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Category: Fantasy
Description: Debra Crosby, a street-smart survivalist, finds herself thrown into a world she cannot fathom, and put on a quest that challenges her sense of reality. Debra and her unlikely partner, Renee, travel through an alternate universe to track down the leader of the 'Phagi, known as vampires in our world, to save him and their own reality from destruction. Can two girls with so little in common, and so far from everything they know, manage to work together to defeat the 'Phagi and rescue the people in both places they've come to know and love? The answers might surprise you.
eBook Publisher: SynergEbooks, 2001 SynergEbooks
eBookwise Release Date: September 2004

2 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [324 KB]
Words: 73482
Reading time: 209-293 min.

"Gypsy Pie is very different ... but a good, unique different. Debbie, a savvy young black girl brought up in the mean streets of city life, is unexpectedly thrust together with Renee, a white girl from the ?other side of the tracks? who goes to the same school. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the two must join forces, put their differences aside and try to stop a thing from another dimension from wreaking havoc not only in his world, but Earth's as well. The two girls suddenly find themselves in another world where knights and vampires are the norm . . .and where a wizard has brought them to fight a powerful vampire bent on control.

Though the story suffers a slow start, it quickly builds momentum after Renee and Debbie join forces. Debbie's character is harsh and no-nonsense, though not unlikable, and Mr. West does a fine job illustrating the differences in the lifestyles and expectations of Debbie and Renee. Mr. West has brought to his novel a well-developed landscape of another world filled with colorful and fleshed out characters that experience broad spectrums of emotions. As an added bonus, there's enough action to keep the reader on the edge of their seat throughout. Do you want to read something different and out of this world? Gypsy Pie is right up your alley."--Denise M. Clark, Denise's Pieces Book Reviews

Later Debbie would figure that it didn't begin with Jeremy's planned party, nor with the book--not really. It started with that stupid fool Susan, and everything else just followed from that.

Debbie got into the car with Jeremy after school, still angry. Even with the forty-four-caliber in her pocket, the weight of the stares from the kids on the lawn and the street was heavy. They knew what Jeremy did, but didn't know anything about her...yet.

"It's a nuisance, isn't it?" Jeremy laughed. "You have to put up with little kids."

"Don't worry about it," Debbie replied. "I can take care of myself."

He nodded. "Right, right. So, Debbie, what're we going to do about getting me my money from the lottery I've been running?"

"I told you. We'll get your money tonight. Let's just lay low until then. I got nothing to do."

"My place?"

"Unless you know some place better."

Jeremy drove them on downtown. "When you get those new numbers ready?"

"I left them in the photo album from last time," Debbie replied, "page eighty-one."

"Damn, you?"

"I didn't know if that cop was coming after you or not. McGuire's a pretty bad guy. You shouldn't screw with him like that, just keep going."

On Delain Avenue and Trenton Street, Jeremy parked on the curb and stepped out of the car.

"You want to get anything?" he asked, pointing out the town's only Korean market, which stood right in front of him.

Debbie said, "Give me a Coke or a Pepsi and some Juicy Fruit. Get me the new Vanity Fair, also. Your man Austin really did the layout?"

Jeremy just grinned at her.

Debbie looked offended. "No? You're such a friggin' liar! Why the hell did you say that?"

"You still want that Cindy Crawford cover with K.D. Lang, or what? You changing your--uh, preferences or what?"

"Just get it!" Laughing, Debbie tossed Jeremy a ten-dollar bill. "My change...."

She stepped out behind him as he trotted off and slammed the door. He'd be in the store for a while talking to that guy Jack and his kid Philly. Nice people at least, she thought, not like those jerks Jeremy usually had for friends.

Debbie headed down Delain Avenue to some of the burnt out buildings. Everything was falling apart--that curio shop where a still unknown assailant butchered that poor old man, the high school that fell victim to a suspicious fire a few months back. Chaos. This part of Delain was beyond the central business district and had been brushed by such tragedies too many times within the past couple of years to count. No one was in a hurry to clean it up either. Thank God this isn't LA, Debbie thought. Nineteen-ninety-three had been bad for business, what with people around here distraught over Rodney King and the resulting riots, and it had been felt around here as if the cancer that poisoned South Central LA had reached its tentacles across the country.

Debbie checked her revolver chamber and stepped into one store. The last fire had totally destroyed the interior and stunk it up. They said it was an accident, but Debbie didn't think so. Mayor Penderson had opened up the whole west side of town to new opportunities for Blacks, and nobody from the north side of town liked that except Puerto Ricans, who for generations had lived among the "regular" townsfolk and so were considered acceptable to "normal" Rocksdale citizens--they didn't care one way or another. The blacks that had run this store and all the others on this street for a few uneasy months were gone for good. Nobody else would be moving in for a while. Chances were the township had become more cautious and sold the store to whites on the east or north side of town for a healthy profit. The blacks would watch the situation and hate it, but what could they do?

Debbie kicked blackened woodpiles and other debris around while going through the shop. The walls separating the storage room from the main buying area had been partially knocked down by both the fire and some of the firefighters. Last week the town finished the job and left the shop like this, not even bothering to board it up--after all, the central district was not very close to here, over a mile away. Whoever owned the shop now wouldn't be here for at least another year, and then he'd be set up before you knew it. When it rained, it poured. Imagine Jeremy in here running his lottery every Friday night or so.

Debbie herself never doped out numbers, that was for idiots and losers. She had plenty of money as it was, what with her carting stuff around for Jeremy and other guys down in the Strip and running card games in the Pit, that social club nestled in the eastern extremity of South Rocksdale people loved to frequent after work hours. The numbers for Jeremy were collected from the citizens of the 'Docks and the Strip on Wednesday afternoons and played Friday nights. For some reason Debbie couldn't divine, Jeremy's operation had a reputation as an honest one--funny, because in the last, say, three or four years only four 'Dockers had won big jackpots (a grand or more). It must be like the Lotto: nobody you knew won the prizes, but "it could happen to you." You never knew.