I am excited to welcome author Jesse Petersen, who will be releasing Club Monstrosity, the first novel in her new Club Monstrosity series, on April 29th.
Natalie’s one of Frankenstein’s creations and works in a New York City morgue. So of course she needs therapy. She and her friends—er, fellow monsters—have formed the world’s most exclusive, most dysfunctional support group. What could go wrong?
Undetected in the modern world and under pressure to stay that way, Natalie Grey, Dracula, Bob the Blob, and others (including the fetching wolfman Alec) meet regularly to talk about the pressures of being infamous in the Big Apple. Topics include how long it’s been since their last sighting, how their “story” creates stereotypes they can’t fulfill, and—gasp—sometimes even their feelings. But when their pervy Invisible Man, Ellis, is killed in a manner reminiscent of the H.G. Wells novel, it’s clear someone’s discovered their existence and is down for some monster busting.
Led by Natalie—and definitely not helped by Hyde’s bloodthirsty tendencies—the members of Monstofelldosis Anonymous band together for security and a little sleuthing. And maybe—maybe—if they don’t end up dead, they’ll end up friends somewhere along the way.
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Abnormal Characters and Why They are Wonderful
First off, a big thank you to everyone at Literary Escapism for having me here today. If you don’t know me, I’m Jesse Petersen and I write snarky urban fantasy for Orbit and Pocket Books. Zombie apocalypses that save marriages, monsters in support groups, that’s my bag.
Basically, I love abnormal characters.
The world is filled with beautiful people. Beautiful average people. People who just wander through their lives with nothing of any real consequence happening to them. They’re probably pretty happy in general. If you throw them into an unexpected circumstance, they might behave in an entirely different way. That’s interesting and plenty of stories and movies are based on this idea. The every-man turned hero! Cue the blasting trumpets!!
But I’ve always been more interested in the weirdo. This could be because I am something of a weirdo. Self-identifying geek, living a life WAY outside the box and loving it, that would be me. Us weirdos, we’re already not exactly normal and when things that are utterly unexpected happen to us, it gets really interesting.
Take, for instance, my characters in Club Monstrosity (April 29, Pocket Star). They are all monsters. Yup, monsters. Real ones. A Frankenstein’s monster, a Wolf Man, a mummy, Dracula, a bunch of others… I don’t think you can get any more ‘weirdo’ than that. But they’re all trying to fit in, to be ‘normal’ in New York and they meet in a support group in a church basement. So what’s the unusual circumstance that turns abnormal to heroic?
Someone starts killing them off.
And that’s where it got fun for me. What would already odd people do when the unthinkable happens? They can’t turn to the police like a normal person would do (can you imagine? Excuse me officer, someone murdered The Invisible Man, can you help?). I had to really think about each character, each experience and wonder… would they run? Would they fight? Would they start to be more monstrous or more human when faced with death?
If you want to see what the answers are, you’ll have to pick up the book, but it was all the infinite possibilities my very odd characters presented that made writing (and I hope reading) the book fun! So what characters are your favorite weirdos in books or movies?
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Meet Jesse Petersen!
Jesse’s life as a writer began when her husband made the brilliant observation that she was much happier writing than doing anything else. So she took the plunge and decided to do that full-time. After many years and many books in different sub-genres, she was bitten by the zombie bug (not a zombie, but the bug) and took off on a zany adventure into the world of Urban Fantasy. Soon zombies were not enough and now she is poised to take over the world with her not-so-normal paranormal stories which inject dark humor into uncommon circumstances.
When not coming up with stories about the weird and wonderful she lives in Tucson, AZ, with her high school sweetheart husband and two cats. She plays video games, hangs out with her favorite nephews, hikes in the beautiful mountains, watches wayyyyy too much reality TV (and some really good scripted TV), ponders all things geekish and madly scribbles notes on her next idea while she laughs at people who still have to shovel snow.
Oh and from time to time she even writes, which is still what she likes to do best.
Contact Info
Website: website
Blog: Blog
Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
Want to purchase Jesse’s novels?
Club Monstrosity
- Club Monstrosity
- The Monsters in Your Neighborhood (Jul 29, 2013)
Living with the Dead
