From the Backlist: "Faith and Fantasy" by Jeaniene Frost

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We think this is a fabulous post, by the great Jeaniene Frost, so we hope you enjoy this revisit. :)

Faith and Fantasy

by Jeaniene Frost

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As a paranormal writer, I’ve often been asked how my supernatural creatures differ from others. Take my vampires. One of the things they can do that many others in fiction can’t is walk around in the daylight. Yes, just like in the original Dracula by Bram Stoker, my vampires have no lethal aversion to sunlight. Something else that repels many vampires in modern fiction, but also has no effect on mine, is crosses. I originally decided on that because I couldn't come up with an answer to the question of how a vampire who pre-dated Christianity would cringe away from a cross, and I have some vampires in my novel who are much older than two thousand years.* Therefore, religious objects in my books don’t have any effect on vampires.

That doesn’t mean faith is absent in my stories. In fact, my idea for the origin of vampires came from the Biblical story of Cain. In my retelling of it, God’s “mark” was making Cain into the first vampire, cursed to forever drink blood as punishment for spilling his brother Abel’s (or so the vampires claim. Ghouls in my books have a different version of what Cain was turned into, heh). So right from the beginning, I knew I’d have to deal with the element of faith in my supernatural world.

Still, the idea than an entire species would agree about spiritual beliefs seemed an impossible notion even for a work of supernatural fiction. Therefore, even though I made up a fictitious creationist history for the undead based on the biblical character of Cain, this doesn't make the vampires or ghouls in my book automatically Judeo-Christian. Instead, they represent a wide range of beliefs, including atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostics, pagans, voodoo, and more. Mencheres, the hero in my upcoming novel, Eternal Kiss of Darkness, still believes in the ancient Egyptian gods -- which gave me an excuse to indulge my love of Egyptology with more research about them!

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To read the full post, click here

To visit with Jeaniene Frost and discover her latest series, try her website

From The Backlist: "Why Do People Like to Read Scary Stories?" by Merrie Destefano

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We love our Supernatural Underground backlist -- and it's very hard to go past this fun post from the fabulous Merrie Destefano!

Why Do People Like to Read Scary Stories?

by Merrie Destefano

The sun goes down, the sounds of the city grow quiet, and the rest of the family nestles, safe and sound in a world of incandescent light. Meanwhile, one person huddles alone in a darkened room, face turned toward a screen, eerie blue light carving shadows on her face while her fingers slowly tap out a message, letter by letter.

A writer is writing.

Wind blows outside her window, leaves gather in shadowed corners of the yard and nearby trees sway, branches creaking.

The writer is writing a scary story. 

Why do some writers always return to the dark side of literature, spinning out tales that make readers sit on the edge of their seat? Perhaps an even better question, and one that I’d like to discuss here, is why do some people love to read scary stories?

While, I can’t answer this question definitively, I can offer some suggestions.

1. ADRENALINE RUSH:
This is my favorite answer, although many of the others are just as good. We read scary stories so we can experience artificial situations of “fight or flight.” These scenarios, whether real or imagined, get your body ready for action by giving you an extra dose of adrenaline. Your heart beat speeds up, your breathing increases and your blood pressure increases—in other words, it’s like an instant dose of caffeine combined with heavy exercise. You’re ready to leap over tall buildings in a single bound, although you may be screaming “Mommy!” all the way.

2. FAMILIARITY:
You’ve been here before and you liked it. You’ve been reading scary stories for years, you have a list of favorite authors and you’re waiting in line, with sweaty palms, when his/her next book releases. You stay up late (reading these stories is always better at midnight, right?), turning pages while everyone else is asleep. But the truth of the matter is you can’t sleep, can you? Not until you know what happens next…

3. A VISCERAL REACTION:
The desire to feel something strongly—no matter what the emotion is—can drive readers to these books. Detailed descriptions of eviscerated body parts in zombie stories may not get you excited, but there are plenty of readers out there who live for this stuff.

4. TO FEEL ALIVE:
Similar to the answer above, books that put you on the edge remind you that you are alive. You’re not watching some soap opera at lunch time; you’re hunched over a novel wondering if the heroine is really strong and smart enough to survive that demon horde that’s been chasing her for the last twenty pages.

5. TO CONQUER THE DEMONS:
We all have our demons, things we’re afraid of but don’t want to admit. Things like clowns (It), menacing dolls (Chucky), the end of the world (The Stand), rampant pestilence (Contagion), rabid dogs (Cujo), vampires (Interview with a Vampire) and serial killers (Darkly Dreaming Dexter). By vicariously facing your fears in a novel, you’re able to tame them, or at least, imagine that you’ve tamed them. Until they show up the next night, waiting for you in the closet.

6. TO EXPLORE THE UNKNOWN:
There are boundless supernatural realms, where wonder and horror walk side by side—realms where people rise from the dead or where someone learns the future in their dreams or where someone is giving an extraordinary power. There’s just enough enchantment and mystery to make you want to know more, and just enough danger to make you glad this is fiction.

