Heroine Complex - Softcover

Buch 1 von 6: Heroine Complex

Kuhn, Sarah

 
9780756410841: Heroine Complex
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0756410843 ISBN 13: 9780756410841
Verlag: Astra Publishing House, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Asian American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous threats in the first book in this snarky and smart urban fantasy series

Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder.

Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco’s most beloved superheroine. She’s great at her job—blending into the background, handling her boss’s epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.

Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.

But everything changes when Evie’s forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it’s up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles—all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda’s increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Kuhn is the author of the popular Heroine Complex novels—a series starring Asian American superheroines. The first book is a Locus bestseller, an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award nominee, and one of the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog’s Best Books of 2016. Her YA debut, the beloved Japan-set romantic comedy I Love You So Mochi, is a Junior Library Guild selection and a nominee for YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her latest novel for young adults, From Little Tokyo, With Love—a modern fairy tale featuring a half-Japanese heroine—is a Junior Library Guild Selection, one of the New York Times’ YA Books to Add to Your Reading List, a People Magazine Best Book of the Summer, a nominee for the Golden Poppy Award, and Penguin Random House’s One World, One Book title of the year. She has also penned a variety of short fiction and comics, including the critically acclaimed graphic novel Shadow of the Batgirl for DC Comics and the Star Wars audiobook original Doctor Aphra. Additionally, Sarah was a finalist for both the CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment) New Writers Award and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. A third generation Japanese American, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and an overflowing closet of vintage treasures.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Asian-American superheroines Evie Tanaka and Aveda Jupiter protect San Francisco from perilous threats in the first book in Sarah Kuhn's snarky and smart fantasy trilogy • "The superheroine we've been waiting for." -Seanan McGuire



Being a superheroine is hard. Working for one is even harder.



Evie Tanaka is the put-upon personal assistant to Aveda Jupiter, her childhood best friend and San Francisco's most beloved superheroine. She's great at her job-blending into the background, handling her boss's epic diva tantrums, and getting demon blood out of leather pants.



Unfortunately, she's not nearly as together when it comes to running her own life, standing up for herself, or raising her tempestuous teenage sister, Bea.



But everything changes when Evie's forced to pose as her glamorous boss for one night, and her darkest secret comes out: she has powers, too. Now it's up to her to contend with murderous cupcakes, nosy gossip bloggers, and supernatural karaoke battles-all while juggling unexpected romance and Aveda's increasingly outrageous demands. And when a larger threat emerges, Evie must finally take charge and become a superheroine in her own right...or see her city fall to a full-on demonic invasion.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One
I am not a superhero.

This was the only thought I could muster when a cupcake with fangs launched itself at my head.

“Evie, duck!” The voice rang out through the sugar-laced air. “And whatever you do, don’t stop filming!”

“I’m on it, boss!” I yelped. I bobbed out of the cupcake’s path and flung myself behind a counter, my tailbone colliding with the floor of previously pristine bakery Cake My Day. That floor had been a spotless expanse of ivory up ’til about fifteen minutes ago, when a posse of demons leapt through their portal of choice, assumed pastry form, and started acting like a bunch of assholes.

I peeked over the countertop, tightening my grip on my phone. Its plastic case was slippery with palm sweat. It was a cold sweat, though. No warmth. Never any warmth if I could help it.

I finally located my boss, held the phone aloft, hit “record/livestream” on the video app, and managed to get her in frame as she spun around to deliver a solid roundhouse kick to another fanged cupcake. When confronted with the power and sheer stylishness of her thigh-high leather boots, the cupcake split in half, sending frosting pinwheeling outward.

I couldn’t help but imagine her name popping up over this bit of footage in cartoony bubble letters:

AVEDA JUPITER

She is a superhero.

Aveda landed from the kick, her ponytail making a heroic “whoosh” sound as it flipped through the air. Her lithe frame was encased in a skintight confection of black leather and silver spandex, just glittery enough to fall on the right side of the “tacky” divide. With her raven hair pulled into a tight ponytail and her eyelashes heavy with silver mascara, she looked like an intergalactic cheerleader.

Personally, I thought the whole ensemble screamed of overkill, but what did I know? I was wearing jeans, a hoodie, battered Chuck Taylors, and a t-shirt with a cartoon duck on it. I was not exactly an authority on looking fabulous.

I was, however, an authority on using my phone to document Aveda looking fabulous. As her personal assistant, it was my duty to fulfill her every need, cater to her every whim, and get splattered by demonic cupcakes. Usually while cowering behind countertops.

I was pretty good at all of these things, but right now I was mostly good at getting splattered. A cupcake landed with a sploosh next to me and sank its tiny fangs into my wrist.

