I am absolutely thrilled to announce that Legally Undead is a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense!

A reluctant vampire hunter, stalking New York City as only a scorned bride can.

Elle Dupree has her life all figured out: first a wedding, then her Ph.D., then swank faculty parties where she’ll serve wine and cheese and introduce people to her husband the lawyer.

But those plans disintegrate when she walks in on a vampire draining the blood from her fiancé Greg. Horrified, she screams and runs–not away from the vampire, but toward it, brandishing a wooden letter opener.

As she slams the improvised stake into the vampire’s heart, a team of black-clad men bursts into the apartment. Turning around to face them, Elle discovers that Greg’s body is gone—and her perfect life falls apart.

Congratulations to all my fellow finalists–see the complete list below:

The DAPHNE DU MAURIER AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN MYSTERY/SUSPENSE –Published Division Finalists for 2015 are:

CATEGORY (SERIES) ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE

Natalie Charles for When No One is Watching

Lena Diaz for Tennessee Takedown

Delores Fossen for Rustling Up Trouble

Karen McCullough for The Detective’s Dilemma

Bobbye Terry for The Widow James

HISTORICAL ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE

Amanda DeWees for With This Curse

Anthea Lawson for Mistress of Melody

Jeannie Lin for The Jade Temptress

Brenda Novak for A Matter of Grave Concern

Lauren Willig for The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

INSPIRATIONAL ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Elizabeth Camden for With Every Breath

Debby Giusti for The Agent’s Secret Past

Irene Hannon for Deceived

Katy Lee for Grave Danger

Dani Pettrey for Silenced
PARANORMAL (FANTASY/TIME TRAVEL/FUTURISTIC) ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Margo Bond Collins for Legally Undead

Angie Fox for Beverly Hills Demon Slayer

J.T. Geissinger for Darkness Bound

Liah Penn for Pure Death

Rebecca Zanetti for Marked
SINGLE TITLE ROMANTIC MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Kendra Elliot for Vanished

Melinda Leigh for Hour of Need

Tamsen Schultz for What Echoes Render

Michelle Sharp for Dream Huntress

Leslie Tentler for Fallen
MAINSTREAM MYSTERY/SUSPENSE
Traci Andrighetti for Limoncello Yellow

Carey Baldwin for Judgment

Kylie Brant for 11

Libby Fischer Hellmann for Nobody’s Child

Sandra Parshall for Poisoned Ground

Winners will be announced during KOD’s annual Death by Chocolate Party at the RWA® National Conference in New York, New York.

Excerpt from Legally Undead:

The worst thing about vampires is that they’re dead. That whole wanting to suck your blood business runs a close second, but for sheer creepiness, it’s the dead bit that gets me every time. They’re up and walking around and talking and sucking blood, but they’re dead. And then there’s the whole terminology problem–how can you kill something that’s already dead? It’s just wrong.

I was twenty-four the first time I . . . destroyed? dispatched? . . . a vampire. That’s when I found out that all the books and movies are wrong. When you stick a wooden stake into their hearts, vampires don’t disintegrate into dust. They don’t explode. They don’t spew blood everywhere. They just look surprised, groan, and collapse into a pile of corpse. But at least they lie still then, like corpses are supposed to.

Since that first kill (I might as well use the word–there really isn’t a better one), I’ve discovered that only if you’re lucky do vampires look surprised before they groan and fall down. If you’re unlucky and miss the heart, they look angry. And then they fight.

There are the other usual ways to kill vampires, of course, but these other ways can get a bit complicated. Vampires are notoriously difficult to trick into sunlight. They have an uncanny ability to sense when there’s any sunlight within miles of them, and they’re awfully good at hiding from it. Holy water doesn’t kill them; it just distracts them for a while, and then they get that angry look again. And it takes a pretty big blade to cut off someone’s head–even an already dead someone–and carrying a great big knife around New York City, even the Bronx, is a sure way to get arrested. Nope, pointy sticks are the best way to go, all the way around.

My own pointy stick is actually more of a little knife with wood inlay on the blade–the metal makes it slide in easier. I had the knife specially made by an old Italian guy in just about the only ratty part of Westchester, north of the city. I tried to order one off the internet, but it turns out that while it’s easy to find wood-inlay handles, the blades themselves tend to be metal. Fat lot those people know.

But I wasn’t thinking any of this when I pulled the knife out of the body on the ground. I was thinking something more along the lines of “Oh, bloody hell. Not again.”

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Sale Links

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Legally-Undead-Vampirarchy-Margo-Collins-ebook/dp/B00KKV44BK/

Nook: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/legally-undead-margo-bond-collins/1119607989?ean=2940149615803

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/legally-undead

Universal Kindle Link: http://bookShow.me/B00KKV44BK

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About the Author

Margo Bond Collins is the author of urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She lives in Texas with her daughter and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them—and sometimes fight them.

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