7. TO FEEL STRONG EMOTIONS:
Anger—hatred—fear—love—surprise—terror—repulsion—empathy…Scary stories have all these emotions and more trapped between the pages, just waiting for an innocent reader to come along and release them. Before you know it, you’re experiencing the same emotions. Again, this is similar to Number Three, but I felt that it needed to stated again. (It is my list, no?)

8. TO PROVE WE CAN SURVIVE:
Isn’t that what it’s all about? You’re secretly taking notes, so if X, Y or Z ever really happens, you’re ready. Doesn’t everyone know what to do in a zombie/alien apocalypse by now? And if so, why? Because you’ve all been making a list and checking it twice while watching The Walking Dead or Falling Skies.

9. SATISFACTION WHEN TERROR IS OVERCOME:
There’s an unbelievably sweet moment when the heroine finally plunges a stake through the heart of the last vampire—almost instantly, your muscles relax, you slump backward in your chair and then breathe a well-deserved long sigh because, without realizing it, you’ve been holding your breath and sitting on the edge of your seat, ready to run.

10. TO PROVE THAT DRAGONS NOT ONLY EXIST, BUT THAT THEY CAN BE DEFEATED:
What? Scary stories can give you hope? To quote someone more knowledgeable on this subject than me: “Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”― G.K. Chesterton. Watching a character deal with the monster in the closet can give you the courage to face up to your own monsters. Yes, tales of terror can actually be uplifting, when written with that purpose in mind.

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Fun, huh?! To read the original post, click here.

To discover more about Merrie and her writing, go here.

Above all -- enjoy!

Zombie Lovin': What's Up With The Undead? -- More 'From The Backlist' Goodness!

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With Halloween clearly on the horizon, what better time to feature a lil Zombie Lovin'? Namely, Terri Garey's microfiction that checks out what's up with the undead?

We loved it the first time around and bet you'll enjoy the fun just as much today. Sure hope so! :D

Terri Garey

Zombie Lovin': What's Up With The Undead? by Terri Garey

When did zombies become the new black? Zombies are everywhere these days, including zombie romance. When I first heard the concept, I was baffled; how could love, sex and romance work if you (or your partner) were one of the undead? What if you kissed and your lips fell off? (Just kidding! Kinda.)

Anyway, one day last year, just for fun, I took a moment to imagine how in the world one could mix love with lividity, and came up with this short little pre-Halloween, tongue-in-cheek tale I'd like to share with you.  I must warn you, if you haven't read my books yet, you're about to find out that I have a slightly weird sense of humor. :-) But if, like me, you don't mind a giggle or two at the expense of the undead, read away, and enjoy:

Zombie Love

LOVE STINKS, AND SO DOES YOUR BREATH by Terri Garey

“Is that a femur in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Donna snuggled in closer to Derek, brushing the dark hair from his eyes with one hand. Unfortunately, a clump of it remained in her fingers, and she knew this particular boy toy’s time was limited. That was the problem with zombies—their shelf life was much too short, the pesky problem of decomposition being one she hadn’t solved yet.

Even embalming didn’t help, and she didn’t care for waxy buildup on her fingers any more than she did her floors.

“Brought you a present,” Derek murmured, with a lopsided grin, “for our two-week anniversary.” His breath reeked of blood and sausages, which made sense considering his job at the local meat packing plant. With a flourish, he whipped a hand from behind his back, and offered her his prize.

“How sweet,” Donna squealed. “It’s a heart!”

“Yeah, baby,” he answered smugly, blood dripping between his fingers. “A fresh one. Nothing but the best for my girl.”

“Awww,” Donna said, “I got you a present, too.” She let go of him long enough snatch her purse up from the bed. Digging inside, she brought up an object about three inches long. Picking off a piece of lint before handing it to him, she announced, “I usually wait at least a month before giving my boyfriend the finger!”

Derek and Donna both died laughing, which was long overdue, considering Donna had been dead for two centuries, and Derek for two weeks.

She eyed him with regret as she giggled, knowing his laughter would soon be a thing of the past, much like Horatio’s, the guy who’d gotten her into this fix. It had been Horatio’s idea to visit the cemetery in Edinburgh that night two hundred years ago. Bodysnatching had been a good way to earn some quick cash back then, unless your body happened to be the one that got snatched, of course.

Poor Horatio, she’d known him well, until that shovel had come out of nowhere, and smashed his head in. The doctor who’d done it hadn’t hit her hard enough, though, and she’d woken up in his laboratory to find him on top of her. After that, what was a ghoul to do except defend herself? It was only after she’d killed the doc with his own dirt-encrusted shovel that she’d found the secret book lying on his desk, in plain sight, and learned the ancient grimoire’s secrets about how to reanimate the dead.

“Hey, baby,” Derek said, interrupting her musings. “I got a perfectly good boner going to waste here.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her close again. “What say we get naked and put it to good use, hm?”