“Hey!” I protested, wincing at the sharp stab of pain. I batted the cupcake toward my foot and kicked it hard. It skittered across the floor, then snapped its fangs at me right before smashing against the bakery’s back wall and exploding into a blizzard of crumbs.

“Yeah, fuck you, you ’roided out Cakey Monster,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the remnants of the stupid thing. “Why’d you have to imprint on something so messy?”

I surveyed the damage to the bakery. Letta Wilcox, Cake My Day’s hopelessly emo owner, wasn’t going to like this. She’d worked hard to make the place a wonderland of calorie-laden carbohydrates, a haven where San Franciscans could stuff their faces with everything from delicate petit fours to hearty cakes, all topped with sparkly frosting. Adding to the fairyland vibe was Letta’s collection of porcelain unicorns, a rainbow menagerie of beasts that dotted the countertops and lurked behind the tower of cookies in the display case.

Now the whole place was trashed: the cookie tower had toppled, the display case was a pile of glass shards, and the frosting was fucking everywhere.

And the evil cupcakes kept coming, spitting themselves out of that just-opened portal with the force of tennis balls being relentlessly whacked over the net by a Wimbledon-caliber superstar.

I pressed my hoodie sleeve against my wrist, sopping up blood oozing from the demon bite. A solitary bite was nothing to worry about, but if I wasn’t careful, those cute little cupcakes would scent my blood, swarm me like piranhas, and chomp me to death. No matter what form the portal demons took, they were always insatiable in their need to eat everything in sight. And they loved human flesh the most.

Recently, Aveda had tried to capitalize on this by slashing a cut next to her collarbone before going into battle so the demons would scent her blood, go after her, and boom—she’d take ’em down. I found this a bit extreme, but she’d waved me off, noting that “a little blood is a small price to pay when it comes to saving human lives.”

Well, when you put it that way…

“Evie!” Aveda’s voice pierced my thoughts. “I told you not to stop filming!”

“Like I said, I’m on it.” There was no trace of annoyance in my tone—only soothing placation. It was a tone I’d spent the last three years perfecting. (And luckily, I’d made the decision to livestream without sound. Aveda’s fans didn’t need to know that she usually required soothing placation during battle.)

I turned back to the screen, attempting to hold my phone steady as Aveda blastedthrough a series of cupcake missiles with a single punch. I had just managed to zoom infor a particularly flattering close-up when a figure clad in a frothy lace dress smashed into me, her head clonking against my shoulder. I nearly dropped the phone.

“Oops! Sorry, love!”

“Watch it, Lucy.” I readjusted my sweaty grip. “This primo footage of our fearless leader is being broadcast live to thousands of San Franciscans. You know, for all her fans who want to feel like they’re right here with us. Watching the amazing Aveda Jupiter kick demon ass in person.”

The “battle livestream” had been Aveda’s idea. I knew she was hoping her fans would be particularly wowed by a spinning backhand move she’d recently added to her repertoire. It looked pretty awesome to me. Then again, all of her moves looked awesome to me, mostly because I couldn’t conceive of doing them without falling on my ass.

“And I’m here to help with that,” Lucy purred, gesturing at my phone. “If only to get Miss Fearless Leader to stop yelling at you for two seconds. I was merely attempting to slide in next to you in cool superspy fashion.” She fluttered her eyelashes and flashed me the patented Lucy Valdez Smile of Supreme Innocence.

Others might be taken in by that smile, given Lucy’s tiny stature and typically adorable ensemble: vintage frock, knee-high stockings, patent leather Mary Janes. For me, the effect was somewhat ruined by the knowledge that she had six daggers of various sizes concealed on her person. And possibly some nunchucks. As Aveda’s weapons expert, personal trainer, and occasional bodyguard, she was in charge of such things—but I was pretty sure she carried all that stuff around on her days off, too.

“Has boss lady tried her spinning backhand yet?” Lucy asked. “She insisted on prolonging last night’s training session way past both our bedtimes just to make sure she had it exactly right.”

“I think it’s coming…now.” I gestured to Aveda as one last mob of cupcakes swarmed her, their fangs tearing at her costume. She took a step to the right and whirled into that forceful spinning backhand, taking them out one by one: Splat! Splat! Splat!

Frosting exploded everywhere. I ducked, but managed to hold my phone steady.

The effect of the move was stunning. It was like watching old school Wonder Woman...

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Verlag
Astra Publishing House
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0756410843
ISBN 13 
9780756410841
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
385
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchpark GmbH
gpsr@buchpark.de

Krügerweg 1
Trebbin
Brandenburg
14959
Deutschland

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