A Return to Paranormal

Last week was a bit of a frantic week for me as I had two books release within a day of each other. Things have calmed back down a little but of course, it's just in time to gear up for the holidays. Luckily today is my last day of work until after the new year!

But I did want to talk about one of my new releases last week, because it was a return, of sorts, for me to paranormal. Everything I've released since July of this year has been where I seem to gotten the most comfortable--erotic romance w/ elements of BDSM. But I started out publishing in paranormal/urban fantasy romance. I'm not certain if my brain needed a bit of a break from the two genres I was playing around with the most at the time (futuristic/sci-fi & contemporary) but I pulled up an old file I had sitting within the depths of my hard drive. It was a paranormal romance I'd started very early last year. But I abandoned it when I couldn't seem to get the storyline to work as I wanted to. Something about it just wasn't right.

The story was to be of a female doctor who lost a patient (a child) on the table in her emergency room. It's not the first time and it's happened frequently enough recently, it breaks her. She flees to an old Gothic church in downtown Chicago where she seeks solace inside the building. Stressed and feeling as if she has nowhere else to turn, she falls asleep in one of the pews. The POV switches to a beat cop standing over her and he's not all that he seems to be. He's not actually a beat cop, but a watcher/guardian for the doctor. An immortal of sorts who is tasked with watching over humanity to keep it from destroying itself. And therein enter the paranormal aspect - by day he is a gargoyle on the outside of the church.

I had other bits and pieces from there, but reading over what I had down, I'd realized I'd approached the story wrong, had the wrong characters and even had the whole scope of what I wanted to do wrong. So I took the concept of what I intended and started again. And the results of my second go at the story was released last week from Ellora's Cave under their Spectrum Line - GLBT. Quite the change...

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Brady thrives on saving patients in his busy emergency room, but when things don’t go according to plan, nothing prepares him for a chance encounter. There’s something familiar, and mysterious, about the downright sexy-as-hell stranger he encounters on a busy Chicago street.

In Garrett’s world there are no coincidences. He’s been standing as the doctor’s secret guardian for years. Driven by a burning need Brady unknowingly awakened more than a decade ago, Garrett finally breaks his silence. He steps in to show Brady there’s more to life than rescuing those in need.

Roused by their desperate passion for one another, their desire reaches an explosive breaking point. Brady realizes one night isn’t enough, but Garrett is bound by rules he can’t change. Now Brady’s healing touch may save more than just a life—it may just save Garrett’s soul.

~*~

Can I just add here that this novella wrecked me emotionally for a few days after I finished the first draft. Going through my personal edits wasn't so bad because I knew what to expect. However, I got a few months reprieve from it while my editor considered the submission and when she accepted it, it didn't even dawn on me that I was going to have to read the story again a few times for edits. Needless to say, I was wreck again the first round of edits. *g*