Donna smiled. She’d learned a few secrets about herself that night, too, including how her brush with death and her newfound ability to reanimate dead flesh left her with a taste for more of it. Immortality had cost her soul, but she was pretty sure she didn’t need it where she was going.

“Absolutely,” she answered, with a smile that revealed her own teeth, pearly white and perfect. Her eyes glowed red as she began to tug his shirt from his pants. “No use letting a good piece of meat go to waste."

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To read the rest of Terri's post, including a link to the "Thrill the World" event (where people all over the globe join together at the same time to dress in zombie costume and dance to Michael Jackson's "Thriller", in an annual attempt to break the Guinness World Record for "largest simultaneous Thriller dance"), click here.

To find out more about Terri Garey, including her fun & fabulous Nicki Styx series, go here.

Sophie Jordan's "Paranormal Heroines vs. Paranormal Heroes": From The Backlist

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Sophie Jordan first posted Paranormal Heroines vs. Paranormal Heroes as a guest of the equally wonderful Kerrelyn Sparks -- and we're thrilled to feature it again today. 

Especially as Sophie has an exciting new book, A Fire In The Sky (tagline: Magic lives...) due out on September 24!

Coming very soon!

But here's what Sophie posted when her Firelight trilogy (recently released with new covers) was new-out: enjoy!

Paranormal Heroines vs. Paranormal Heroes

As we slip into fall and near Halloween, nothing excites me more than talking about the paranormal!

Recently on tour for my latest novel, FIRELIGHT, a reader brought to my attention the fact that my heroine in FIRELIGHT is the paranormal “figure” in my book -- not the hero as is the usual case. Yes, I know this, of course, but I hadn’t really considered it very hard. Before now (see me tilting my head thoughtfully here).

Those new covers!

I started mentally checking off a lot of paranormal books – many favorites of mine – and realized the observation in point is rather true. I’m not saying there aren’t books with paranormal females in them, but so many books feature the male figure as the paranormal figure while the heroine is simply human. Why is that? I’m not saying one is better than the other … but I’m interested in your opinion today. Do we, as readers, simply want our male heroes more feral? More dangerous? Does making our heroes into a paranormal creature accomplish that? What does that say?

The original

In Firelight, my heroine Jacinda is a draki, which is a species that has evolved from dragons. She’s the only one of her kind that can still breathe fire. She’s a very strong female, and being so “unique” opens up a world of conflict for her. And what would a book be without conflict? Jacinda is constantly surrounded by danger because of what she is. Since I wrote the book solely from her POV, I had fun with this. It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun to write had she been the human and Will, her love interest, the draki. But that’s just my take. What’s your take?

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To read the full post, including some great comments, click here.

To find out more about Sophie Jordan, click here.

The Ghosts of Mugu Rock

Now that the second book in The Dark Cycle, DARKNESS FAIR, is out I get to talk about more of the research adventures I've had in creating the tale. I'm obviously in love with ghost stories and there are several of them related to the famous rock near the Naval Base at Point Mugu of Pacific Coast Highway where the finale for Darkness Fair takes place.

The tales begin with a story fit for faerie tales, where the legend of Princess Hueneme was born, a young Chumash girl who was the daughter of a great chief. Her beauty was well known and so, of course, many men fell in love with her. But she chose the young man who was already wanted by another woman. Needless to say, this angered the other girl and revenge was sought.

The rival went to a sorcerer to learn a spell in order to curse the couple. She became so talented at working magic that she was able to enchant the man to run away with her, and when Princess Hueneme followed, the evil girl made sure the curse would last. So, even though Hueneme took the man back with her to the village, she never regained his love. She soon became so distraught from the loss that she tossed herself off the cliffs of Mugu and turned to stone, becoming the rock we see in hundreds of car commercials today. Her horrified husband was at last free of the evil girl's spell, but once he learned of his wife's death he grew so hopeless that he followed his wife into the sea, his hair becoming the kelp that wraps around the stone made from the spirit of his wife.

Over the centuries more stories emerged, creating The Lady of Mugu Rock, who is the ghost of a poor native girl that was brutally murdered by a rich landowner. She has been seen many times wandering the area of the rock (and she is the ghost that makes an appearance in Darkness Fair). There have also been more suicides in the recent decades, as well as a plane crash which killed everyone onboard; 88 souls.

When you go to the spot today, you can only stand on either side of the rock as the initial highway from the 50's has been washed away by the tide (if you watch Mad, Mad, Mad World, you can see it whole). Now it's been fenced in and only rebels climb around to peek over the small cliffs. I won't say if I may have perhaps been naughty and pretended not to see the signs. ;)

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Rachel A. Marks is an award-winning author and professional artist, a cancer survivor, a surfer and dirt-bike rider, chocolate lover and keeper of faerie secrets. She was voted: Most Likely to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse, but hopes she'll never have to test the theory. Her debut novel is DARKNESS BRUTAL, the 1st installment in The Dark Cycle (Skyscape). Book 2 was released February 2nd, 2016 and is titled, DARKNESS FAIR.

