In Love With the Ghosties by Jane Kindred

I have a thing for ghost stories. I love them. And I especially love them in October. I watch horror movies all month long, and the ghost stories are my favorites. I really miss the Ghosthunters series that used to be on the SyFy channel. (I understand it’s back on A&E, but I haven’t been able to catch it yet.) As silly as it was, I enjoyed virtually wandering those houses and buildings in the dark with the team to see what they might turn up. There are other paranormal reality shows, but I haven’t found any I like as much as Ghosthunters. The others all seem to rely on jump scares, creepy reenactments, and just plain shrieking. (Please. Stop the shrieking. If there was an actual ghost in the building, you idiots would be scaring it into permanent hiding.)

Last night’s ghostly selection was the movie Sinister, starring Ethan Hawke as a writer who moves his family into a “murder house” to write about the mysterious killing of its last inhabitants. And right away, you know that’s not going to go well. Did this author learn nothing from The Shining? It makes you wonder if writers are particularly vulnerable to the ghosties. I mean, maybe we’re downright haunted, as a group. From Edgar Allen Poe to Shirley Jackson to Stephen King, being haunted (especially while writing) is obviously something that’s on a lot of authors’ minds. I was thinking to myself as I watched it, though, that I would probably stay in a murder house if given the chance. (Because I clearly do not make good life choices and have no more sense than most classic horror movie characters.)

Personally, I have never been haunted—though I’ve felt a couple of unusual things that I couldn’t explain—but I’m fascinated by the concept of hauntings nonetheless. The protagonist of my current work in progress (an urban fantasy that is so far just flirting with being a paranormal romance) is a woman who can communicate with the dead—seeing visions of their deaths as she tries to solve a horrific crime. She also has a near-death experience that may have been “nearer” than she thinks and which may or may not have enhanced her natural ability to see through the veil between the living and the dead. This is about as close as I’ve come to writing a “ghost story.” I had one other character—Phoebe Carlisle in Waking the Serpent—who could hear the dead. But the paranormal abilities of both these characters is secondary to the relationships in the story and the crimes they’re trying to solve.

With as much time as I spend every autumn watching horror movies, though, I think I’m really going to have to write my own ghost story one of these days. I don’t know if it will actually be horror (because I love happy endings way too much to really fit the genre) or if I might write a character in a romance who somehow is a ghost—or maybe a ghost hunter? Hey, how about a ghost hunter who falls in love with a ghost? But since I tend to get a little carried away with research, like the time I lived in Russia for a month to get the flavor for my Anastasia-inspired Arhangel’sk books, I wouldn’t be surprised if I do end up staying in a murder house—or actually buying one (bad life choices, remember?)—at some point. Let’s hope it turns out better for me than it does for those hapless writers in the movies!

How about you? Would you ever buy a murder house or stay in one? Maybe if somebody offered you money? How much would it take?

A Maleficent Cure for the Midsummer Blues

Ah, summertime, the season of no new episodes of your favorite supernatural- and fantasy-themed shows. (And the season of discovering some bonehead in Hollywood has canceled ones you were eagerly looking forward to watching next Fall. Dracula? Seriously?? Have these people lost their minds?) And thus begin the long, dry months before your shows return, when you have no excuse not to write in the evening so you end up watching every episode of Bones back to back on Netflix so as not to have to hear yourself think. Um…that’s probably just me.

Luckily it’s also the season of the Summer Blockbuster, which means lots of SF/F. Which always means lots of inspiration for a writer's fertile imagination. So far, I’ve seen The Amazing Spiderman 2, X-Men: Days of Future Past, and Maleficent. Though I enjoyed them all, Maleficent was by far my favorite, so gorgeous on so many levels. Angelina Jolie was brilliant in this, and the Midsummer Night's Dream-like beauty of the fairyland Moors poked at all kinds of stuff in my writerly brain. It was also a refreshing change for a summer blockbuster and a fantasy to have such a woman-centric cast.

I’ve always thought Maleficent was much maligned in the story of Sleeping Beauty. Even as a child, I was sure she had to have a good reason to do what she did, and after all, the king and queen had been inexplicably rude to her when all the other fairies were invited to Aurora's christening. This was obviously a story told by the victors of a medieval battle against some "monstrous" foe. If the story were from her point of view, the vanquished dragon, it would be very different. And was it ever. If there was anything that disappointed, it was something to do with the dragon, but I don’t want to give spoilers, and that scene was truly wonderful anyway, so I’m not complaining.

