Pride & Justice or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Crack
If I had to put a relationship status on my feelings about this work, it would be, “It’s complicated.”
That’s not true. I love it. What’s complicated is trying to get the right eyes on it, a needle that I either expertly threaded in fandom, or it wasn’t something that needed to be explained. The story is silly, deeply so, but it probably makes a lot more sense if you know things about me like that one of my first favorite books as a child was Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins. Add in some Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams and you start to get a rough picture of where I’m coming from.
Like, silly, but also make it sexy. And throw in some jadedness about capitalism, a slightly Eoin Colfer sensibility about puns and popular mythology, and some zombies, well…it is what it is. Is it an enemies-to-lovers romance? Sure. There’s a lot going on, but I’m not sure if it’ll really push your buttons unless you have a very deep commitment to the absurd.
The idea was that this would be a series; in fact I’d started a sequel when Loose Id originally released this story. Everything I’d thought was pretty fun about it, as it turned out, was not fun at all. I shelved it. Honestly, I’m still not sure what people thought it was going to be when the first chapter was called, “Panic at the Dildo Factory.”
But I guess this all comes down to why. Why would I do this to you or to me? Well, because I love crack fic. I love silly. I love dad jokes, ones that will make you roll your eyes and ones that kind of boomerang and get you later. Writing this made me feel like a wicked, crazy genius, cackling the whole way.
People who like it really like it. Those who don’t… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Sometimes I bottle things up to the point where it all comes out in a burst of mania, and this was one of those times.
About the book:
A percentage of the earth’s population has transformed into surprisingly functional zombies who returned to work the next morning as if they weren’t undead monstrosities. Justice Kinkead, officer in an elite zombie fighting force, gets called out when good zombies go bad, putting down the brain cravers and safeguarding the new economy. After several of his partners succumb to unfortunate deaths, Justice figures he’ll go it alone…until he’s assigned a mysterious and sexy new partner, Merlin Pride, who seems to know more about the zombies’ origins than he’s letting on.
Merlin also seems to sense that Justice needs a good fucking, but it’s complicated: Justice still lives with his undead ex-boyfriend. Can Justice make peace with his past? And if he does, should he take a chance on a man who may have something to do with destroying civilization as they knew it?
Crack, parody, camp counselor levels of camp, dad jokes, and enemies to lovers
55k words
Available to read on KindleUnlimited!