Her website: www.RachelAnneMarks.com

Dark Moon Stars

Christian Schloe - Surrealist Visions

From Kim's 11th House Blog.

Hello Supernatural Underground readers! How fast did 2014 go?

It's the Dark Moon now until December 21st/22nd, the perfect time to reflect on the power and energy about to shift with the final New Moon of 2014. Dark moons are for rest, recuperation, meditation and quietude. Find a place, inner and outer, that represents peace to you and go there.  

New Moon 0 Capricorn 06'
LA - Sunday - 5:35 pm
NY - Sunday - 8:35 pm  
Lon - Monday - 1:35 am  
Syd - Monday - 12:35 pm

New Moons are perfect for setting intentions, pre-paving desires and focusing our energy on what we want, but often we're too busy to get in touch with how we really feel. As the dark moon deepens this week, we can look back over 2014, asking what came to be. What could use some tweaking? Is there any dead wood that wants pruning?

Aligning with the current Astro can help you find the answers now, before the New Moon, and turn that knowledge into powerful transformations.   

These tips are also excellent for setting intentions for a most fabulous and fulfilling 2015.

Key elements in upcoming New Moon are:

1) Uranus direct - think back to March/April 2013. What was set into motion then? You have a chance to make major adjustment there now, and move forward in new ways.

 2) The Uranus/Pluto square - It's been in orb since 2010 but coming to its final exact alignment. What challenges have you faced? What strengths resulted?

 3) Saturn leaving Scorpio to enter Sagittarius - What have you been working hard towards since late 2012? The fruits are about to ripen!

4) New Moon on the 0 degree Aries Point. What is it you want to be 'known for'? Make sure that is part of the intentions you set on this auspicious New Moon.

Remember you get to decide how your respond to everything that comes your way. Be it old family dynamics, new romantic interest, brilliant creative dream or a job/living situ that has to change, you set the stage by how you think of it.

Click to Enlarge - New Moon Chart December 2014

Sign by Sign Horoscopes for the New Moon and the New Year 2015!

ARIES: This New Moon is a laser focus on your career, mission, profession. It's not enough to just get by. You want to express your capabilities out into the world. Ask what it is you represent and be that every time you step outside your door. Career Action time! Make a move.

TAURUS: Think new horizons as the possibilities for expansion present themselves in the new year. The focus for you is on new experiences - going places you have never been before. Travel, meditate, learn, teach, wander beyond the beaten path. Expand your awareness now!

 GEMINI: The New Moon activates your house of shared resources, collaboration and the desire to transformation. It helps if you let go of old ways of thinking about yourself and embracing the new. Include the art of receiving in this renaissance self. Abundance through joint endeavors. 

  CANCER: The New Moon rises in your 7th house of relationships and the intentions you set now will pave the way for your all of 2015. Hint: Begin with yourself. That's the partnership that counts! Be there for yourself, and shower your life with LOVE, appreciation and reverence. 

  LEO: Time to address any health or healing areas. Everything you do in your day to day routine counts - exercise, nutrition and the thoughts you think! The key to manifesting the life of your dreams begins with the basics, with soap and water and the kitchen sink. Appreciate every little thing.


VIRGO: The focus for you is creative self-expression, your art, craft and recreation. What is it you love doing? More of that is in order! Your homework is to have the time of your life through play, creative practice, music, dance, theater, film . . . whatever lights you up. Romance doesn't go astray either!


LIBRA: This New Moon is in your house of secret feelings and it's going to awaken all kinds of magic in your life. Eyes open. Be ready! Any and everything you do to improve the home right now improves you too! De-clutter, and spruce up the Feng Shui. Dreams and synchronicities light the way!

 SCORPIO: For you, the New Moon rises in your 3rd house of 'mind' and it's your thoughts and how you direct them that are most empowered. This is where your communication skills come in to play. Use them! Focus on what you want most, speak it aloud, and watch dreams come into being.

  SAGITTARIUS: The New Moon in Capricorn can make it easy to get distracted with pragmatic concerns. This isn't 'bad' though if you look deeper at your 'resources' you'll see your true wealth is your core values. Use them. Meanwhile, sort your finances, make a new plan, and expect abundance in 2015.

 CAPRICORN: This is your personal New Moon so take a moment to reflect on how your life is progressing. What have you accomplished in 2014? What goals do you want to set in 2015? Care to raise your sights? The sky truly is the limit, so start blasting through those set-points now!

 AQUARIUS: The New Moon rises out of the land of dreams and the chaos of the unconscious mind. It's about letting go and allowing for what you want as opposed to trying to force things to 'make it happen'. The more you relax, let go of control and allow your intuition to guide you, the better. No resistance!

 PISCES: The Capricorn Moon lights up your house of friends and like-minded others. You are opening to new connections and also, perhaps, some friends are starting to drift away. Just go with the ebb and flow, releasing the urge to grasp and cling. 2015 brings leadership roles! Be ready!

