Back from the dead with some big questions

 Hello Dear Readers!

Amanda here and back from the dregs that was 2024. Last year kicked my butt, but this year is starting off a little better? I made sure to open the front and back doors of my house at midnight on New years to let the old energies out and the new energies in, and I think it worked. 

As part of a life-refresh, I started asking myself why I do I write. Why do I stay up late and dream up characters and world? Why do I write paranormal? Why not romance or high fantasy? Why Shifters? Why not Elves or Angels?

And just to add to my imposter syndrome, why do I write about a creature that has been written about a million times before?  Especially when you’re working with the supernatural. Both my book series deal with primarily with shapeshifters (and maybe a few fairies and demons stuck in there too). 

When I started writing, I wanted to call them Shifters partially because there was something sexier about calling them shifters, and partly because saying were-panther tends to get a snicker in response. It’s all the same trope of magic. So in my mythos, the shifters are humans who harness magic to shift into an animal. Their animal is mostly determined by who bit them OR, fun turn of events, sometime called a soulshift when the animal matches their spirit and not their bloodline. The moon pulls at them and heirloom silver is their weakness.

But it all sounds pretty familiar, right? It’s hard to get something original about a creature that appears in every single culture across the world. So something about them must be appealing to our deeper self, right? Why do we find shapeshifters so damn alluring?

There's only one reason, right? We like the danger. Even with a human consciousness, those are still some damn big claws. That edge keeps us on our toes, ready to fight or flee. We like that it’s a wild animal trying to get out. We like that they can smell our fear. We like that they have basal core temperatures of 100 degrees (at least mine do) because it means for a lot of no-shirt time. It is a simple and universal attraction.

 But if you want to go deeper, I guess we could also look at this through a Jungian lens about  seeking to understand the animal side of ourselves. Our myths about were-creatures stemmed from a fear that our animal selves will take over and expose who we really are.  In Diaries and Truth, the animal only exposes who they really was, even if they wasn’t ready to be that yet.

So, if our animal selves expose who we really are and our attraction to them is based on our fear of knowing the truth about ourselves and others, what would your animal be? I know you’ve thought about it. Would you be the proud lioness who guards her pride fiercely? Would you be a black lab who is loyal until the moment of death? Are you a Panther?

Amanda Arista

Author of Diaries of an Urban Panther series and The Merci Lanard Files

www.amandaarista.com

@pantherista

Forbidden Fruit (And Don't We Love It!)

We've all met the forefathers of the paranormal world. Bram Stoker's Dracula, George Waggner's The Wolf Man, and other early prototypes of the much-maligned fur-and-fanged world have been ingrained in our racial memory almost as deeply as a fear/fascination of fire.

Think I'm joking? Don't worry, I am... mostly. While there is no (credible) evidence of fanged cavemen stalking the Neanderthals of ages past, there is, instead, a like fascination with the things that go bump in the night. We have loved to hate vampires who creep through bedroom windows, cheered when the werewolves have been put down by silver bullets (carefully crafted from one's father's melted down watch, natch), covered our eyes when the blood-bathing witch was burned at the stake and the souls of her cursed victims set free.

If you're here, then you share that love with me.

And perhaps you can answer a question that has always interested me: How, in all that is (un)holy, did vampires go from this unfortunate child of the night to this blessed hunk of blood-love? Where in our society did we decide that being stalked by furry-faced flesh-eaters was not nearly so fun as being seduced by them?

I have a theory, gentle (and not so gentle) readers. My theory is this: We as a species, a culture and a shared memory are routinely fascinated by the forbidden. From as majestic as the ancient tales of locked gateways to heaven to the mundane as being told we shouldn't touch the stove, we are drawn to that which we cannot have.

A creature of the night who is as likely to kill me as kiss me is about as forbidden fruit as I can get. Add in the most-certainly intimate trappings of blood, penetration of fang (hey, now!), and the invariable mechanics of dark nights and lonesome surroundings, and you have a recipe for one smoldering romance.

Aside from that whole "may possibly get killed by my fanged lover" bit... A tiny, insignificant detail, of course.

Does it stop with the traditional critters? Absolutely not! In this very blog, we have mermaids and dragons, vampires and gods; a veritable cornucopia of creatures, A to Z. (Do we have a Z, actually? What on earth—or beyond—starts with Z? Anyone? Anyone? ... Bueller?) And while modern fairy tales have been Disneyfied quite a bit, we all know that the old tales weren't nearly so light and happy (and only rarely featured a song and dance number).

Mermaids have been known to eat and drown thirsty men; sirens lured sailors to their deaths on craggy rocks. Gods have rarely been so kind as to help from the goodness of their hearts—most have been portrayed as selfish, flawed beings with phenomenal cosmic powers (and very large living spaces, to boot!). Vampires, as we mentioned, drink human blood, werewolves feast on human flesh; witches ate children and bathed in the blood of innocents.

And as if the natural state of their being wasn't enough, we humans have always hunted and destroyed (or captured!) what we don't understand. We have to quantify everything, and to do so we, we must pick it apart... Can you imagine a vampire in a laboratory?

So tell me your story. What draws you to these once-upon-a-time killing machines? Why do you read paranormal, and what makes you want them?

Hi, my name is Karina Cooper, and I'm addicted to paranormal romance.

In my debut novel, Blood of the Wicked, Silas Smith is not a man who is lured by the forbidden. In his line of work, the forbidden is executed, and he's one of the best witch hunters the Mission can claim—thorough, deadly, and most of all, dedicated. His task? Simple enough: use Jessie Leigh to hunt down the witch that is her baby brother, no matter how many lies it takes to force her hand. Unfortunately for him, Jessie's a witch, too, and she's not going to roll over without one hell of a fight. There's just one problem...

Like most of us, Jessie's got a thing for the forbidden. And the man who'll kill her if he learns the truth is about as forbidden as a witch can get.

Bets, anyone?