Guest Post | How to Hook a Vampire by Holly Day

Hello, everyone! I’m here as Holly today 😁 A few days ago, How to Hook a Vampire was released. I wrote it to celebrate National Go Fishing Day which is observed on June 18th. 

It isn’t so much about fishing as it is about Jameson being on the run and hiding in his uncle’s fishing cabin. The problem is that there already is someone living in the cabin. A slightly grumpy vampire named Harland.

What’s interesting with Jameson is that he can tell if you’re telling the truth or not, but only if you answer a question. He can’t listen to a conversation and know if someone is lying or not, only when they’re given a direct answer to a question. And he’s always trusting the wrong people.

All his life, he’s tried to hide what he is, but he’s starting to question if it’s the right decision. 

Harland has a job to do. He doesn’t have time to babysit his boss’ nephew. Or so he thought. He soon realises the case he’s working on is connected to Jameson. 

Vampires go missing, psychics are endangered, and someone they know is betraying them.

How to Hook a Vampire

A vampire on guard. A psychic on the run. A cabin with one bed. 

Jameson Whitlock trusted the wrong person. Again. As a walking lie detector, he should be able to tell when he’s being played, but so far, he hasn’t had the best of luck. After yet another kidnapping attempt, he leaves town in a hurry and runs to his uncle’s fishing cabin to hide. 

Harland Duke comes back after having fed only to find a light on in the cabin. Had he known there would be takeout, he wouldn’t have bothered to go into town. 

No one is happier than Harland that he didn’t snack on the man sleeping in his bed when it turns out he’s his boss’ nephew. Jameson isn’t pleased with having to share the cabin with a vampire, but it’s not safe to return home yet. To pass the time, he spends his days fishing, but what’s easiest to catch — a fish or a vampire? 

Buy links: 

Gay paranormal romance: 34,072 words 

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/HowToHookAVampire 

Excerpt:

Harland took in the horrified expression and frowned. He should snap a picture and send it to Frank to make sure it was Jameson and not someone else with tattoos and missing fingers. The world was crawling with yakuza and yakuza wannabes, so how could he be sure it was his nephew? Would Frank’s nephew object to bombs? Okay, Frank objected all the time, but it was more out of a clean-up angle than anything else.

 “Are you yakuza?”

“Yubisume is when you cut your pinkie off.” Jameson waved his left hand, which was missing the top of his long finger, severed at the first joint. Damn. “Members of the yakuza also tend to be a bit more Japanese than I am.”

Harland considered him. He didn’t look anything like Frank, who was tall, broad, and fair-haired, but maybe there was Japanese blood running in his veins. “I’m sure they accept non-Japanese people on occasion.”

“I doubt it.” Jameson squinted at him. “What’s your name?”

“Harland.”

“Nice chatting with you, Harland, but I think I’ll get going now.”

Nope, Harland had to keep him here, which was why he’d removed the spark plugs from his car. It had taken several YouTube videos, and now he knew more about cars than he’d ever wanted to. “I’m afraid you have to stay.”

Jameson glared at him. “I can go if I want to, and you can’t stop me.”

“We both know that’s a lie.” Harland could stop him. He was much stronger than a human, and all he had to do was tie him to a chair or something to make sure he stayed put.

Something close to panic blossomed in Jameson’s eyes, and Harland considered his words. They hadn’t been threatening, more informative.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, you’re not.”

Jameson drummed his fingers, the few he had, on the tabletop and watched him. “I am.” He got to his feet, and Harland moved to stand in the doorway, keeping him in the kitchen.

The gasp told him he’d moved so fast, Jameson hadn’t perceived it. He’d often wondered if Frank was human or not. He smelled human, but who worked with supernaturals if they were human? He wasn’t a vampire, though Harland suspected he consumed vampire blood, and he wasn’t a shifter, but there were other possibilities. Not many, but there were psychics. They were rare, rarer than shifters and vamps. Judging by Jameson’s reaction, they were human. But maybe psychics had human senses? He’d never spent much time with one.

On the few occasions he’d talked to a psychic, they had been hired to help on a case. It was how most psychics worked. They offered their services at an hourly rate, which didn’t leave much room for chitchat.

Jameson took a step back. “What are you doing?”

