Teaser Tuesday: Shadowfae by Erica Hayes

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I have mentioned before that when I participate in Teaser Tuesday my normal process is to open the book, skim through to find a teaser and if nothing jumps out then I will flick through some pages and try again until I find something interesting. Every now and again, I specifically pick something out. This week is a specific week!

My teaser this week comes from page 21 of Shadowfae by Erica Hayes. First I will share the teaser and then I will tell you why I chose this specific section:

Or they had, until DiLuca started seducing them away, and the whisper in Carlton was that a war was brewing, a clash of brass and blood to rival anything we'd seen in the nineties. But by nature, the fae lived on the edge of chaos, and it was to be expected that one or two would turn up dead every so often.

Erica Hayes, the author of Shadowfae is an Australian, and she has chosen to set this book in Melbourne, which is where I live. There are numerous mentions of Melbourne landmarks in the book, and as I have been reading the book I am wondering if maybe I need to open my eyes to the possibilities of otherworld happenings going on around me, because obviously Erica Hayes sees them, as well as Keri Arthur whose Riley Jensen series is set in Melbourne. It seems that I really need to be more observant around Carlton when I go there next!

The most interesting thing about that passage is a little kernel of information that is in that first line that I don't know would mean anything much to non Aussies who read it. Yep, there was a war in the 90s in Melbourne - a gangland war. To most Australian readers, that would pretty much instantly bring to mind the gangland killings which were taking place in Melbourne in the nineties, with numerous underworld identities being killed, sometimes in broad daylight and in public. This gangland war provided the material for a book called Leadbelly, which in turn was turned into a TV series that was one of the most successful Australian productions in years called Underbelly.

Personally, I never watched Underbelly, basically because I don't watch a lot of TV but also because I felt that in many it glamorised the gangland lifestyle, but it is hard to miss the Underbelly phenomenon in Australian society, and especially particularly in Melbourne.

Just for something a little different I thought I might put up some pictures of some of the locations talked about in the book -

Eureka Tower - when it opened the Eureka Tower was the tallest residential building in the world. Not sure if that is still the case or not! Scene of pretty key party in Shadowfae

(Image from Wikipedia)

This is how I see Carlton! A great place to sit outside, drink coffee and eat, especially on a balmy summer night. Apparently, I need to look closer to see the vampires, werewolves, incubus, succubus and fae hangouts!

The Victorian Art Centre spire - mentioned quite a few times as a sight through the books. There is an awesome craft markets right near here on Sundays. Not sure that Jade, the main female character, and resident succubus would have been there, but I like it!