The A P Book Club: Month9Books Second Birthday Bash: Ty Drago's The Undertakers:Secret of the Corpse Eater Chapter 1 + GIVEAWAY!

Welcome to Month9Books Birthday Bash! We’re so excited you’re all stopping by!

This is going to be an awesome event with many tour stops featuring our authors! The full schedule is below and make sure to stick around for the EPIC Giveaway taking place!

Here’s a quick note from Georgia McBride, owner of Month9Books!

“Month9Books is turning 2 this year and I could not be happier. We are living proof that if you have a dream to write, create and inspire, you should follow that dream and let nothing keep you from realizing it. Thank you to all the readers, writers, agents, partners and friends who have made this possible. We write for you.

--Georgia McBride, Publisher and Owner of Month9Books”

While all of the posts are from our authors that have books out already we also want to look forward to some of the 2015 titles we can’t wait to share with you!

Here’s a slide show of some our 2015 books!

We have a ton of sequels coming as well as new books from awesome debut authors and we’re so excited to share them all with you! We have something for everyine from every genre from Sci-Fi to Fantasy to Paranormal and Horror!

We have the pleasure of hosting Ty Drago today, author of The Undertakers: Secret of the Corpse Eater! Ty's book came out this past March, and is the third book in the popular The Undertakers series. As part of the celebration, we've got the first chapter of the book for you, and we hope that you love it as much as we do!

About the Book

Title: THE UNDERTAKERS: SECRET OF THE CORPSE EATER

Author: Ty Drago

Release Date: March 25, 2014

Pages: 383

Publisher: Month9Books

Formats: Paperback, eBook

Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble

The Corpses are up to something.

U.S. Senator Lindsay Micha has been kidnapped and replaced with a “dead” ringer, the sister to Lilith Cavanaugh, the Queen of the Dead. Now Will Ritter must go undercover in our nation’s capitol to ferret out the truth and try to stop this ambitious deader. But his mission becomes even more dangerous when he learns of a mysterious ten-legged monster that prowls the halls of the Capitol Building — a lethal monster with a taste for Corpse flesh.

The Undertakers: Secret of the Corpse Eater is book three in the wildly popular The Undertakers series from Ty Drago.

About the Author

In addition to the first two books in UNDERTAKERS series, RISE OF THE CORSPES and QUEEN

OF THE DEAD, Ty Drago is the author of PHOBOS, a Science Fiction whodunit and THE FRANKLIN AFFAIR, an historical/mystery about Benjamin Franklin. His short fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the 2009 anthology YESTERDAY, I WILL …, and he has written articles for WRITERS DIGEST. His first UNDERTAKERS novelette, NIGHT OF MONSTERS, is currently available for FREE on Smashwords.com and barnesandnoble.com.

Website

Chapter 1

A Morning's Stalk

This is my life.

I remember thinking those words as the three of us stood on that South Street rooftop, looking down into the lifeless, upturned faces of hundreds of the walking dead. Many of them were smiling. There‘s nothing worse than a smug Corpse.

They knew, as we knew, that they had us trapped.

Um … I‘d better back up a little.

It started with the poster.

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I read it—memorized it, really—but not because I cared about some Philly tourist trap.

You see, when the target you‘re stalking looks your way, it‘s important to not just appear innocent, but to be innocent. Suddenly, I wasn‘t Will Ritter, Undertaker. Instead, I was just a thirteen-year-old kid in jeans, with my face buried under a hoodie and my attention glued to some random poster slapped onto the window of a closed shop.

So I read the poster. Then I read it again. And again. Until my peripheral vision told me the target had turned away. Only then did I let out the breath I‘d been holding.

If I got caught now, I was dead.

Tracking prey through city streets is hard enough at night, but it‘s way worse in the daytime.

My target moved along South Street, heading east, with me about a half block behind. It was a little before eleven a.m., not a prime stalking hour.

South Street‘s a pretty big deal in Philly. With its clubs and bars and stores, it‘s a major nighttime hot spot. In twelve hours, these sidewalks would be choked with people. There‘d be lights and music and drunken laughter.

But now, blanketed under a gray, April-morning sky, there were few enough shoppers that I‘d be noticed if my tracking got too obvious—and yet too few to use as camouflage.

My target abruptly crossed the street and continued along on the other side. Not exactly hurrying, but with definite purpose.

I crossed the street too. Tracking 101. A newbie might think it better to stay on my side of South and follow catty-corner. Mistake. People look around while they walk. It‘s safer to stay behind them, where you can react fast if they pull what Sharyn Jefferson, co-chief of the Undertakers, calls a ―Crazy Ivan. That‘s when your target pauses without warning and looks back—like mine just did.

I think it‘s a movie reference.

My target stopped. So I stopped too, ready to play innocent again. Then she knocked on the door of Quaker City Comics. I didn‘t know the place.

A few seconds later the door opened and she went in.

A few seconds after that, I peeked through the glass frontage. A sign said the place wouldn‘t open for another ten minutes, which explained why the target had knocked.

It was hard to see much inside: a cashier‘s counter, a little snack shop on the left, and shelves upon shelves of comics. A pretty cool place. I tried to remember the last time I‘d read a comic book—and couldn‘t, though my roommate back at Haven, the Undertakers‘ HQ, kept a bunch of them.

