Hey all. I’m taking a break from my maternity leave to feature a guest post from my friend, author Juli D. Revezzo. She has a new release out, and she’s here to talk to us about one of my favorite topics: supernatural minions. :-) Without further ado, here’s Juli!
The one thing that makes paranormal romance stand out from all the other subgenres is the use of myth and superhuman beings and evil. Most of us know a tad about supernatural elements from or movies like Legend, Labyrinth, and even Night Breed to TV shows like Charmed, Angel and Supernatural.
(OMG that last few episodes!)
Ahem, I digress. I used these as models when writing my debut Paranormal Romance novel for The Wild Rose Press, Passion’s Sacred Dance. However, I admit it, I found the overuse of vampires well…an element that has become cliché these days. You know the joke of course: Vampires don’t sparkle!
Well, since vampires are so prevalent in Paranormal Romance and Urban fantasy, I decided to step away from that trend. Just take a peek at Monstropedia and you’ll see there’s a whole world’s mythology-worth of beings from which to choose. For me, I went even one step further. While I brought in gods for my story, while hunting around for minions (Minions!) of my Dark god Balor, I looked to my own backyard. Down here in Florida, there’s a running joke: The state mascot should be an alligator. I mean these blasted things are virtually all over the place. They come up often into neighborhood backyards and whisk away unsuspecting dogs and sometimes, if you’re very unlucky, children.
So, I thought, since I was setting my epic battle that my hero and heroine—Aaron and Stacy—fight in the Sunshine State, why not use our own monster in Passion’s Sacred Dance? Give the minions a little shapeshifting magic, and viola! A supernatural minion fit to rip an unsuspecting heroine’s head off was born. Boy, does Stacy really begin to hate them! Ever after her first surprising introduction to them, she’ll never look at a nature show about alligators the same way. Bet you might not either. ;)
Would you like a little taste of their story and what these little monsters cause for she and her beloved Aaron?
Peering out the office door into the gallery’s main hallway, Stacy could see a member of the staff attempting to straighten out a new portrait of the mayor. Off in the distance, the guard’s footsteps echoed through the halls.
The squeak of a door drew her attention away from him, and she spied her assistants. Hannah and Melody were carrying an empty pedestal toward the storeroom.
“How’s it look, girls?”
“The gallery’s locked up, but there are still a couple of students milling around the courtyard, slurping up coffee,” Hannah said.
Stacy checked her watch. Six o’clock already? “Good. Anything else?”
“Nope,” Melody said. “That’s about it.”
Stacy nodded then strode into the main gallery, past statues of a few founding fathers, paintings of historical incidents, and cabinets displaying the city charters. Slipping through a door at the far end of the room, she entered the courtyard.
Despite the chill air, Hannah was correct. Stacy spied a few tattooed men and women gathered around a small table, discussing a class while slurping cups of coffee. One woman sitting with them had silvery gray eyes that shined like beacons. Hard to miss.
Stacy stared at her a moment longer, trying to figure out the nature of the color—real or fake? Putting the woman’s eye color down to a set of extremely cool contacts, she smiled and gave the woman a jaunty salute then reached out for the empty glasses lining the next abandoned table.
When the hairs on the back of Stacy’s neck prickled, a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed the woman still watched her. Uncomfortable, Stacy strode to the far side of the café to escape the woman’s scrutiny. Something told her to look back.
The woman with the startling eyes stood right behind her, glaring. Her eyes glowed like quicksilver.
Creepy!
Miss Silver Eyes smelled of patchouli, musk, and some other strange scent she couldn’t identify.
The woman leaned close to Stacy’s ear, and her voice sounded raspy when she spoke, “We will have this ground. This harshad time, Stacy Macken, the ground is ours, and they will never dance again.”
Harshad? How did she know about the harshad wars? Had the time truly come, then, already?
Stacy stared as impossibly long incisors slid down from the woman’s gums like snake fangs. Miss Silver Eyes clamped a hand around her upper arm. Shock pulsed through Stacy’s body, rooting her to the spot, despite her mind’s order to flee. The woman’s steely gaze, the ruby and shark’s tooth earring glittering in her right earlobe, and the dark threat mesmerized Stacy.
“No, you won’t have this ground.” A cool male voice brought the silver-eyed woman up short and the fog lifted from Stacy’s mind.
