What I'm Reading: Tasty Book Tours Spotlight + Excerpt + Giveaway: Rushing to Die by Lindsay Emory

Friday, January 8, 2016

Tasty Book Tours Spotlight + Excerpt + Giveaway: Rushing to Die by Lindsay Emory

Rushing to Die
Sorority Sisters #2

By: Lindsay Emory

Releasing December 29, 2015
Witness Impulse

Blurb

“We’ll be sisters ’til we die…”

In the second installment of Lindsay Emory’s Sorority Sisters Mystery series, chapter advisor Margot Blythe must expose a sorority row assassin … before she becomes the killer’s next target.

Three months into her tenure as the Sutton College Delta Beta chapter advisor, Margot Blythe has the sorority in tip-top shape, just in time for sorority rush. Snapping and stomping in perfect synchronization, everyone is hopeful that after this rush, Delta Beta’s reputation as “the murder house” will be forgotten.

Until a body is found in the Delta Beta backyard. Again. The woman is found wearing a Delta Beta shirt, which is troublesome enough; even more distressing, no one in the chapter recognizes her. Unwilling to let a minor inconvenience like potential murder spoil the social calendar, Margot gladly hands off the investigation to local police cutie Ty Hatfield, while the Delta Beta girls throw themselves into rush preparations.

But when another body is found, with the terrifying possibility of more to come, Margot does the only thing a responsible advisor can do and demands that rush be canceled, making enemies in every house on sorority row. When the resulting furor starts to get dirty, it’s up to Margot to uncover some nasty messes tucked away in the sorority closets—to save her sisters’ reputations, and their lives.

A witty, engrossing mystery for fans of Susan McBride.

Excerpt:

We heard the pitch pipe at the front door, and the chapter immediately launched into a three-part a cappella harmony. “We the girls of Delta Beta.”

Then a nearly perfect cutoff. I couldn’t see it from the chapter room, but I imagined the music chair’s hand slicing through her throat before holding up one, two, three fingers and cueing the chapter to—

STOMP

STOMP.

I lifted an eyebrow at Ginnifer. Their stomps had gotten as fierce as the finals of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

“WE ARE THE GIRLS.”

A loud cry rose from the front door, the women half singing, half cheering at the top of their lungs. It was enough to convince any right-minded college-aged woman to sign up for an unbreakable bond of lifelong sisterhood.

“THE GIRLS OF DELTA BEE.”

“WHO ARE THE GIRLS?” asked one-half of the chapter.

“WE ARE THE GIRLS—THE GIRLS OF DELTA BEE.”

The sound roared down the hallway toward the chapter room, and, in an instant, I was an undergrad again, exhausted and spent, yelling my last ounce of voice in the general direction of fifty rushees, forcing all my love and devotion into the timeless classic.

The chapter filed in, filling the stage in the chapter room. I held my breath as the crucial part of the song began.

Snap. Snap. Snap.

“DONCHA WONCHA BE A DELTA BEE, TOO?”

Bounce snap.

“YOU KNOW YOU WANNA BE DONCHA WANNA BE …”

Bounce snap.

I watched the ladies carefully, willing them to be the best, the most perfect, the women that Mary Gerald Callahan and Leticia Baumgardner would be proud of, and I was happy … then.

Bounce.

No snap.

My face fell. My stomach churned. A group of three sophomores had dropped their snaps. Yes, their faces were red from screaming their little Deb hearts out. Yes, their bounces were sufficiently springy.

But.

We had no room for error. Not this rush. I picked up the megaphone. “Christopher! Berger! Prejean!”

Their faces paled. They knew they were in trouble when I used their surnames. “TAKE A LAP AROUND THE HOUSE AND THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING HERE.”

I ignored the shame on their sweet red faces as they hurried outside. I handed the megaphone back to Ginnifer and ignored the conflicting emotions rising inside me. The panic was real. So was the compassion.

No. I loved this chapter too much. I had to do what was necessary to overcome the events of three months ago. WE had to do what was necessary.

My mind was in a better place as I retired to the chapter advisor’s office to review, for the hundredth time, the Panhellenic rush manual. Everything was fine, I told myself. Even if we were a little tough on each other, a good rush would make everything better. No. It would make everything perfect.

I was in that happy place for about five minutes before three panicked sophomores rushed through my office door.

It was Berger who spoke first, flying through her words so fast, I couldn’t process them for a moment. But then, they became horribly clear.

“Dead Deb,” she huffed through strangled sobs. “Backyard.”

Then everything fell apart. Again.