It pleases me to have guest author, CARRIE CRAIN, author of wacky tween novel, THE
ADVENTURES OF AUSTIN GIRL AND THE LEGEND OF DIABLO. She is going to give you a little background on the characters.
Austin Girl, a dispirited teenager, discovers a magic Samurai
sword, leading her on a journey to Planet Disco to save her kidnapped Grandpa
from the nefarious Diablo, and return to Earth before she becomes a permanent
guest.
Character
Bios
1.
Austin Girl – Thirteen-year-old
going on fourteen who lives in Checkered Past, Texas (a fictitious one-horse
town) with no Sonic. She is curious, stubborn, and precocious. Austin Girl is
enamored with the history and legend behind antiques. Also, she has vertigo and
despises disco and the ‘70s. She uses the words: golly gosh, goodness,
freakizoid, or yucky.
2.
Diablo – A
self-centered dork. He’s believed to be around six-thousand-years-old but looks
to be eighteen. He has a quick temper and worships his Chevy Pie Wagon.
3.
Grandpa Lucky – Lucky has an eye for the rare and hard to find. He could sniff out
valuable antiques just by employing his sixth sense.
4.
Skinny – Is a
descendant of the Samurai elite family called Pang Chow. He works part-time in
the summer and weekends at the Slice and Dice sushi restaurant. He’s a hipster
who wears scarves and TOMS.
5.
Madame Ursa –
aka Tabby. She’s Diablo’s klutzy First Lieutenant and hates being alone. She
wears pink hair and purple thigh-high boots. Also, she’s allergic to cats.
6.
Harold – He’s
from Planet Halo. He wears a Northface vest and carries a backpack. Harold is
smitten with Austin Girl.
7.
Jewel – She has
sandstorm hair and wears a bright yellow rain slicker and lots and lots of
bracelets. She’s a little bit Texas and little bit Cajun who drags the
syllables of her words. Jewel and Austin Girl are close friends who are in the
same grade at Checkered Past High School. She complains often chews bubble gum
to overcome her nervousness.
8.
Alley the Cat –
An insanely fat cat. She’s fluffy and white and protects Austin Girl from
bullies. I originally named her Allergy (get it?) but my husband thought
“Allergy” was too goofy and made me change it.
9.
Star the
Starfish – She is the size of a Volkswagen Bug. She wears braces and has five
violet eyes with thick purple lashes. She’s from Planet Halo and is Harold’s
warm-hearted side-kick.
10. The Geisha – She owns the Slice and Dice and is
Asian. Extremely helpful and wise.
11. Mrs. Mary Lou Wisdom – Old fossil who owns a western
boot store in Checkered Past. She crushes on Grandpa Lucky and is a nosey busy
body.
12. Disco Cat Pink – Pink is actually blonde. Originally
from Panama, she had once worked on a banana boat during the Korean War…that
was until her fatal accident with a banana and a hungry monkey. Pink got her
name because she lost both pinkies with the psycho banana boat monkey. Diablo
crushes on Pink. Pink loathes Diablo and cannot be trusted.
13. Disco Cat Napoleon – She is a Caribbean Lilliputian
who swallows her R’s and eliminates certain vowels when she speaks. She tried
too hard to please everyone.
14. Disco Cat Siamese – She speaks in a fake British
accent. Siamese isn’t really British. She is Vietnamese, but spent time living
in London as a manicurist until her unfortunate demise with a hot wax body
machine. A space cadet, she offers zero answers as to why nothing works.
15. Sheriff Shulte – He’s a local law enforcement officer
who has known Austin Girl and Grandpa Lucky for many years. He is a local Texas
boy in his thirties with southern hospitality.
16. The Hovels – Terrorizing piranha-like creatures who
smell and steal.
17. Sharkman – A know-it-all shark who is part man. He
wears a bow tie and doesn’t respect Diablo.
18. Bullies in Honda – Jealous boys from Austin Girl’s
rival high school, Saint X. They are bored preppies who pick on Austin Girl
because it gives them pleasure.