 Comments always welcome.

Have a wonderful NEW MOON and a safe and warm holiday season!

 Namaste all!
 xxxKim
Kim Falconer is a Supernatural Underground author writing paranormal romance, urban fantasy, YA and epic science fantasy novels.

You can find out more about Kim at GoodVibeAstrology.com,  KimFalconer.com or on the 11th House Blog, and on FaceBook and Twitter. She posts here at the Supernatural Underground on the 16th of every month. Her latest release is"Blood and Water" in Supernatural Underground: Vampires Gone Wild.

New books, old books...

This week, I signed a contract for a new book (yay!). It's for a collection of paranormal erotic novellas, being published electronically by Escape Publishing (the electronic publishing arm of Harlequin Australia).

While I've written sex scenes before (many, MANY sex scenes), I'd not written erotica. It was a real challenge, to try to come up with new and interesting ways to keep things steamy and hot, throughout four interlinked stories.

As I've said here before - I like a good challenge. I like to test myself by trying to write things I've never done before. If they don't work that's fine - I've undoubtedly learnt something from the experience.

In this case, the publisher believes it has worked. In June, I'll find out if the readers thing so too!

Here's the blurb:

Cursed after death to live in a grey nothingness until they atone for their sins, four spirits have spent centuries doing good for others. Finally they stumble upon the true key to their salvation – because they hurt women in their real lives, they’ll only find release by now helping women to become all they should be. One by one, the spirits meet a woman and as sexual delights unfurl, the women find their happily ever after and the grey nothingness disappears, allowing the spirits to find contentment for the rest of eternity.

Meet four remarkable women – Luisa, Anna, Cara and Jan – and the four spirits that set them on a new destiny of sexual freedom and delight.

February also brought some good news about an old book.

In April, HarperCollins Australia will be re-launching the Dream of Asarlai trilogy in an omnibus (electronic only). That means you'll be able to buy all three books in one! There will be a new cover and a new price point. It's like a re-birth for the books, and I hope that it pays off.

So there you go - so far, 2014 has started with a bang. And hopefully it won't be long before I'll have MORE news to share with you.

Hope 2014 is treating you well!

An Interview with Merrie Destefano

Although we all know Merrie Destefano as a fellow Supernatural Underground author, I am still thrilled to be able to interview her today and ask a few indepth questions about her writing, particularly her new YA novel, Fathom.

And regardless of Merrie being a  fellow Supernatural Undergrounder, I am going to do a formal introduction, because the whole point of an interview, after all, is to get to know the author, as well as her work, a little better. So without further ado...
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Introducing Merrie Destefano

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 Merrie Destefano left a 9-to-5 desk job as a magazine editor to become a full-time novelist and freelance editor. Her first novel, Afterlife: The Resurrection Chronicles, is an urban fantasy published by HarperCollins/Eos, and her second novel, Feast: Harvest of Dreams released on June 28, 2011. With twenty years’ experience in publishing, her background includes editor of Victorian Homes magazine and founding editor of Cottages & Bungalows magazine. Born in the Midwest, she currently lives in Southern California with her husband, two German shepherds and a Siamese cat.

In addition to this interview, you may find out more on Merrie’s website: http://www.merriedestefano.com/
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Interview:  Merrie Destefano and Fathom

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Helen: Merrie, you have had two adult paranormal novels published previously. What drew you to YA with Fathom?

Merrie:  It’s hard to say exactly how it happened. When I was working on Feast, one of the characters really surprised me and she ended up having her own strong subplot. That character was Elspeth, Ash’s half-breed teenage daughter. I quickly realized how much depth there was to work with when writing a young adult character. I’d also been reading young adult novels for several years and had fallen in love with them.

Somewhere in the process of writing Feast, I took a short break to write the first chapter of Fathom.  The idea for that book came to me unexpectedly, which is actually common. My story ideas come when I least expect them, usually when I’m in the midst of another project. I guess I’d have to say that I was deeply influenced by the books that I have been reading and continue to read, which often fall into the young adult genre.

Helen: What do you see as the primary differences between writing YA and adult fiction, particularly in the paranormal genre?

Merrie:  For me, the main difference between writing YA and adult fiction is the fact that YA has so many built-in universal themes. All of us remember what it’s like to be a teenager, to feel like you’re not quite pretty enough or talented enough, to feel insecure. When you factor in the paranormal genre, you get the opportunity to introduce magic into the story—which when you think about it has a lot of parallels to being a teenager. There’s so much discovery going on during that part of your life. Plus, writing for the young adult market allows you to write almost anything you want; there are no barriers, there are no stories that are too strange or too weird or too unbelievable.

Helen: Kira, the heroine in Fathom, has a traumatic family past that spills over into other aspects of her life. How important do you feel it is that paranormal fiction is realistic in terms of the characters' everyday lives?

