This week on Excerpt Thursday, we're welcoming
historical fiction author, Mingmei Yip. Her title, SKELETON
WOMEN, set in Shanghai during the 1930's, is
available now from Kensington. Join us Sunday, when Mingmei will be
here to talk about the novel and offer a copy in the winner's preferred
format. Here's the blurb:
Camilla is a young orphan when
she is adopted by a master crime lord and turned into the singing sensation of
Shanghai. She lives in luxury but knows none of the wealth is really hers. She
is one of the skeleton women, who lure men to their ruin and death. In her
case, it’s literal, since she is also trained in knife-throwing and contortion.
Her assignment: attract the
attention of another crime lord and help see he is assassinated. But can she
stay in his good graces with competition from Shadow, a famed magician, and
Rainbow Chang, the ambiguously sexed gossip columnist? And will she be able to
resist falling for either the gang lord’s son or his hunky bodyguard?
**An Excerpt from SKELETON WOMEN**
Chapter One The Naked Girl Jumping Toward Eternity
Against
the sapphire blue night sky, a young woman was pacing along a ledge atop the
Shanghai Custom House tower like a circus girl treading a tight rope.
Except
she was stark naked.
The
Shanghainese say nothing will surprise them, that they’ve seen it all. But now
they were surprised. No one watching had ever seen anything like this.
Not
even my new lover, Master Lung, head of the most powerful black society in
Shanghai, the Flying Dragons, nor his slew of bodyguards scattered among the
crowd, alert for danger, and shoving anyone who seemed about to get too close
to their boss.
Lung’s
and my eyes had stopped staring licentiously into each other’s, and were
directed skyward -- to the clock tower of the Customs House with its fake
European styling, far above the Bund and the Huangpu River.
The crowd held its collective breath.
Their probing, lascivious eyes glued to the muscular, round-bosomed naked body
above, expecting at any moment she would jump to her death. I imagined the
onlookers agitated thoughts:
Is
she really going to jump?
Why
doesn’t she want to live?
Jump!
I want splashing blood, crashing flesh, crackling bones!
What
a pity, a beautiful girl soon to turn into a puddle of vomit.
Tonight the air was balmy, but the naked girl playing the tug-of-war with death hundreds of feet above chilled us all, both those appalled by an innocent girl about to plunge to her death and those perverts who secretly thirst for the morbid sights of splattered blood and scattered human pieces. I bit my lip, my hand tightly clutching Master Lung’s arm while my heart pounded like a tribal drum trying to scare away demons.
Tonight the air was balmy, but the naked girl playing the tug-of-war with death hundreds of feet above chilled us all, both those appalled by an innocent girl about to plunge to her death and those perverts who secretly thirst for the morbid sights of splattered blood and scattered human pieces. I bit my lip, my hand tightly clutching Master Lung’s arm while my heart pounded like a tribal drum trying to scare away demons.
Not that a smashed face and broken limbs
would have bothered me much. For I had been trained since my teens to wipe away
all human emotions. I had been molded for one purpose and one purpose only: to
be a spy. Though, ironically, I earned my living singing sentimental songs in a
nightclub.
As
I continued to watch, the two hands of the clock merged into a single one
pointing north, setting off the imitation Westminster Chimes to suddenly flood
us with an eerily cheerful melody. But then, in the midst of the clear sky,
thunder cracked and lightning flashed….
And
the naked figure jumped!
The onlookers gasped collectively, their
expressions ranging from horror, to sorrow, to unabashed thrill….
All heads dropped down to gape – some of
the women through cracks between their many-ringed, red-nailed fingers. A
pause, then another shock. There was no body. Only a pair of red high heels in
the middle of a pool of blood!
