Eight Lives: Match Made in Hell #1
Author: Autumn Breeze & Ashley Chamblee
Cover Artist: Raven Brooks
Release Date: May 20, 2019
Genre/s: Urban Fantasy, M/M Romance
Trope/s: Friends to Lovers, Roommates to Lovers
Heat Rating: 3 flames
Blurb
Two Hearts. One Curse. Zero Time.
A century ago, a spiteful witch cursed Edmund.
Ever since then, he has lived as an immortal house cat—short one life.
Anselm is a mildly depressed vampire with a soft spot for the feline he calls friend.
They live together as equals, companions for eternity—or so they hope.
But their lives take a dark turn when the witch who cursed Edmund long ago dies.
And suddenly, he is human again.
In a race against time’s cruel hand, Anselm and Edmund must make a decision.
Do they find a dark witch and re-enact the curse that plagued Edmund so they can be together for an eternity? Or . . . does Edmund give up forever as a cat to be with Anselm for now as a man?
Excerpt
I clenched my jaw. If this stranger had hurt Edmund, there would be hell to pay.
My immortal cat, as irritating as he could be sometimes, was my best friend. We’d been a pair since the beginning of the twentieth century and . . . in reality, he was all I had.
Everything changed but not Edmund. Nor me.
He was a cursed cat, once a young man in the prime of his life. I was the vampire he called friend.
“Edmund,” I called, dropping the bags I held. The fresh fish and blood I’d bought cascaded to the floor. Some of the packets burst open, but I didn’t care about the mess the blood would make or the smell that would linger for days; I cared about my best friend. “Edmund?!”
The stranger turned; his sharp gaze followed me though he was rooted to the spot.
I rushed through the living room, heading deeper into my home, knowing that if my heart still beat, it would be pounding against my chest like a sledgehammer.
Where was Edmund? Why wasn’t he answering?
Hunting through the rooms, I checked in all of Edmund’s favorite hiding spots—on top of the bookshelf, on my side of the bed, behind my pillow, in the perfect patch of moonlight that streamed through the bay windows in my office—but Edmund was nowhere to be found.
He was missing, gone, disappeared.
“Where is he?!” I demanded as I raged into the living room and caught the stranger by the throat. My fingers tightened as my anger—my fear—tainted the air, sending the thick stench of decay curling around us. The strange young man’s lips parted, opening and closing like a fish out of water as he grasped my wrist and fought for breath. “If you hurt him—” I couldn’t even finish the thought, much less the sentence.
The very idea of not having Edmund, of being without him . . .
I shook the man impatiently. “Where is he?!” I bellowed, shaking the boy.
He appeared desperate as he clutched my wrist and tugged on my arm, attempting to remove my hold, but my grasp was absolute as my fingers tightened around his neck.
Panic danced across his face. His wide eyes shined, a familiar neon blue that I knew.
My lips parted. “Edmund?”
I loosened my hold. It wasn’t possible. Edmund was . . .
The man I held by the neck trembled in my grasp, one minute a man, and in the next, thick black fur sprouted out of his transformed body.
“Y . . . You choked me,” he gasped as I gathered him close.
“You turned into a-a-a man!” I pulled him away from my chest, inspecting him as I did so.
How was this possible? He was cursed by a witch to live the rest of his life, or at least nine lives—eight now that he’d died once—as a cat. Right now, the fluffy black thing I peered down at looked like my housecat, but seconds ago . . .
Carra's Review
Eight Lives is a relatively quick urban fantasy/paranormal read. It caught my attention with the concept of a vampire’s faithful century-long feline companion suddenly becoming human. Since I hadn’t read anything by either of the authors previously and liked the idea of the story, I decided to dive right in.
Anselm, our vampire, has been around for a pretty long time. His attitude has pretty much become one of apathy, though he clearly has a soft spot for his best friend Edmund. You know, Edmund the talking cat who used to be human and who seems to be turning back into a human again. The conundrum of that for Anselm and Edmund? They both want to stay together forever, which seemed to be assured as a vampire and cursed cat…but if Edmund returns to being human, will he now grow old and die? Neither of them wants that to happen, so they set out to find a way to keep him as a cat.
There are times when the story felt very surface-level as not much about the world they live in was fully explained—the world building was mostly cursory, and sometimes the characters felt lacking in depth. But there are also some interesting tidbits (like Edmund’s sensitive tail), and secondary characters I found intriguing (their neighbor’s werewolf boyfriend, and Anselm’s vampire friend who helps them out). I thought that the solution Edmund found was a bit out of the blue though, and that his and Anselm’s relationship at the end of the story felt more like a happy-for-now rather then a happily-ever-after.
Overall, this was a cute story and it did pique my interest for more in this world, though I’m hoping things will be more fleshed out in future books in the series. 3.5 stars for Eight Lives!
About the Authors
Autumn Breeze
Autumn Breeze is a bestselling LGBT+ author, and current Radish Content Provider. She is also the winner of a 2015 Watty Award, a former Wattpad Star, with more than 70K followers on Wattpad who was featured in Cosmo in 2017 “My Lessons with the Sexy Dance Instructor.” In 2017 she worked as a Freelance Writer for 20th Century Fox on, “A Cure for Wellness: Seeking A Cure.”
Ashley Chamblee
Ashley Chamblee is a bestselling author with 10+ years of experience who specializes in writing horror, fantasy, paranormal, and romance with LGBT themes. Currently, she has 35K+ followers on her combined Wattpad accounts EzraWinn and HonestDying. When Ashley isn’t writing she is either working with special needs adults, playing video games, reading or spending time with friends and family.
Blood Prize, her bestselling novel is available on Amazon.
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