Merrie: I think it’s extremely important. It’s one of the key elements in making the world believable. Yes, there are paranormal or magical elements going on, so the rest of the world has to resonate with the reader. You have to give the reader a jumping off point, a place where he or she can say, “Wow, I know what that feels like.” Once you’ve got your reader in a point of agreement with what’s happening in the story, then you can take the story a step further, then you can add in the magical elements.

For example, in Fathom, an important part of Kira's story is that she is a loner, partly because of her family’s past, and as a result she has to deal with issues such as bullying at school. I wanted the book to have a contemporary feel to it, one that more readers would be able to relate to. But it wasn’t just about setting a realistic background, it was also about Kira's character and giving her the strength to deal with the paranormal occurrences as they develop. We all need the strength to make it from one day to the next and I wanted Kira to demonstrate what that looked like.

Helen: What makes a great paranormal read for you, whether YA or adult—what are the "must have" elements?

Merrie:  First of all, the writing has to be really good. I have a hard time connecting with a book that’s poorly written. Beyond that, I need to be able to connect with the main character in some way. A good example of a writer who was able to do that is found in Jeff Lindsay's book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter—it takes really good character development and writing ability to get me to the place where I can identify with a serial killer.

I also have to want to take “this particular journey.”  For me, it’s mainly about reading a story that will take me someplace I’ve never been before. I love reading about things/creatures that would never exist in our world—like fairies and zombies and Selkies—mainly because I believe there is so much more to our world than we can actually see. I’m not saying these things are real, but the imagination behind them brings them to life—and it gives us an idea of things that could exist. I love seeing how far the imagination can take us. I grew up reading fairy tales and books about people who lived on other planets, so I suppose it’s only natural that I would want to write similar stories.

Helen: Since the paranormal beings in Fathom are selkies, did you find it easy translating their associated Celtic mythology into a contemporary North American context?

Merrie:  LOL. I admit it wasn’t easy at first. But I really like adding a bit of mythology to my stories, because it gives the reader a point of reference, an almost subconscious agreement that this is true. I believe that both folk tales and legends have been told and retold so many times, that it’s almost like they’re written on our skin. We might not believe them at first, but when we hear them we still have a point of reference that can then lead us to a second point of believability.

Regarding Fathom, I originally wanted to set the story near the Mississippi River, but I couldn’t get the Selkie legends to work. Then I tried to get the legends to work with the Great Lakes region. But that didn’t work either. I had just finished writing Feast, which is set in the southern California mountains. Part of that book was so easy for me to write, because I live in Southern California and I didn’t have to do as much research as I would if the story had been set in another part of the country. So, I decided to try the story on the coast of California, in an area near Carmel and Big Sur. I had already decided that I was going to change the Selkie legends somewhat, and those changes fit in perfectly with my new setting.

Helen: Merrie, you've been having some fun with independent publishing lately—besides Fathom, can you tell me about some of the other projects you have on the go?

Merrie: I love the collaborative aspect to traditional publishing, but occasionally I also love to write my own stories my way and of course the whole digital book revolution and the POD process make it so much easier to try a range of approaches. As well as Fathom, I have a young adult post-apocalyptic story called The Plague Carrier and a collection of short stories called Waiting for Midnight for sale now on Amazon. I’m also hoping to self-publish a novella called Cursed soon—it’s a short prequel to my novel, Feast: Harvest of Dreams. But whether it's one of my independent or traditional projects, I've always wanted my work to be the best it could possibly be, and strive for that in my writing.

Thank you so much, Helen, for doing this interview! I really appreciate it and it was fun!

Helen: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, Merrie. I've had a lot of fun, too, and enjoyed finding out more of the background to Fathom and about your other projects.
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To Find Out More About Fathom:

Merrie has a great website and you can check out an excerpt from Fathom, here.

To purchase, you can go to Barnes & Noble, here, or Amazon, here.
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About the Interviewer:

Helen Lowe is a novelist, poet, interviewer, and a 2012 Ursula Bethell Writer-in-Residence at the University of Canterbury. The Gathering of the Lost, the second novel in her The Wall of Night series, was published in April, and she has recently won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012 for the first-in-series, The Heir of Night. Helen posts every day on her Helen Lowe on Anything, Really blog, on the first of every month here on the Supernatural Underground, and occasionally on SF Signal. You can also follow her on Twitter: @helenl0we

Chocolate-Covered Bliss

The winner of the Chocolate-Covered Bliss
Starter Kit is Bonnie! Thanks to all who entered. :-)

Before I get to the yummy title of this post, I'd like to remind everyone that the fabulous giveaway of 24 books from your favorite Supernatural Underground authors ends October 31st! If you haven't entered yet... Well, why not? Just click on the pumpkins below.

Now about the yummy--oh, something else to talk about first. At Paranormal Haven, they're having a month-long event called Halloween at the Haven. My turn for a guest post and giveaway came up yesterday, and I can't resist sharing my post with you. I wrote a paranormal short story, "Deadline," with a Halloween theme, with two different endings. You get to choose the one you like best! To read this original story making its debut now, just click on the story's title in drippy blood below. While you're there, you can enter the giveaway if you wish. 