Jolie’s Maleficent reminded me very much of one of my own favorite characters, MeerShiva, who appears in my Looking Glass Gods series. Like Maleficent in this tale, her origins are as a sort of protector fairy of the swamp, and like Maleficent, she is horribly betrayed by a human who wants to manipulate her for his own ends. MeerShiva becomes a terrifying goddess of vengeance, although by the time my series begins, she’s become jaded after having lived for centuries and prefers to isolate herself from others rather than bother taking vengeance on—or helping—anyone. Yet somehow, like Maleficent, she finds herself reluctantly embroiled in the life of a charmed child.

For whatever reason, I’ve always enjoyed the powerful female villains in fantasy, where they are often more complex than their male counterparts. My character Aeval in The House of Arkhangel’sk trilogy is another of that breed. She’s been around a long time and seen men do terrible things and thus feels justified in the actions she takes to manipulate the lives of men and angels. I often feel I didn’t do her justice in the first trilogy, which was meant to be one of three: The Queen of Heaven, The Queen of Hell, and The Queen of the Unseen. (Aeval being the latter queen.) I still haven’t written the third, and I’d really like to delve deeper into Aeval’s character and find out exactly what makes her tick. Maybe someday I’ll get to that one.

But in the meantime, I have naughty demons to torment, lost kingdoms to find, lovers to separate, and gods to destroy. (And then there’s all those Bones episodes I still have to finish.) As a writer, I often feel like a supervillain myself, toying with people’s lives and trying to throw as much pain and suffering in their paths as I can before they ultimately triumph. As Prince Humperdinck says in The Princess Bride, “I’ve got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped.” Like any villain's, a writer’s work is never done.

I Can't Do Normal

I had a conversation with a fellow paranormal romance writer a couple of years ago at my first RT Booklovers Convention that has stuck with me, because she validated something I thought might be a weird quirk (one of many) of my own.

“For some reason,” she confessed, “I can suspend disbelief about a 500-year-old vampire falling in love with a mortal, no problem. But I just can’t believe a billionaire would fall for his secretary.” (I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist.) “Yes!” I cried. “That’s totally me!” (Because, you know, I get excited when I meet other weirdos.)

I don’t know why this is, but I just can’t get into contemporary romance (unless it’s between two guys, and then I don’t care what they’re doing or where they are, so long as they’re doing it—which is another quirk I happily share with many, and had no idea until a couple of years ago). I need that element of complete unreality (not the hot guys, the paranormal) in order to suspend my disbelief, and in order to be hooked on a good story.

Last year, after I finished up my fantasy trilogy, The House of Arkhangkel'sk, I wanted to write something different. I dragged out an old (embarrassingly old—like from-high-school-old) manuscript, from the days when I was writing strictly gothic romance, and wondered if I could make something of it, because it was a story I remembered fondly. I started sketching it out, using the original as a sort of wireframe for a new book, and at first, it seemed like a perfectly respectable romantic suspense. Then the hero started skulking about, doing things that could only be possible if he weren’t human. And suddenly, I was really into the story.

Once again, finishing up my m/m erotic fantasy series a few days ago, I started idly plotting what I’d like to do next. This time, I thought, I’m really going to write that gothic m/f romance I had in mind. Then I started jotting things down in my brainstorming document, and dammit, the heroine insists she has a paranormal gift. I'm not quite sure where this new story is going yet, but this heroine has very definite ideas.

Even Arkhangel'sk started out as a perfectly respectable alternate-world fantasy. And then demons and angels came prancing along, making the story captivate me completely. (Those demons still have me wound around their little fingers. Hence the related Demons of Elysium series.)

I’m not sure why I need this element of the fantastic in my fiction, but it seems there’s no pulling one over on my brain and trying to write something “normal.” Maybe it’s because I’m seeking escape from the mundane everyday world when I read and write. Or maybe paranormal heroes and heroines are just sexier. There’s certainly something undeniably sensuous and erotic about shape shifting into a wild, dangerous animal, or in being immortal—especially if that immortality can only be maintained by drinking human blood. Maybe it’s also the element of fear that comes with the idea of a supernatural lover.

