Spooky Legends & Giveaway: MaryJanice Davidson’s Betsy Taylor on “ABC-TV Wants You Dead” & win WOLF AT THE DOOR

Today’s guest, MaryJanice Davidson, writes her paranormal books with a hefty dose of humor and hijinks.  This makes it no surprise that the star of her Undead series,  Betsy Taylor, is not your typical Vampire Queen.  Betsy needs all of her resources when she faces everything from vampires to ghosts, werewolves to the suburbs.  Today Betsy tackles an urban legend near and dear to that suburban heart, the scourge of our living rooms: the television. And thanks to Berkley, two of you will win a copy of the latest book in the Undead spinoff series, Wyndahm Werewolves, WOLF AT THE DOOR. See details below

Click to see the Spooky Legends Master List with links to all the previous posts and giveaways

Betsy Taylor on “ABC-TV Wants You Dead” 
by
MaryJanice Davidson

Is there anything scarier than knowing TV wants you dead? Well. Yeah. Knowing lots and lots of vampires want you dead; that’s scary. Friends dropping dead all around you: that’s scary. Knowing you’ll be ancient and have crappy taste in clothes: almost too scary to contemplate. TV wanting you to bite the big one, that’s a close second, though. Wait: third? A close fourth? Whatever.

My name’s Elizabeth Taylor (shut up...I’ve heard ‘em all, though the yuck-o comments have gotten worse since she and I are both dead now). My friends call me Betsy. So do my enemies, come to think of it. My husband calls me Elizabeth when he’s not calling me “my own” or “dearest”, but if I get started on him, I’ll forget all about TV wanting to kill me. One problem at a time, right?

Anyway, I was scouting for shoe sales on the web when I once again came across that whole “ABC is trying to kill you” thing. I guess a bunch of us have. The nature of the world wide web, and all that. What’s amazing to me is how many people are actually buying it.

Oh, you know: supposedly they blew the whistle on a brand-new eating disorder, fear-of-eating-crapaphobia. Except the whole thing turned out to be unproveable crapola, like any urban legend. Don’t turn on the light, the killer’s under your bed! And for sure don’t freak out when you wake up in a bathtub filled with ice and find out you’re light a kidney! I’ll say it again: unprovable crapola. Doesn’t stop people from talking about it, though or, worse: forwarding e-mails about it. Or links about it.

But TV...TV’s supposed to be your friend. Or, as Homer Simpson so wisely observed: “TV! Teacher, mother...secret lover.” So the knowledge that it can turn on you...that just sucks.

And the knowledge that it’s all over the internet...that sucks, too. Because there’s a sucker born every minute, and there’s an online sucker born about every nanosecond. My mom, who’s a college professor, believes everything she sees on the web and every e-mail from every Nigerian bazillionaire that ends up in her spam folder. All of ‘em. She believes it all. No question, ever.

This is a smart woman, you know. Multiple college degrees, savvy about various international peccadilloes, a woman who’s been in Newark after dark. If a snail mail letter from Bill Gates (promising her a free trip to Disneyworld) showed up in her mailbox, she’d scan it and then scornfully toss it into the garbage. But if it showed up in her e-mail, forwarded by someone she’s never met, she believes every word. How dumb is that? Makes me nuts. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Me, I could get an e-mail from my best friend, Jessica, saying we’d been friends for decades and I’d still want to go to the source.

So anyway. ABC’s trying to kill you. Except they’re not. And if you don’t believe me, I’ve got a friend of a friend who needs you to invest $5,000 so you can then get $1,000,000 as a reward for helping him.

I know, right?

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About the author:

MaryJanice Davidson invented a) her children, and b) the vampire chick lit genre. Also the Internet. She is kind to (some) children and (occasional) small animals, and enjoyes referring to herself in the third person. Appearing several times a year on the best-seller list, as well as occasional Federal "person of interest" sheets, she takes time from the living hell that is being paid to do what she loves best to seek out the nearest Cinnabon franchise. Her goals include working for world peace, figuring out how to make potstickers, and speaking at writer and reader conferences around the world. (Australia is still recovering.)

Visit MaryJanice Davidson online: Website|Blog|Facebook Want to read more from MaryJanice Davidson?

Giveaway provided by Berkley Trade.

Two copies of WOLF AT THE DOOR by MaryJanice Davidson

 

Available now from Berkley Trade

Description:

The howlingly good spin-off of the Undead series from the New York Times bestselling author.

Rachel, a werewolf/accountant, is asked to keep one eye on Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor and the other peeled for a rogue werewolf who's itching to start a war. But her attention is mostly on a sexy, mysterious stranger she wishes she could trust.

Read an excerpt|Read our review

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**Don’t forget to visit Dark Faerie Tales today for her Spooky Legends guest blog with Alma Katsu**