Aaron Fielding stood before her dressed in casual jeans and a gray, cable knit sweater. He seemed right at home here among the students, and yet somehow he also stood apart.
The air shifted. Stacy could have sworn his leather coat, for just an instant, took on the shape of a golden eagle’s wings.
A high-pitched whine escaped from the silver-eyed woman’s throat. She cocked her head as she took Aaron in, a bemused smile spreading over her face as if she were privy to some private joke.
He retrieved an item from his coat. At first, Stacy thought the object might be a baton, and then it changed shape and substance, wood to steel. The innocuous baton became a sword.
An hysterical laugh bubbled up inside her and Miss Silver Eyes tossed her aside. Stacy landed hard against a table and gasped at the pain. She rolled over, sitting upright, and pulled her knees to her chest.
Miss Silver Eyes threw a punch at Aaron. He sidestepped her fist and flicked the baton-sword-thing at her head.
“Now, wait!” Stacy jumped to her feet and caught the baton before it bashed the woman’s face in.
Aaron grasped her upraised hand, removed it from the baton, and thrust her behind him. “For your own good, don’t interfere.”
Miss Silver Eyes screamed. Steel glinted from her fists as she rushed headlong at Aaron.
He raised the weapon while muttering something in a foreign language.
Stacy squeezed her eyes shut, too frightened to move. Surely, the woman would knock them both to the floor. The impact she anticipated never came. Instead, an explosion of light split the air. Cringing and blinking in the brightness, she saw that the woman, hands outstretched, had gone utterly still.
Stacy frowned as she studied the woman, wondering what happened.
Aaron repositioned the weapon he carried and shoved it into a hidden pocket in his coat. “Stay back.”
He clasped a hand around Stacy’s wrist and pushed her a little further behind him. Or tried. She dug her heels in and didn’t move. Aaron frowned hard. “For your own good, stay out of the way,” he said.
“Why should I?” Her heart beat a wicked tempo and panic skittered through her.
“If the spell breaks before I’m done you’ll regret it, trust me.”
“Why should I do anything, let alone trust you? This is my gallery.”
“Would you rather have her—” He nodded over his shoulder to Miss Silver Eyes, and his breath hissed through his teeth. “—rip your throat out? No? Then, stand back.”
Blurb:
Battling mounting debt, Stacy Macken is determined not to lose her historic art gallery. When Aaron Fielding appears and offers to help, she fights to keep the attraction sizzling between them from clouding her judgment. He may be her savior in disguise–but can she trust him?
Aaron intrigues her with tales of the Tuatha dé Danann, sworn warriors who protect humanity from the monsters seeking their destruction. If Aaron can prove what he claims, she would give up anything to help–even the gallery he claims is sacred ground. But with her property set to stage the next epic battle, she needs answers. An old family diary will confirm the ancient legend is true, if only they can find it in time.
If the battle is lost, the enemy will take control of Earth for the next five hundred years. Stacy and Aaron’s budding love might only complicate things.
If you’d like to read more of Passion’s Sacred Dance, it is available for Kindle now at Amazon,
and will be coming to other formats and Paperback from The Wild Rose Press soon. I hope you will enjoy it!
Juli D. Revezzo is a Florida girl, with a love of fantasy, science fiction, and Arthurian legend, so much so she gained a B.A. in English and American Literature. She loves writing stories with fantastical elements whether it be a full-on fantasy, or a story set in this world–slightly askew. She has been published in short form in Eternal Haunted Summer, Dark Things II: Cat Crimes (a charity anthology for cat related charities), Luna Station Quarterly, The Scribing Ibis: An Anthology of Pagan Fiction in Honor of Thoth, and Twisted Dreams Magazine. She recently released her debut paranormal romance novel, Passion’s Sacred Dance.
She also has an article and book review or two out there. But her heart lies in the storytelling. She is a member of the Independent Author Network and the Magic Appreciation Tour.
You can find Juli at:
Website: http://julidrevezzo.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Juli-D-Revezzo/233193150037011
Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5782712.Juli_D_Revezzo
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111476709039805267272/posts
Manic Readers: http://www.manicreaders.com/JuliDRevezzo/
Shelfari: http://www.shelfari.com/authors/a1002694572/Juli-D-Revezzo/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/julidrevezzo
Thanks, Rosalie, for inviting me here today!