Whatever it is, I’m not really complaining. Because who needs normal, anyway?

Are you incapable of normal or can you straddle both worlds? If you're a straddler, which do you prefer?

(And if you're like me, and you like hot guys gettin' it on with your paranormal, be sure to check out Prince of Tricks, the first book in my Demons of Elysium series, whose one-month book birthday is today.) :) 

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Angels, demons, sex. Heaven, hell, war. And a giveaway.

Angels, demons, sex. Heaven, hell, war. Blood and royalty, history and magic, fire and ice. And a story you cannot put down. This is fantasy at its best.

—Stephen Graham Jones, author of It Came From Del Rio

The quote above is for the first book in my Arkhangel'sk trilogy, The Fallen Queen, but it's even more appropriate for the final book, The Armies of Heaven, which I'm excited to say is now available. To celebrate the release, I’m giving away prizes to three different winners on my blog tour: a $50 gift card to Barnes & Noble or Amazon, a complete set of print books of The House of Arkhangelsk trilogy, and a collector’s edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen illustrated by Vladyslav Yerko. Just enter via the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post. This giveaway is international.

In Heaven, all hell has broken loose…

Full-scale war has broken out in Heaven, and Anazakia must embrace her destiny, leading an army of Virtues into battle against a Host of enemies to restore the House of Arkhangel’sk.

Furious with her for putting her trust in the angel who has done them all irreparable harm, Vasily tries to ignore his growing resentment, while Belphagor returns to the world of Man with a cadre of beautiful androgynous Virtues to restore the sundered alliance between the Fallen and the gypsy underground. Without their help in enlisting the terrestrial forces of Grigori and Nephilim, Anazakia’s Virtues are hopelessly outnumbered.

But there are more things in Heaven and Earth than any of them have dreamt of, and those they cannot see will mean the difference between victory and losing everything.

EXCERPT:

After Anazakia had fallen asleep snuggled against him, Vasily extricated himself and made a quiet exit, heading into the woody area beyond the lakeshore for a walk to blow off some steam before he ended up melting the tent.

The pain of believing he’d lost her had been supplanted by mounting anger at Belphagor. It had been building since the first night at the lake when Belphagor had admitted—only after Vasily had demanded to know what was going on, since it was obvious he was up to something—that he intended to take his little “fall.” He refused to say anything more, as if Vasily had no right to know. In all the years they’d been together, this secretiveness, this refusal to fully let Vasily in, remained his most irritating trait. And Belphagor knew it fueled Vasily’s worst trait—his jealousy and insecurity—yet he persisted in it.

Training that pretty Virtue of his as a submissive was bad enough. Belphagor said Loquel had asked him to. It wasn’t sexual, he claimed, and that much Vasily could believe; as often as Belphagor had wandered in the years before their breakup, he had a type, and Loquel was far too feminine for him. Though it still drove Vasily mad with jealousy to think of someone else kneeling before Belphagor, at least he’d told Vasily about it and given him the option to veto the relationship. If Vasily found it too upsetting, Belphagor had promised, he’d tell Loquel no.

Try as he might, however, Vasily couldn’t stop thinking about the sleek and sinewy Misha touching Belphagor when he’d found him in the Unseen World. They had a history together that, unsurprisingly, Belphagor had told Vasily nothing about until the leshi sought him out in St. Petersburg. Misha had been Vasily’s replacement while they were apart.

Vasily had stopped to relieve himself, watering the ground harshly as if it were the object of his resentment, when he heard a crack in the brush behind him. He jerked his head around to find Belphagor watching him from a few feet away.

“What the hell are you doing skulking around behind me?”

Belphagor gave him a devilish smile. “Just admiring your aim.”

He thought he was so damned cute. Vasily turned, still pissing, and let it splatter Belphagor’s boots.

“Ne baluysya!” Belphagor swore as he jumped back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Guess my aim isn’t that great after all,” Vasily growled. “I meant that to be higher.”

Belphagor’s dark eyes were bright with anger in the moonlight. “All right, malchik, let’s have it out.”

