Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty; ebook

The shining metropolis of Seventh City is the birthplace of super powers. The First Wave heroes are jerks, but they have the best gifts: flight, super strength, telepathy, genius, fire. The Third Wavers are stuck with the leftovers: the ability to instantly make someone sober, the power to smell the past, the grace to carry a tray and never drop its contents, the power to produce high-powered excrement blasts, absolute control. over elevators. Bar owner Keepsie Branson is a Third Waver with a power that prevents anything in her possession from being stolen. Keepsie and her friends just arent powerful enough to make a difference. at least thats what theyve always been told. But when the villain Doodad slips Keepsie a mysterious metal sphere, the Third Wavers become caught in the middle of a battle between the egotistical heroes and the manipulative villains. As Seventh City begins to melt down, its hard to tell the good guys from the bad, and even harder to tell who may become the true heroes.

PRAISE FOR "PLAYING FOR KEEPS"

"Theres something wonderfully Tick-like about Laffertys print debut, a gonzo imagination combined with a tight sense of plotting and good characterization. A quirky, funny page-turner that isnt afraid to give superhero stories a deserved whomp upside the head."
—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and coeditor of Boing Boing
"Playing for Keeps is like Watchmen mashed together with Cheers. Against a backdrop of high-stakes superhero battles, the real drama takes place at Keepsies Bar, where a group of misfit mutants band together to survive in a world where giant radioactive women are a dominant feature of the skyline."
—James Maxey, author of Nobody Gets the Girl

"If you think you know how a superhero novel is supposed to read, then youll find Playing For Keeps a revelation. Part satire, part thrill ride, this saga of a ragtag band of superheroes with a most unlikely assortment of abilities starts at a gallop and then accelerates. Now the world knows Mur Laffertys superpower: she can astonish us!"
—James Patrick Kelly, Hugo and Nebula Award¬Winning Author

AUTHOR INFO

Mur Lafferty is an award winning writer and podcast producer from Durham, NC. She produces the podcasts I Should Be Writing and The Geek Fu Morning Show, and is the writer and producer behind The Takeover, Heaven, and the podcast version of Playing For Keeps. She has written for over fifteen role playing game books.

Playing For Keeps is her first novel.