“Preventing you from leaving.”

“You can’t. I’m not your prisoner.”

Hmm. “No, not exactly.”

He took a deep breath and looked into Harland’s eyes. Not afraid of mind control. Vampires couldn’t control minds like they could in the movies, but they could make themselves look unmemorable and give small mental nudges. It was never about controlling minds, though. If a person didn’t want to go right, they wouldn’t simply because Harland willed them to, but if they hesitated and he pushed them toward the right, they would. And the whole having to look into someone’s eyes to influence them was a lie, but most humans didn’t know. But then again, most humans never guessed he was a vampire, either. Jameson had taken one look at him and called him a bloodsucker.

“Are you going to stop me if I try to leave?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Harland kept his face blank. It wasn’t a lie. He’d already done things to keep him here, but would he physically restrain him? He hadn’t made up his mind yet.

Jameson took another step away, moving toward the counter. Harland scanned the surface. There were no weapons. He’d had a knife when he’d entered the kitchen, but Harland didn’t fear it. He could move fast enough to avoid a knife.

“I’m free to leave when I want, and I want to leave.”

Harland tried to remember exactly what Frank had said. Keep him alive. “I’m to keep you alive until things have settled, and I can’t go outside right now, which means we’re not leaving.”

Jameson groaned. “I didn’t come here to get a babysitter. I came to rest. Had I known you were here, I wouldn’t have.”

Babysitter. How dare he? “Listen here, punk—”

“Punk? Punk!” Jameson kicked the table, not hard enough for it to topple over, but enough for everything on top of it to slide toward the edge. Harland rushed forward, and as he did, Jameson unhooked the latch on the window and pushed it open.

Harland froze. He’d opened the window. Sunshine.

Jameson grinned. “I’ll leave now, okay?”

“No. And it’s not okay.”

“Maybe not, but you stay there, I’ll hop out—” He jumped, so he sat on the counter bathed in sunshine. “—and I’ll close the window after, so you’re safe. You can latch it afterward, right?”

He could. As long as the sunshine was cut off by something he was fine. “Yes.”

“Good. Nice meeting you, Harland. Tell Frank thanks for the bed.” He turned around on the counter and pushed his feet out the open window before jumping. Then he closed the window and waved.

Harland sighed and grabbed his phone.

One signal rang through. “Frank.”

“How’s it going?”

Silence followed. “What happened?”

Harland grimaced. “He jumped out the window, but I’ve taken the spark plugs from his car, so he won’t get far.”

Frank cursed. “I didn’t mean to keep him by force.”

Oh… “Why didn’t you say so then?”

“I haven’t found anything. Nothing specific. There was a guy stabbed by the river, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Jameson. One man was admitted to the hospital, beaten badly in a motel, and is in a coma. A woman was raped in an ally—not connected to Jameson unless he tried to prevent it and got in a fight with the perpetrator. From the supernatural channels, I have two missing vampires, which is bad since it makes five missing vampires in only seven days.”

Harland cursed.

“And we have a bear shifter gutted outside The Night Owl, but it looks to be made by claws, so most likely another shifter.”

The Night Owl was a nightclub for supernaturals. Humans could get in if they had a written invitation, which Frank had. They’d met there several times to talk business. It was open around the clock and served both food and drinks.

“His knuckles are bruised.”

Frank hummed. “He’s not a violent person, though I don’t know what he’ll do when cornered.”

“Jump out the window.”

“Yes, he’s more likely to run than to fight, but given his past, I imagine he’ll fight before he allows anyone to take him anywhere.”

“What happened?” Harland shouldn’t care, but he was curious. How did someone end up missing fingers? He could think of a few ways, but he wasn’t sure any of his made-up scenarios fit Jameson. He didn’t know him, though.

He’d stayed away from his blood instead of trying to get to it. He hadn’t believed him when he’d said he needed a Band-Aid. And he made sure to keep distance between them at all times, preferably having the table between them.

“You fucker!” Jameson stomped into the kitchen. “You fiddled with my car.”

Frank chuckled on the other end. “I’ll let you get back to that, Harland. On second thought, don’t allow him to leave. At least not until we know what’s going on.”

About Holly Day 

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.  

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.  

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