19. THE OSA – Outer Space Authority (Introducing in Book
2)
20. Austin Girl’s Mom (Introducing in Book 2)
21. Bob (Introducing in Book 2)
*The Disco Cats
are half female/half cats who had lived on Earth as humans, but now reside on
Planet Disco. Confusing? Sure. Bad luck? Sure. This is a wacky story. So, pay
attention.
Make sure you stick around
and comment. Follow @CarrieCrain and @LegendofDiablo for double the chances.
We’ll be giving away a copy of THE ADVENTURES OF AUSTIN GIRL AND THE LEGEND OF
DIABLO either in paperback or e-book (winner’s choice)
Awesome Carrie! Here is an excerpt of The Adventures of Austin Girl And The Legend of Diablo.
The sound of a backfire rattled store windows on the downtown street as Lucky Stevens parked his piece of hippy junk on the East side of Lucky’s Antiques located at 13 Concho Avenue. He drove a flower power Volkswagen bus. The bus was one of those rare 23 windowed jobs with curtains—a residence on wheels.
Straightening his suspenders, he stepped out into the dusty landscape, newspaper in hand. He moseyed past a 1960 black Chevy Pie Wagon parked up ahead, admiring the car. The hot rod was decked out custom style with red and orange flames painted horizontally across the sides and hood. He tipped his beaver Stetson hat to the female driver and grinned handsomely. The pink-haired woman was preoccupied with talking to a Magic 8 Ball and didn’t notice the fifty-year-old cowboy.
Scratching his chin, he leisurely strolled up to a period oak and stained glass door. He reached in his Wrangler jeans front pocket and extracted a set of keys. He put the key in the lock and opened the door to a familiar sight. His antique store was housed in a red brick building in Checkered Past, Texas. He could sniff out valuable antiques just by employing his sixth sense.
Lucky adjusted his string tie that matched his belt that matched his ostrich quill boots. He was in love with ‘vintage everything’ including his clothes and gentleman accouterments. Ambling through the door, he removed his Panama Jack sunglasses. His gait was deliberate, like a sore racehorse. Bells jingled like rowels on a spur letting out the sounds of commerce. Lucky may have been a little deaf, but he wasn’t so deaf that he couldn’t hear money jingle in the pockets of those who entered into his world.
Lucky flipped on the lights and made a silly face at the store’s security camera. Lucky laid his morning Austin American-Statesman newspaper down on the cracked countertop beside the turn of the century cash register, and looked at the time on his 40 year-old Rolex he’d won in a bidding war at an estate sale of one of Lyndon Johnson’s cousins so many years ago. It was still early for shoppers, just a little half past seven a.m. on Friday. A set of white pine plank stairs off to the side began to creak. They led to the attic. Lucky housed antiques there that were part of his private collection, including one secret item in particular that oddly wasn't for sale.
He ditched his attention to the paper and walked over to the bottom of the stairs, looking up into the darkness. “Skinny, you up there?” Lucky hollered sharply. His young stock boy didn’t answer. Shrugging, he turned around to walk off. A thump on his noggin sent Lucky crashing to the hardwood floor. His Stetson flew off of his gray haired head and skidded across the floor like ice on marble. Staggering to his feet, he rubbed the back of his head. “What the—?”
You can buy The Adventures of Austin Girl And The Legend of Diablo:
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Print
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords
Meet Carrie Crain!
Carrie Crain is an author
of quirky comedies, adventurous romance and erotic horror including her Nov
2012 tween novel debut, THE ADVENTURES OF AUSTIN GIRL AND THE LEGEND OF DIABLO,
and her 2013 erotic horror release, THE CONTRACT. Carrie received her bachelor
of arts in Sociology from the University of Oklahoma and studied graduate-level
screenwriting and creative writing in fiction at UCLA. When she is not writing,
she is either painting, picking up dog poo, playing golf or writing lame jokes
while drinking red wine.
You can find Carrie at:
Website
Goodreads
Fun and quirky cover!
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