Vasily buttoned up, glaring fire at him. “It’s not enough you lie to me. You have to tell her to lie to me, too?”

“I haven’t lied to you about anything. And I didn’t tell Nazkia to lie to you. I just suggested she leave out the bit about Misha because I knew you’d overreact.”

“Oh, so now you’re the judge of what an appropriate reaction is.”

“You just pissed on my shoes. You don’t think that’s a little over the top?”

Vasily breathed out a thin sigh. “You almost left me for him, Bel. After everything. After Ola—” His voice caught on the name and he took a step back, horrified to realize he was on the verge of tears.

Belphagor’s demeanor changed instantly. “Lyubvi moyey.” He stepped toward Vasily with his hand held out. “We’ll find her.”

Vasily wanted to slap the hand away, to stay angry, because anger didn’t hurt, but Belphagor’s fingers brushed his and Vasily was in his arms in a heartbeat.

Belphagor held him tightly. “She’ll be home soon. Everything’s going to be all right. I promise.”

He hated when Belphagor made promises about things he couldn’t control, but this once, he let it go. This time, a lie was what he needed.

“And I didn’t almost leave you.” Belphagor kissed his throat, as high as he could reach without pulling Vasily’s head down or pushing him to his knees, and whispered against his skin. “I will never leave you. I thought you were leaving me, and I was being a fool once more and letting you go. But I have no intention of doing that ever again, either.”

With Vasily’s defenses down, it took him completely by surprise when Belphagor grabbed his locks at the crown and twisted, spinning him onto one knee.

Stepping in and pinning the leg with his boot, Belphagor forced Vasily to look up at him, his face the hard stone that made Vasily’s spine tingle—among other things. “You are to trust me, malchik. Ponimayesh?” He loosened his grip just enough to let Vasily nod. “I will never do anything to hurt you. That we haven’t agreed on.” The addition of the last phrase made Vasily weak with need. A slight smile crept into the dark glint of Belphagor’s eyes. “And if you ever pee on me again, Vasya…so help me, I’m going to make you sorry in a way you won’t like.”

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Serial Killer

In my ongoing attempt to read a book a week this year, I’m falling horribly behind. I’m currently reading a book I really want to continue, but I keep putting it down after a few pages because I accidentally read the third book in the series first, and now, reading Book 1, I already know the character I’m meeting has died horribly somewhere along the way. Every time this character does something endearing, or the main character shows how much he’s falling for him, I remember how miserable the MC ends up later on because of his loss.

I hate spoilers, and reading ahead is the worst kind of spoiler to me. I know people who read the last page of a book first so they know what’s going to happen. And I’ve been tempted a few times, if a book has me really on edge (which is another reading dilemma I’ve had this year), but I just can’t do it. If I know what’s going to happen, I have a hard time enjoying the story. I mean, why would I want to know exactly how Voldemort will be defeated in The Deathly Hallows and who’s going to die along the way before I’ve even met Harry Potter?

I don’t even like to know what’s going to happen when I’m writing. I’m a “pantser.” I want to experience the excitement and suspense the same way my readers will. And as I discovered when I tried outlining, knowing exactly how a story’s going to play out completely kills my interest.

The Armies of Heaven, the final book in my House of Arkhangel’sk trilogy, comes out at the end of this month. I’ve been careful to try let each story stand on its own in case someone picks up the books out of order, but I’m really hoping that readers will start at the beginning, with The Fallen Queen. Some series can be read in any order, but a fantasy trilogy is meant to be read as a complete saga, where the main character’s journey takes place over all three books. That’s how this one was written. If readers start with the ending, they’re going to miss out on the character relationships developed along the way—and on some hot demon sex. Trust me. Start with Book 1.

The Armies of Heaven is available for preorder from:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Powell’s

Are you a last-page-peeker or do you share my literary OCD? Does it ruin a series for you if you read them out of order?

Christmas, Take Two!

This is my first post on Paranormal Romantics, and I’m excited to join the lineup! I’m the author of the romantic epic fantasy trilogy The House of Arkhangel’sk from Entangled Publishing, featuring an angelic grand duchess and a pair of demon thieves who hide her from Seraph assassins in Russia. Book One of the trilogy, The Fallen Queen, came out in December 2011, Book Two, The Midnight Court, was released last August, and the final installment, The Armies of Heaven, is due out in May of this year.

