Today we are really happy to welcome to Book Lovers Inc Lexi George to celebrate her newest release, Demon Hunting in the Deep South, the second installment in her successful Demon Hunting series. And Lexi stops by here today to talk about a really interesting topic: Writing Mean. Don’t want to spoil things for you, read on and be prepared to laugh 🙂 And don’t forget to check at the end of the post for your chance to win a copy of her book.

One of biggest surprises to me in writing the demon hunter series is how much I enjoyed writing the character Meredith Starr Peterson. Why? Because Meredith is not the heroine or the witty and loyal best friend.

Meredith is a mean girl.

I based Meredith on a real life meanie, my oldest daughter’s high school nemesis. Aha! I thought. Payback for making my darling daughter miserable, you evil wench.

However, as is often the case when you seek revenge, the thing backfired on me. Instead of putting Meredith in her place, she ended up being in all three books.

In Demon Hunting in Dixie, Meredith Starr Peterson is the lifelong nemesis of the heroine, Addy Corwin, and her best friend, Evie Douglass. Addy runs the only flower shop in town and Meredith is married to the town Golden Boy, Trey Peterson, the handsome grandson of a wealthy landowner.

Meredith is so awful that Addy and Evie call her the Death Starr. Evie, in particular, suffers the sting of Meredith’s wicked tongue. Here is the scene where Addy finally gets a belly full of Meredith’s spite, and puts the whammy on the be-yotch, cursing Meredith with a major case of butt boils:

The Death Starr turned her super lasers on Evie and opened fire. “I don’t recall speaking to you, Whaley, but since you’re such a know-it-all let me tell you this. I’m here to place an order for the very exclusive luncheon I’m having in the Gilded Room at the Club today. Six centerpieces, all white roses and baby’s breath. Since you’re Addy’s little gofer, I suggest you shag your lumpy ass over to Paulsberg and get me some white roses pronto. But, make sure you have the florist wrap them in cellophane first. Don’t you dare touch them, you hear? I don’t want fat girl cooties on my flowers.”

Evie wilted under Meredith’s barrage of venom. Something inside of Addy snapped.

“Evie is not fat.” Addy jabbed the floral scissors in her hand at Meredith for emphasis. “She never was. That’s something you made up out of spite in the seventh grade, because Evie got boobs first and you were jealous. You, on the other hand, have always been a rude bitch. I put up with it in school, but I’m tired of it. Apologize to Evie at once.”

“Me, apologize to that stupid cow? I don’t think so. And you’d better watch your mouth, Addy Corwin, if you hope to keep my business. I’m a very important person in this town.”

The blood sang through Addy’s veins. She was strong. She was invincible. She was tired of Meredith’s crap.

“Here’s the thing, Meredith,” she said. “I don’t want your business. In fact, I don’t want you in my shop. Ever again. You’re a nasty, mean person, and I hope you get pimples all over your tiny little butt so bad you have to eat off the mantel for a month.”

Addy knew she’d scored a direct hit when on the Death Starr’s skin went all blotchy and her eyes bugged out.

“You’ll regret this, Addy,” she said. “By the time I’m through with you and Tub ‘O Lard you’ll –”

Meredith gave an unladylike grunt and whirled around. “Something stuck me. Somebody jabbed a pin in my—” She tucked in her pelvis, jerking like a marionette. “Stop it! Ouch, oh my God, that hurts. Help! Somebody help! Ow, ow, ow!”

Clutching her bottom in both hands, she ran out the door.

Addy refuses to remove the spell until Meredith apologizes. Meredith eats crow—eventually. Not because she is repentant, but because Addy threatens to let the rash spread. 🙂

Meredith is rude, mean spirited and says whatever she thinks, which is usually something awful, but what fun she is to write! Have you ever longed to tell someone what you really think of them? I know I have, many times in my life. However, good manners and “raising,” as we say in the South, always prevents it.

But, Meredith? Meredith has no filter.

In book two, Demon Hunting in the Deep South, Meredith is murdered, but she’s not about to let a little thing like death stop her. Meredith comes back as a vengeful ghost, and she’s a bigger pain than ever. She’s a shrew, a caustic harridan, and a poisonous virago, and she’s convinced that Evie has designs on Trey, her husband:

“Meredith.” Evie jumped to her feet. “Holy smokes, you’re dead! What are you doing here?”

Meredith rocked the whole ghost thing, Evie had to admit. She looked good. Better than good. No blood or oozing stab wounds. No gore stained clothes. The Death Starr’s stylish, gray floral sheath dress was belted at the waist and topped off with an elegant cashmere sweater. Black peep toe stiletto pumps with fire engine red soles encased her size five feet. Her sleek golden bob teased her jaw line, not a hair out of place. Evie glanced down at her rumpled sweats, feeling suddenly self conscious. Good grief, Meredith was a better dresser than she was, and Meredith was dead.

Meredith’s lip curled. “I’m haunting your fat ass, that’s what. You didn’t think I’d let you get away with it, did you?”