Read my new short story!

Now, about that chocolate-covered yum. I saw a trailer for Skyfall, the new James Bond movie, the other day. After I was done squeeeeing over Daniel Craig, it popped into my head that This Was the Man I'd Most Like to Cover in Chocolate (after my husband, of course--this disclaimer, whether I remember to put it in or not, is always to be understood. Right? Right.).

So now I'm holding that thought and I figure I have not only the title for my post but an idea for too-cute giveaway, too. I'm offering a Chocolate-Covered Bliss starter kit. All you have to do is get Daniel to whisper yes ... to you. Enter the Rafflecopter drawing below.




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sex, Gore, and @!*&%!

**Giveaway! $25 Amazon Gift Certificate** 
The winner is Amy! Thanks to all who commented.

In the mystery genre, there are general classifications that readers assign to books based on their use of violence, sex, and language--just like rating movies. Some readers are comfortable only within the classification that appeals to them and rarely read beyond it. Others, like me, sample from all parts of the buffet table. Let's take a look at these classifications and see if they apply to paranormal books, too.

• Fluffies. These books drip wholesomeness, except for the fact that someone is murdered. Otherwise, they couldn't be considered murder mysteries at all. But the murder is sanitized and happens off-stage. For example, someone might get a phone call from the police informing them that Aunt Helen is (gasp!) dead. There is not even a hint of foul language and the only blood in the book will be there from the paper cut you got turning the pages. Fluffies are a fairly recent invention, created as a backlash when readers of the next classification of books started noticing language creeping in that made them uncomfortable. Thus, the fluffy was born. Guaranteed no encounters of the sex, violence, and foul-mouthed varieties. G-rated movies.
  
  

• Cozies. Light on all three aspects. These stories frequently take place in small towns, or if not, within an extended family. The emphasis on character development and especially relationships among a group of people are the controlling aspects of the story. Again, the murder usually happens off-stage and the mystery may involve something like keeping family secrets or falsifying the will. PG movies.
  
  

• Traditional. Now we get to mysteries with real meat on their bones, literally. While the murder might or might not still happen off-stage, the reader gets to see the dead body or bodies through the eyes of the lead character. The reader may see other characters in the book killed on-stage besides the initial murder. There may be couples having sex, but in a "fadeout" manner where the door closes or the blankets are pulled up just when things are getting really interesting. No lengthy specific descriptions of what's going on under those blankets. Language has slipped into usage of common curse words, and only the f-word is off limits. Or is it? Some of these books use the f-word in non-sexual ways as a strong expletive or something that is consistent with a particular character's manner of speech. These are generally the amateur sleuth books, where a character outside law enforcement becomes involved in a murder investigation, possibly to prove herself innocent of the murder. PG-13 movies.
  
  

• Hard-boiled. Language, violence, and sex are explicit but according the author's standards, not used for sensationalism. Subject matter such as serial killers, rape, pedophilia, human trafficking, gangs, kinkiness, drugs, the whole range of the human condition--anything goes. Language can be coarse, bloody violence is shown to the reader, and hot sex is usually part of the story. The protagonists are usually people within law enforcement in some capacity, or private investigators--in other words, a small segment of society that fights to keep the rest of us safe. R movies.
  
  

• Splatter books or erotica--Language has no restriction in either of these books. Splatter books detail scenes of bloody violence and torture that amount to wallowing in blood, which is the purpose of the book. Erotica emphasizes explicit, frequent, unusual, whatever, sex to the point that other story elements exist to support the portrayal of sex. X-rated movies or soft porn.

As I mentioned earlier, some mystery readers are loyal to one classification. Some will read only cozies, some hard-boiled readers think cozies are a waste of time and not real mysteries. You get the idea.

What about paranormals? Do you think there are general classifications like this, and if so, do you read multiple types or are you loyal to a single type? Are there any fluffy or cozy paranormals, or does our beloved type of reading kick in at least at the traditional level? If your favorite book or series was made into a movie, what rating would you give it? My Mortal Path series is definitely hard-boiled!

Leave a comment for a chance to win a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate, so you can indulge your passion for paranormals of whatever type. Shh ... I won't tell. Last chance to enter is Thursday, June 2nd. If you include your email, be sure it's disguised in your post. Let me hear from you!


xoxo,
Dakota

December 21, 2012 - Will the world end?

********* DRAWING IS CLOSED ********

Melissa is the lucky winner. Please get in touch with me via the
contact page of my website to claim your copy of Sacrifice!

****************************************

I wish I knew if the world was coming to an end on December 21, 2012, as some believe. A catastrophic end time, throwing the world into utter chaos. For one thing, I'd pay only the minimum amount on my credit card bills. Probably max them out, too. It'd be just my luck that all the doom and gloom people were wrong, and on December 22, 2012, my credit record would be shot. Maybe we could just not have a winter solstice that year and skip the whole controversy.


