Help Wanted: Beta Readers

I'm sure the few people that read my blog have been wondering about the status bar along the side there. I haven't given a lot of description for what I'm writing, and the word goal has changed from 100k to 87k. As I currently have the first draft written and am working on the second draft to bring it up to the correct word count, I decided that it's time to start recruiting people to beta read it when I'm finished at the end of the month--or sooner, depending.

If you don't know what a beta reader is described on Wikipedia as "a critical eye, with the aim of improving grammar, spelling, characterization, and general style of a story prior to its release to the general public." In my own words, I just want someone willing to read my book and tell me what I can do better.

The reason I'm asking other people is because my mom doesn't like reading the genre I'm writing, and my dad is too busy teaching and coaching. So, if you are interested in reading a clean urban fantasy novel about a woman who hunts monsters please say so.

Anyone who helps will be listed in the acknowledgments when/if it gets published.

Quick blurb:

Nikelle Sharp hunts monsters for a living, sending them back to their own reality. So it's only natural for her to chase after a ten foot troll who just slipped through a rip in the Fabric of Reality. But what isn't natural is for a man to come through the rip as well, chasing after the troll for murdering his uncle and stealing a family relic. And it's definitely not natural for the troll to escape before Nikelle can kill it, and it's absolutely not natural for the troll to kill her landlord and steal his heart for no discernible reason.

While Nikelle scrambles to this problem, her police contact informs her that there is more to her landlord's murder than they originally thought. On top of that Nikelle's boss assigns her a case chasing down a monster that may have connections to the mob. Add to all of this a man from another reality that Nikelle is attracted to but can't--under any circumstances--become involved with and an ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be a hunter, appearing on her doorstep at four in the morning covered in blood.

When everything turns out connected, Nikelle has to race to stop a doorway being permanently opened through the Fabric, or her reality will be overrun by horrors she can't even begin to imagine.

Editorial/Soap Box

Has anyone noticed that people flock to the theaters to see movies like Saw and Halloween? The films that you just know are going to be filled with the most bloody and destructive way to kill a person? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. The ones where people get their heads or appendages ripped/cut off, their body torn to pieces, splashes of blood, stabbing, crushing, ripping, tearing... uh, it's making me sick just writing about it.

I have always wondered why people enjoy watching these. Since I had never seen anything like it, I couldn't say that I didn't like it, but I didn't like the idea of it. Sure, I like it when the heroes of a book or movie get injured, but not fatally so, and definitely not gorily so. I want them to emerge victorious and on their way to healing, not dead, dead, dead, dead, crippled, dead, or scarred for life.