“Get away with what?”

“Killing me, you porker. What do you think?”

“I didn’t kill you,” Evie protested.

“Oh, yeah?” Meredith looked around. “Then why are you in jail, Lumpy? I may be dead, but I’m not stupid.”

Ansgar rose to his feet with a frown. “She speaks the truth, shade. She did not slay you.”

Meredith’s laser beam gaze shifted from Evie to him. “Who’s the beefcake?”

“Oh . . . uh . . .this is Ansgar,” Evie said, remembering her manners.

“Hmm.” Meredith’s predatory gaze roamed over Ansgar’s hard muscled frame.

“You look familiar. Do I know you?”

“No,” Ansgar said.

“Meredith was Trey’s wife,” Evie said, shooting the Death Starr a nervous glance.

“Before . . . uh . . . you know.”

“I’m still his wife,” Meredith snapped. “The only one he’ll ever have. You’ll remember that, Lard-o, if you know what’s good for you.”

Meredith’s murder is solved and Meredith and her husband, Trey, are reconciled—sort of. Meredith is dead, after all. Book three, Demon Hunting in a Dive Bar, finds Meredith back in action as the ghostess with the mostest spleen to vent, and poor Trey is desperate to get rid of her, once and for all. His determination to exorcise his former wife leads him into trouble.

In real life, of course, we’ve all encountered Meredith’s, and they are not funny in the least. Writing Meredith, however, was quite satisfying, in an odd sort of way. She was so outrageous and cathartic to write that I couldn’t let her go.

The mean girl got the last laugh, after all. Ain’t that a bitch?

About the Book:

The warrior and the wallflower . . .

Shy, self-conscious Evie Douglass tries to stay under the radar, especially when her nemesis Meredith Peterson, aka The Death Starr, is anywhere around. Meredith and her bitch posse of skinny girlfriends have tormented Evie since the seventh grade, calling her names like The Whale and Thunder Thighs.

Evie tries to stay invisible, but that’s not an easy thing for a plus-sized gal to do in a small town like Hannah, Alabama. She finds it doubly hard to avoid Meredith’s wrath once she takes a job at the lumber mill. You see, Meredith’s husband is Evie’s new boss. Translation: more torture time for The Death Starr.
Evie thinks things couldn’t get much worse until the morning she finds Meredith’s bloody body sprawled across her desk. Typical Meredith, she gets herself dead mere days after a very public scene in which Meredith accuses Evie of having an affair with her husband. Worse, the murder weapon is found in Evie’s car.

Suddenly, Evie is the Number One suspect in a sensational murder case. But she’s got bigger problems. Hannah is infested with demons—soul sucking, body snatching creatures of evil—and, for some reason, they want Evie. The only thing standing between Evie and death or possible possession is a hunky blond demon slayer named Ansgar.

Ansgar is a Dalvahni warrior, a supernaturally gorgeous race whose sole purpose is to hunt down and capture rogue demons.

Evie could almost swear that Ansgar is interested in more than demons. He seems interested in her. Ridiculous, of course, because he’s sex on two legs and she’s…

Well, she’s Whaley Douglass.

To add to Evie’s troubles, Meredith doesn’t even have the decency to stay dead. She shows back up as a ghost and she’s more of a beyotch than ever. Meredith has deathnesia—she can’t remember who killed her—leaving Evie to solve the mystery herself, or go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit.

About the Author:

Lexi grew up in South Alabama in a rural community with one flashing light and a small country store that sold everything from gas to pickled eggs.

She grew up surrounded by cotton fields and wide open spaces. She was a major tomboy. Dressed in a boy cousin’s hand-me-downs, she ran barefoot, climbed trees, played in ditches, and picked sun-warmed dew berries off their prickly vines. Sometimes, her parents drove her into town to play with her city cousins. They played dress-up, made forts, charged up and down dirt mounds in noisy games of King of the Hill and chased the mosquito truck on their bikes.

DEMON HUNTING IN DIXIE, a paranormal romance, is her debut novel. It is peopled with funny characters and sexy demon hunters and lots of supernatural woo woo. And the other kind of ‘woo woo’ as well.

The story has a happy ending.

Since being traumatized by OLD YELLER at the age of nine, Lexi is all about the happily ever after

Where to find Carrie

Website | Facebook |Twitter

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~*~*Giveaway*~*~

Lexi has generously offered a paperback copy of Demon Hunting in the Deep South to a lucky commenter!

All you have to do is leave a meaningful comment/question for Lexi.

(You can read our full giveaway policy here)

Please be sure to include a valid email address in the comment form (need not be in the actual body of the comment).

This giveaway is open to all!

Giveaway ends on Saturday, 25 August 2012; we will announce the winner on Sunday.

Good luck!

About Anna

Anna is a psychologist from Greece.You can almost always find her with a book stuck under her nose,so it's no wonder that all her friends make a joke of her.Apart from reading she dreams of the day she'll be able to travel around the world!Anna also blogs at Books to Brighten your Mood.

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