The Beautiful Dead: A Tale of K-Pop, Ghosts,
and Nine-Tailed Fox Women
Jun Prince
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal
Publisher: Apollo and Nyx Publishing
Date of Publication: September 22, 2017
ISBN: 978-0999491300
ASIN: B075VXNMDD
Number of pages: 346 (Print)
Word Count: 97k Words
Cover Artist: Damonza
A lonely Korean pop star learns her high school classmate died five years ago. So why are they still texting?
Book Description:
Yubin knows she’s different than the other girls in the pop group SIITY. Yes, they all got sucked into the same machine, giving up schooling and signing ridiculously long contracts before anyone knew if they'd be successful, but that's how pop stars are made in Korea. Yubin is supposed to be thankful for that, but she isn't. She doesn't even like the girls she performs with.
She’s more connected to her former schoolmate Jieun, even though all they ever do is text. Over the last two months, Jieun has become her confidant and best friend, connecting Yubin to the real world in a way she desperately needs. Now that SIITY is going to appear on the reality show The Incredible Race: Asia, Yubin will need that connection more than ever, which is why she’s devastated to discover Jieun has been dead five years and is actually haunting her.
If that weren’t enough, Yubin’s not the only SIITY member with issues. Rena’s father is emotionally abusive. Somi has a learning disability, and after a near death experience, Tae-eun becomes a nine-tailed fox woman. The only way they’ll survive the show, each other, and the supernatural currents buffeting them is to work together and win the hearts of their fans. Because if they don’t, they have nothing to go back to even if they survive what's trying to kill them.
Excerpt
3 (586 words):
Tae-eun
Yubin looked at
the gumiho. A moment of stunned silence settled between the two women like a
moment somehow out of time and place untouched by the urgent emotions of the
now. Yubin stood in the hall beside the bathroom, and unable to see Michi,
Tae-eun crouched beside her bed. Time caught up.
Yubin shrieked.
“Aaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeee!!!”
God, that woman has powerful lungs.
“Yubin!” Tae-eun
yelled.
Yubin blinked
and paused her noise upon recognizing her name in the twisted animal sounds
spilling from Tae-eun’s throat. It gave Tae-eun the moment she needed to make
the sign of the cross, direct her eyes toward the ceiling and say “Sorry…” in
apology for abusing the name of The Lord.
“Aaaaaiiiiiiiieeeeeee!!!!!!!!!”
Yubin shrieked again.
The sound made
Tae-eun’s head rattle. It struck her between the eyes as if the other woman
tried in earnest to give Tae-eun the world’s first sonic lobotomy. If the first
call had been a shriek of surprise, the tail end of the latter was most
certainly a battle cry. Tae-eun’s unnie darted to the minibar, and hurled a
heavy glass at Tae-eun’s skull. She dodged out of the way, but then Rena
appeared behind her.
“What the..?”
Was all Rena had time to say before leaping on to Tae-eun’s bed. She rolled to
the head board and armed herself with a pillow. Yubin seemed ready to hurl a
pack of M&Ms at Tae-eun when Rena clobbered the werefox with the pillow on
top of the head.
Owwweee! What
the hell? It didn’t hurt, but what else was she supposed to think when she was
suddenly attacked by her best friend and the SIITY group leader.
“Rena-ya!” Yubin
called, and somehow that was all Rena needed to know that Yubin required a
pillow. Rena tossed one in Yubin’s direction, spun, and smashed her own pillow
into Tae-eun’s muzzle. That one really did hurt. The Gumiho screamed as
sparkles swam through her vision.
Yubin hadn’t hit
Tae-eun yet, but that was only because she was filling the pillow case with
cans of coke and mini bottles of alcohol. The leader whirled the 420 thread
count sack of pain over her head, and landed a blow that sounded with an
audible crack against Tae-eun’s jaw.
A loud snapping
sound escaped the bathroom. Something darted through the air like a flying
snake. Michi had been laughing, at the site of the three meter werefox being
pillow pounded by two skinny girls half her size, but then the shark woman
started gagging. Tae-eun couldn’t see what had happened because at first Yubin
blocked her view, and now she was too busy huddling on the floor with her arms
protecting her head in the fetal position.
“Don’t… “
another powerful blow to the back of the head from Rena. Damn she’s strong!”
“you…!” Yubin’s weighted blow crashed down on her back. Owe! “realize…!”
another blow from Rena as she downed her feather filled club like an
executioner’s axe. “that I could…!” Yubin delivered another painful blow to
Tae-eun’s side and then Rena and Yubin hit her at exactly the same time.
Tae-eun had
enough.
Moving faster
than any living creature her size should have been able, she grabbed one of her
attackers in each of her massive hands. She threw Rena forcefully on to her own
bed, and then tossed Yubin effortlessly onto the other where Michi had been
sitting.
“…tear you
apart!” Neither of the women had a proper sense of self preservation. Attacking
a gumiho with pillows… With pillows!
About the Author:
Jun has lived in Asia for the better part of the last decade. During his years in Korea, he made a point of learning about and getting as close to the Korean entertainment industry as possible while writing his first novel "The Beautiful Dead." He enjoys telling stories about monstrous humans and humanized monsters.
He has a MFA from the University of California - Riverside, graduated with a BA in English Cum Laude from the University of Washington - Seattle, and attended Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea as an exchange student.
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