional character? What does she believe in? What does she stand for? What journey do I want to take her on?

Tell me about the Brotherhood of David and what is its purpose exactly?

The Brotherhood of David is a secret, all-male, demon hunting society. Identified as one of the chosen at birth, Ari Katz has been trained his entire life for the day that he’ll be formally inducted into the society and receive his magic powers. Except when that day comes it turns out that oops! They’ve been training the wrong twin the entire time and that his sister Nava is actually the chosen. So it turns out that what they’d decreed as a rule was really just a sexist tradition. This came out of my own issues, being Jewish, with the prayer that religious Jewish men say thanking God for not making them a woman. The Brotherhood’s purpose is to kill demons and fight the good fight but was we’ll learn over the series, nothing is as black and white as it seems.

Oh wow.  Tell me about the Katz twins, Ari and Nava.  I’m under the impression that Ari is reserved and takes things seriously, while Nava is just “let’s see how far I can push things”.

For Ari, that was the case until his induction ceremony went so horribly wrong. You’re going to see a darker side to him over the books. Yes, that attitude is true for Nava, but it’s born out of her flawed way of coping with some real disappointments in her life. She’s erected all these emotional shields and my job, and a lot of the fun, is going to be blowing them up, one by one as the series progresses.

From the blurb, Nava sounds like a handful.  Who had control of writing the book, you or her?

*grin* We wrestled for the wheel but in the end, I got the driver’s seat.

That had to be quite a struggle.  What do you think makes Nava and Rohan perfect for each other?

It’s the “you complete me” trope, or, to look at it another way, thematically, they are both dealing with the same issue. Both of them are damaged and the only way to handle that was to take control of their lives in extreme ways. For Nava, that’s her shock and awe strategy, and for Rohan, I feel like he thinks three moves ahead at all times and plays things close to his chest.

What’s next for you?

It’s all about the next books in this series with the first three coming out this year, though I have my sixth YA romantic comedy (which I write under the name Tellulah Darling) coming out later this year. Think Romancing the Stone meets Romeo and Juliet but with 100% less body count.

Deborah, thank you for taking the time to answer some questions for me.

My pleasure! These were excellent questions. (smile)

Mornings after sucked.

Walks of shame were a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed shimmying back into the same trollop togs twice. I picked glitter out of my hair, then straightened my sequined top. I was officially decommissioning it. Multiple washings never quite managed to remove the lingering aura of bad decisions I made while wearing party clothes. My philosophy? Cross my fingers and hope for the most bang for the bucks spent later on new outfits.

The surly cabbie evil-eyed me to hurry up.

I complied, rooting around in my clutch for some crumpled bills before handing them over and stumbling out of the taxi onto the sidewalk.

Fresh air was a godsend after the stale bitter coffee smell I’d been trapped with during the ride. I pressed a finger to my temple, a persistent dull throb stabbing me behind my eyeballs. My residual feel good haze clashed big-time with the glaring sun screaming at me to wake up, and the buzz of a neighbor’s lawnmower cutting through the Sunday morning quiet didn’t help matters. Best get inside.

Smoothing out my mini skirt, I readied myself for my tame-my-happy-slut-self-to-boring-PG-rating body check when a wave of dizziness crashed through me. Whoa. I brought my gaze back to horizon level, swallowing hard. That sea-sickness technique was doing dick-all so I rummaged in my bag for my ginger chews.

No puking in the bushes, I chided myself, letting the spicy smooth and sweet candy fight my nausea. My mother would toss my bubble ass out if I defiled her precious rhodos.

Again.

The rise and fall of my chest as I took a few deep breaths spotlit a slight problem. My spangly blouse was missing two buttons. And I was missing a bra. Hook-up Dude had been worth the loss of a pair of socks, maybe a bargain bin thong. But the latest in purple push-up technology? No. I allowed myself a second to mourn. It had been a good and loyal bra.

The sex, on the other hand? Total crap. The girls, who were normally perky C cups, seemed a bit subdued. I couldn’t blame them. What’s-his-name had started out with all the promise of a wild stallion gallop, but he’d ended up more of a gentle trot. I didn’t know if the fault lay with the jockey or the ride, but it had been a long time since I’d seen a finish line.

