Dead Handsome by Laura Strickland ♥ Book Tour & GIVEAWAY ♥ (Steampunk Romance)

Clara Allen needs a husband in order to keep a roof over the heads of her assorted dependents, a roof her nasty grandfather will re-appropriate unless she is married by her 21st birthday, only a few days away. Strong-minded, unwilling to take orders from any man, she decides to solve her problem by raising a murdered prisoner from the dead and marrying him. She expects an empty-headed puppet; she certainly never dreams he’ll be so devastatingly handsome.

Liam McMahon doesn’t recall much about his life before his hanging in the prison yard, other than being Irish. He does remember the kiss Clara bestowed as she brought him back to life. Every time he looks at her, his desire gets out of hand. But his former life is chasing him down like a steam engine, and when a couple of mad geniuses decide he’d make a fine experiment, he wonders if he’ll live long enough to claim Clara’s heart or if he’ll die all over again.

The room needed to be warm–she had learned that during past experiments. It helped if the subject awakened in an environment that was moist and heated, akin to the womb. And the breath of life was more easily received by warmed flesh.

Still obviously uneasy, Georgina rejoined Clara at the table. "You know you're going to have to touch him."

"I've already touched him. Ruella and I stripped and washed him down."

"You're going to have to kiss him."

"It isn't a kiss. It's a resurrection."

The room had warmed quickly. Now clouds of steam billowed and surrounded the table, lending an unreality to this thing she undertook. It blurred the edges of her vision and her reason.

She rested her fingertips lightly against the corpse's chest and closed her eyes. He no longer felt cold but he did feel quite dead. She'd learned the difference over these many months. Against all the distractions she quieted her mind and reached for the power within.

It slept much the way the man's flesh did, resting in oblivion. Like a separate entity within her, it mellowed and simmered until she called upon it, when it flared to life, bringing life.

She let the power grow and flare and burgeon inside of her because she would need a great quantity of it, more than ever before. When it threatened to overspill her like hot water in a steaming kettle she opened her eyes.

She felt full; she felt ready. She drew a deep breath–deep, deep, deeper than ever before–leaned down and placed her mouth upon that of the corpse.

Born in Buffalo and raised on the Niagara Frontier, Laura Strickland has been an avid reader and writer since childhood. To her the spunky, tenacious, undefeatable ethnic mix that is Buffalo spells the perfect setting for a little Steampunk, so she created her own Victorian world there. She knows the people of Buffalo are stronger, tougher and smarter than those who haven’t survived the muggy summers and blizzard blasts found on the shores of the mighty Niagara. Tough enough to survive a squad of automatons? Well, just maybe.