I'll say up front that I'm a skeptic about all the 2012 prophecies, but I have to admit to being a tad concerned about the end of the Mayan calendar. Those guys really knew what they were doing about astronomy and making calendars, and they say that after 2012, time will no longer have the same pattern as it does today. That's why the calendar ends--because they had no system for measuring the new time flow beyond that point. What does that mean? It could mean that the Earth would be thrown off its axis, changing the speed of the day and year dramatically. Life on Earth is adapted to a 24 hour mix of sunlight and darkness, according to season and lattitude. Imagine what it would do to plants and animals if that day shifted to 6 hours! (It would have the same effect, an astronomer told me, as if the moon suddenly vanished.)

Sumerian alien carving?

I'm going to add one more thing to this discussion before saying how I came up with it in the first place. Some celebrities, among them Mel Gibson, Jesse Ventura, Montel Williams, Woody Harrelson, Shirley Maclain, and Dan Akroyd, have listed themselves as 2012 believers (http://www.december212012.com), and Tom Cruise, too. Is this grabbing onto a hot trend for publicity or a sincere understanding of what they're putting their name to? You be the judge.

In the Mortal Path series that I write, the world-building is based on Sumerian myths. That's what started me thinking about the 2012 thing. The Sumerian people believed their gods came from outer space about 450,000 years ago. Eventually the major gods got around to creating humans as their servants when the lesser gods and demons refused to do the dreary work of maintaining a world. The gods all left Earth to return to space 12,500 years ago by hopping a ride on their home planet, Nibiru.

This creation myth correlates with today's search for Planet X, also known as Nibiru, the supposed home planet of those gods. This is a huge topic with many mind-boggling theories, dubious speculations, and NO scientific backup. Such as: Planet X collided with Earth and created the moon; Planet X's huge elliptical orbit brings it close to Earth every 3,600 years (like a comet, but it's an occupied planet); the planet will return in December 2012 and is described in the Book of Revelation as the prophecy of the sixth seal; previous close passages of Planet X caused the Great Flood in Noah's time and the sinking of Atlantis. Google Planet X and you'll see what I mean. Because of the lack of astronomical evidence for Planet X, all these things are tough for me to swallow in real life, but do a fine job spicing up the mythology!

Sumerian cylinder seal with solar system

Supposedly the Sumerian gods and goddesses are coming close to Earth again after a 3,600 year absence, and they may not like what humans have done with the world since their last visit. Hence, forecasts of doom. The Sumerian gods made us once; they can throw us away and start anew. So the myth goes.

Look at the famous Sumerian cylinder seal to the left. A cylinder seal is a carving that went totally around a cylinder of clay. The cylinder was then dipped in ink and rolled onto parchment like a rolling pin, leaving a 360 degree impression of the whole scene. Sumerian big shots used them as signatures. More than you wanted to know. Anyway, this particular cylinder is famous because it contains what is thought to be a drawing of the solar system. Keep in mind the Sumerians didn't have any telescopes, so how did they know about the solar system in the first place? The drawing in the upper left contains the sun, Earth and its moon, and nine other planets, counting Neptune and Pluto (both invisible to the naked eye). To add to the mystery of this drawing, there are ten planets total, one of them being Nibiru. Hmm ...

Although I don't use this aspect of Sumerian mythology in my series, I'm wondering if I should catch the wave and plan a special book for the 2012 release. Maliha single-handedly fixes the Earth's rotation, or something like that.


My current release, Sacrifice: Mortal Path Book 2, has just been out about a month and is getting great reviews. I'm running a drawing for the opportunity to put yourself into the next Mortal Path book as a named character, plus a subscription to the series or a manuscript critique by yours truly. Click the green button on the right that says "Put YOURSELF in the next Mortal Path book" to enter. Hurry! The opportunity ends December 1, 2010.

I'd also like to give away here a signed copy of Sacrifice, a pen, and a bookmark, separately from the character-naming on my website. To enter to win, please post a comment below. You can earn points by:

50 page preview!

+1 Posting in the comments section
+1 Linking to this post on Twitter
+1 Linking to this post on Facebook
+1 Linking to the Supernatural Underground blog on your own blog/website
+2 Posting a comment on Mortal Blog, my personal blog.
+2 Following Mortal Blog, my personal blog.

Note: You are not entering the character-naming drawing by doing any of this! That's separate and requires a submission form on my website. Click the green badge, above right.

Just post the total number of points (maximum 8) that you’ve earned in your comment. The winner will be announced in this post Saturday, October 2nd. Contest ends Friday, October 1st, at midnight! Please note that if I don’t hear from the winner within 3 days after the contest closes, I will select another winner.

To get started with comments, how do you feel about the 2012 controversy? A skeptic? Believer? 100%-it's-all-nonsense unbeliever? What do you think about celebrities advocating the end of the world? Is it all just PR?

Happy supernatural thoughts,
Dakota