Since I couldn’t keep examining my tits on the front walk with Mrs. Jepson side-eyeing me from behind her living room curtains, I thrust my chin up and clacked a staccato rhythm toward my front door on those mini torture chambers that had seemed such a good idea yesterday.

Every step made our precisely manicured lawn undulate. I clamped my lips shut, willing the ginger chews to kick in while fumbling my key into the lock. Dad had screwed up the measurements on our striking cedar and stained glass front door and, being a touch too big for the frame, it needed to be shouldered open.

I crashed into the door like a linebacker. Once I’d extricated myself and my keys from the lock, I brushed myself off, and stepped inside. Our house itself was comfortably upper middle class but not huge, since my parents preferred to spend money on trips and books instead of the overpriced real estate found in here in Vancouver. A quick glance to my left showed that the TV room was empty. I crossed my fingers that Mom and Dad were out at their squash game, my main reason for picking this specific time to sneak back in.

Really, a twenty-year-old shouldn’t have had to sneak. But then again, a twenty-year-old probably should have kept her last menial job for longer than two weeks, so I wasn’t in a position to argue rights.

I kicked off my shoes, sighing in delight at the feel of cool tile under my bare feet as I padded through the house to our homey kitchen. No one was in there either. Someone, probably Mom, had tacked the envelope with my final–and only–pay stub from the call center that I’d left lying around onto our small “miscellaneous” cork board. The gleaming quartz counters were now free of their usual clutter of papers, books, and latest gourmet food find. That meant company. Come to think of it, I did hear someone in the living room.

A study in tasteful shades of white, the large formal room was off-limits unless we had special guests. Mom had set that rule when my twin brother Ari and I were little tornados running around the place and while there was no longer a baby gate baring our way, conditioning and several memorable scoldings kept us out.

Hmmm. Could Ari be entertaining an actual human boy? Le gasp.

I beelined for the back of the house, past the row of identically framed family photos hanging in a neat grid, my head cocked. Listening for more voices, but all was quiet. Maybe I’d been wrong? I hoped not. Both finding my brother with a crush–blackmail dirt–and helping myself to the liquor cabinet were positive prospects. What better way to lose that hangover headache than get drunk again? Oh, the joys of being Canadian with socialized health care and legal drinking age of nineteen. After a year (officially) honing that skill, I imbibed at an Olympic level.

The red wine on the modular coffee table gleamed in a shaft of sunlight like its position had been ordained by the gods. I snatched up the crystal decanter, sloshing the liquid into the glass conveniently placed next to it. Once in a while, a girl could actually catch a break.

I fanned myself with one hand. The myriad of lit candles seemed a bit much for Ari’s romantic encounter, but wine drinking trumped curiosity so I chugged the booze back. My entire body cheered as the cloyingly-sweet alcohol hit my system, though I hoped it wasn’t Manischewitz because hangovers on that were a bitch. I’d slugged back half the contents when I saw my mom on the far side of the room clutch her throat, eyes wide with horror. Not her usual, “you need an intervention” horror. No, her expression indicated I’d reached a whole new level of fuck-up.

“Nava Liron Katz,” she gasped in full name outrage.

My cheeks still bulging with wine, I properly scoped out the room. Mom? Check. Dad? Check. Ari? Check? Rabbi Abrams, here to perform the ceremony to induct my brother as the latest member in the Brotherhood of David, the chosen demon hunters?

Check.

I spit the wine back into what I now realized was a silver chalice and handed it to the elderly bearded rabbi. “Carry on,” I told him. Then I threw up on his shoes.

Purchase The Unlikeable Demon Hunter from:

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A global wanderer, hopeless romantic, and total cynic with a broken edit button, Deborah writes adult urban fantasy to satisfy her love of smexy romances and tales of chicks who kick ass. She is all about the happily-ever-after, with a huge dose of hilarity along the way. “It takes a bad girl to fight evil. Go Wilde.”

Places to find Deborah Wilde:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page

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