Today is a particularly appropriate day for me to post, as it’s Russian Orthodox Christmas (in the Julian calendar), and my demons and angels are thoroughly Russian. So as an Orthodox Christmas present (which you can win even if you aren’t Orthodox or Christian…I’m not! ;) ), I’m giving away a set of signed copies of Books One and Two of The House of Arkhangel’sk.

You can enter via the Rafflecopter at the end; the giveaway will run until Russian Old New Year (January 14). This giveaway is international.

The excerpt below takes place on the Winter Solstice, but it seemed appropriate for the day anyway:

The wind was still high, but the sky had cleared. As I climbed beneath my covers, I saw a strange light over the horizon. The illumination danced above the trees and colored the snow with a lurid green phosphorescence. It rippled upward across the atmosphere like the radiance of a firespirit so powerful it encompassed the sky.

Shivering, I crept to the window to be sure I wasn’t dreaming and watched in awe while the light flickered and expanded, winking out and then surging forth again, the stars muted by its magnificence. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I didn’t know why. I suddenly felt tiny and insignificant in this vast world, far from home and Heaven, and yet my heart was captivated and humbled as if I alone had been chosen to see this wonder.

I padded in my tapochki and flannel nightshirt to Vasily’s room to see if he was awake. He lay in bed, his eyes closed, but they opened when I hesitated in his doorway.

“What is it?” He sat up. “Are you all right?”

“The sky,” I whispered.

He put on his spectacles and looked. “The Aurora Borealis.” He saw me shivering and pulled back his covers for me to climb in. “The Northern Lights. I’ve only seen it once before.”

Beneath his blankets, I curled against his chest for warmth. “What are they? Not seraphic?”

“No. The phenomenon belongs solely to the world of Man. I don’t know what causes it. Something purely mundane, I understand.” He wrapped his bare arms around me and watched over his shoulder. He was dressed only in a sleeveless undershirt and a pair of briefs.

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked. “Don’t you wear a nightshirt to bed?”

He shrugged. “I’m a firespirit.” His body was warm, almost flushed compared to mine. I rested my head against his chest and watched the lights, listening to the wind rattling at the window and to the steady beating of his heart.

“Do you miss him?” I whispered.

“Always.” There was a universe of longing in that single word.

I looked up at him, overwhelmed by the urge to protect him from the pain Belphagor had caused him, to comfort him as I had when he’d wept in my arms. With the strength and heat of his body against me, I realized comfort wasn’t my only urge. My virtue had been carefully preserved for a political match that would bring heirs to some far-corner duchy of Heaven, an unappealing eventuality I’d intended to prolong as long as possible. But the stringency of duty and honor had drained away into the aether with my family’s blood. Of what use was virtue when my world had ended? I had an ardent, urgent desire for this demon as I’d wanted nothing in my life.

He caught me looking at him and his eyes widened in surprise. I hadn’t meant to act on this sudden revelation of awakened need, hadn’t meant to throw caution—and my virtue—to the luminous arctic wind, but the answering hunger in his eyes loosed my impetuous tongue.

“What happens,” I breathed, “when a firespirit and a waterspirit come together?”

He pressed his fingers to my lips as if to be sure I was speaking, and a spark of wavering violet danced on his hand. I sought his mouth with mine and at the meeting of our lips, the light surged around us like our own aurora.

Heaven can go to hell.

Until her cousin slaughtered the supernal family, Anazakia’s father ruled the Heavens, governing noble Host and Fallen peasants alike. Now Anazakia is the last grand duchess of the House of Arkhangel’sk, and all she wants is to stay alive.

Hunted by Seraph assassins, Anazakia flees Heaven with two Fallen thieves—fire demon Vasily and air demon Belphagor, each with their own nefarious agenda—who hide her in the world of Man. The line between vice and virtue soon blurs, and when Belphagor is imprisoned, the unexpected passion of Vasily warms her through the Russian winter.

Heaven seems a distant dream, but when Anazakia learns the truth behind the celestial coup, she will have to return to fight for the throne—even if it means saving the man who murdered everyone she loved.


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