I just had no time for stuff like that anymore: X-Men, Batman, The Avengers, Green Lantern.

My old life.

I spotted my target swapping words with a twenty-something dude dressed all in black and sporting a nose ring. He smiled and pointed toward the rear of the store. She nodded and headed back there, disappearing from view.

I tugged on the door handle.

Locked.

Normally, this wouldn‘t have slowed me down much. I carry a tricked-out pocketknife, which can pretty much pick any lock. But before I could even reach for it, the nose ring guy was there. He yelled, “Not open yet!” Through the glass, his voice muffled but understandable.

I faked confusion and pointed at my ear.

With a visible sigh, he unlocked the door and cracked it about six inches. “We‘re not open yet.”

I stuck my sneaker in the gap. “I need to come in for a minute.”

“Look, kid”

I shoved the door with my shoulder. The guy wasn‘t real big, but then neither am I. If my roommate had done this, he‘d have sent the dude flying. But the best I could manage to do was force him back a step, and that was more about his surprise than my muscle.

“What do you think you‘re doing?” He demanded as I stepped into his shop. The place smelled of crisp, new paper—a musty but not unpleasant odor.

“Sorry,” I said, meaning it. “This‘ll only take a sec …” Then I sidestepped him and headed toward the back of the store.

He grabbed my forearm. “Look kid, I don‘t know what you‘re trying to pull. But get out now before I call the cops.”

I put my hand on his, found his pinky and yanked it the wrong way. He yelped and let go. I didn‘t. Instead, I forced his wrist back until he dropped to one knee, grimacing in pain. “Call whoever you want,” I told him. “Like I said, I won‘t be long.”

He nodded feverishly.

“Don‘t worry. Everything‘s cool,” I said, wondering if that was true. Well, I‘d know in about a minute.

I released his hand and went on my way. He muttered something after me, but I didn‘t catch it. Just as well.

I found a narrow hallway leading to a small mudroom that had been turned into storage. Boxes lined one wall. On the opposite wall stood shelves of graphic novels— obscure anime, according to their spines.

At the rear was a blue door with the word EXIT painted on it. And on a box right beside it sat Helene Boettcher. She clutched a sheet of paper in her hands and was reading it so intently that she didn‘t notice me right away.

Helene was also an Undertaker. In fact, it was this thin, brown-haired girl who‘d first brought me to Haven, having come to my rescue during an eighth-grade math class early last fall. That had been the day I‘d found out monsters were real.

Another story.

Helene was one of my best friends. Except she was a bit more than that, too. I knew it but, so far, hadn‘t done anything with the knowledge.

Frankly, I hadn‘t yet figured out what I should do.

Helene, however, met my eyes and, as usual, knew exactly what to do.

She got up and took a swing at me.

I ducked.

She threw another punch. I blocked it. Then she pivoted and jabbed me in the chest, near my left shoulder. It hurt, but I knew from experience that it wasn‘t half as hard as she was able to hit.

“What‘re you doing here?” She demanded. Her cheeks were red, and I noticed for the first time that there were tears in her eyes.

“Ow!” I yelped, rubbing the spot where she‘d punched me. “I … followed you from Haven.”

“You what?”

“You‘ve been doing this a lot!” I snapped. "Sneaking out on Saturday mornings. You think nobody noticed?”

Alarm flashed in her eyes. “Who else knows?”

“Well … just me.”

Her visible relief did nothing to help in the anger department. “You‘ve got no right to be … spying … on me!”

I started to say something—maybe argue, maybe apologize—but I didn‘t get the chance.

Both of us jumped as someone pounded on the comic shop‘s back door. Then the knob jiggled, loud and urgent. But of course it was locked.

Helene and I swapped looks.

A morning delivery, maybe? I glanced over my shoulder toward the front of the store, but I couldn‘t see Nose Ring Dude. Maybe he was calling the cops. Maybe he was in the bathroom running cold water over his hand. Either way, he didn‘t seem to have heard a thing.

A moment later, the pounding returned, though this time it sounded farther away. Whoever-it-was was running along the alley, trying each door in turn.

I stepped around Helene and pushed the blue door open.

At first I saw nothing but the cracked pavement of your typical alley. Then someone yanked on the other side, tearing the knob out of my hands with tremendous strength—and I found myself face-to-face with a dead man.

The Giveaway!

(1) New Kindle with touchscreen (US only) loaded with all our Month9Books titles. US Only.
(1) Paperback prize pack of 5 Month9Books Titles. US ONLY.
(2) eBook Prize Packs of 5 Month9Books titles. International

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Meet the Authors and amazing host Blogs!

All posts will be live on October 31st!

Jessica Arnold will be hosted by Read for your Future

Vanessa Barger will be hosted by Pretty Little Pages

Lisa M. Basso will be hosted by In Vogue with Books

Sarah Bromley will be hosted by A Book and A Latte

Steve Bryant will be hosted by Jump Into Books

Brynn Chapman will be hosted by A Backwards Story

Nicole Conway will be hosted by Two Chicks on Books

Scott Craven will be hosted by Books and Ashes

Ty Drago will be hosted by The A P Book Club

Dorothy Dreyer will be hosted by Her Book Thoughts!