Ghosts

Do you believe in ghosts?

I don't know how to answer that one. I'm not sure yet.

But the whole concept fascinates me. I'm not scared of ghosts so much although I may be if I see one, but I just wonder why a spirit would hover around and haunt. What is it up to? That's if they are real. One of the series I'm into at the moment is Ghost Whisperer. I love the concept of the main character helping the dead people find closure or healing so that they are ready to move onto the next life. A series I've been reading by Joya Fields features ghosts and a similar concept - that they don't feel ready to move on yet. It just calls for fascinating reading. You can find it here: Hauntings at Inner Harbor Series

I've also been reading a few physic  / non-fiction books. I'm a total sceptic, but I love reading about people's real-life experiences with ghosts. I don't think I could handle seeing them myself, but I think it's interesting reading about other people's happenings.

Anyway, I had to bring ghosts into one of my books. It's a new release which came out a couple of weeks ago. The blurb doesn't mention a ghost, but as you read on, you will discover the ghost at play in the story.

Romance Writer in Training...

Joanie wants to get her romances published but can't seem to get things right with her writing. She buys an antique bureau which the shopkeeper says has magic working through it. While using her new bureau, she begins to talk to the hero in her book, asking his advice on writing, all the while thinking it's her own imagination. She promises he can live in her home, eat at her table and sleep in her bed, if he helps her with her writing. She doesn't think he will actually knock on her door and insist she keep her promise.

He's made a wish...

Theo has also bought a magic chest of drawers that brings him into Joanie's life. He wants to settle down with one woman, tired of shallow relationships, and Joanie seems like the perfect candidate if it weren't for her insistence on getting rid of him.

Against her will...

The magic keeps on forcing them to live together and Joanie's not happy. This is her first year alone and she's been craving time to herself after looking after her younger siblings and an ailing aunt. Theo's presence in her home, although unwanted, stirs up needs she's suppressed for years. When they start to discover things about the magic and why it's bringing them together, will Joanie recognize another type of magic at work? Will she succumb to the charm of Theo or will her need for breathing space pull them apart?



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Paranormal Romance Heroes- Why Not Angels?

Castiel the angel on CW's Supernatural portrayed by Misha Collins

I never really would have considered reading a paranormal romance featuring angels.  I'm not sure why, I guess it's just that whenever I've seen them portrayed on tv or read them in books, the nature of their characters had left me feeling underwhelmed.

They were either hollow one dimensional people with no growth in their personality or (depending on the use of the tradition) they seemed off the mark as to what an angel was supposed to be.

All that changed of course when I saw the character Castiel on CW's tv show 'Supernatural.'  If I had to describe Cas in one word, it would be- chutzpah.  And he has oodles of it.  In fact he oozes it along with certain amount of unconventional sexiness that somehow manages to keep up with the raw animal appeal of his companions- Sam and Dean Winchester.

Though he's an angel, he's also strong and a natural born leader. Two traits we romance readers love in our alpha males. We find out in the course of his story line that at one time, he was a captain within his garrison of angels that was charged with overseeing a certain section of the world. We learned that he performed his duty with sense of quiet fortitude that had garnered the admiration of many of his peers.  

He also was one of the many angels who laid siege to Hell to rescue Dean Winchester from its clutches.  However out out of all of them, he was the only one able to pull Dean out using such force as to permanently burn a hand print into Dean's shoulder.

In the beginning Castiel did not have much interest in fostering interpersonal relationships especially those towards mankind (at one point stating that he preferred the Neanderthals to Cro Magnons because he liked their poetry). The closest he got to liking anyone or anything was that of admiring the 'beauty of God's creation from afar' however any act done beyond that was done out of obedience to an order from God or one of his angelic superiors.  

Still his emotional detachment changed over time.  He grew to love people, especially his friends the Winchesters, whom he considered to be his family.  From them he also learned about sexual pleasure 

along with romantic love.  Gradually some of his naivete fell away giving room to a willingness to experiment.  So much so, that at one point he even has a dalliance with a demon who admits that he is the one person in the universe that could make her turn to the good side.  

It is pure Castiel.  He is so hot.  Why?  Because is the perfect angel.  He is sweet and innocent, yet versed enough in the ways of the world around him to be a potent secret weapon no one will ever expect. 

Would he make a great alpha male in a romance novel?  Let me answer it this way- Dean Winchester- who is the ultimate alpha male on the show- calls on him when he's in a fix.  So yes, he and others angelic characters could be great protagonists in a paranormal romance. 

So naturally that got me to thinking.  There has got to be some great paranormal romance novels out there featuring angels as the heroes of the story.  It turns out there are.  But for now, I'll mention one: 

Relic by Deena Remiel.  Part of The Brethren Series

Blurb:  

Raphael, a Brethren Savior, an angel with a forgotten past, has lost his power to heal and is on a self-imposed guilt trip to get it back. If he can’t, his tour of eternal duty as Brethren Savior will be revoked. On his journey, he winds up enmeshed in a web of attempted murder and resurrection, all thanks to a woman he’s only seen in a photograph and by chance on an Arizona desert hiking trail.

Serena Sikes is a wanted woman. Desired by “undesirables” for a gift her brother gave her—a stolen relic with suspected healing powers. Hunted down in the Arizona desert and left for dead, she is found by none other than the angel who cannot heal.

Raphael and Serena are inexorably bound together, for locked deep within the relic’s heart had lived the soul of his long lost wife. Now, it resides inside Serena. Evil lurks around every corner as Raphael tries to keep both Serena and his dead wife’s soul alive and lustful temptation at bay.

Three souls bound together by an ancient relic, bound by a timeless gift, and bound by a love that is eternal.

Available now at Amazon

For A Demonstration of Castiel's ability- Watch This Short Clip! 

What Is Paranormal?

What do you consider paranormal? One free online dictionary defines paranormal as: Something very strange and not able to be explained by what scientists know about nature and the world. Another definition is: Not scientifically explainable or supernatural.

When we think about it, things we deem paranormal are pretty much anything that isn’t what the majority of humans would consider “normal”. If that’s the case, why do so many of us "normal people" love to read stories and watch T.V. or movies about something so strange?

Is it because our minds are constantly in some weird state of flux? Are we constantly and\or subconsciously working on the problems that are unique to the characters who interest us?

Maybe it has something to do with the characters’ sometimes over-the-top supernatural powers or do we just enjoy reading about people who can do all the things we would secretly like to be able to do ourselves? 

I tend to think that perhaps, it’s just that we enjoy reading stories about people who are just a little more screwed up than we are.

Over the years I’ve seen vampires and werewolves, zombies and aliens, to name a few. Each of these paranormal entities have cycled through our books and T.V. shows not to mention the big screen. After their few hours of fame, we fickle readers and viewers move along to another sub genre, almost tirelessly searching for something new, better or possibly even stranger than the last.

The best way I have ever seen the word paranormal described was in a dictionary I read long ago. It defined paranormal as: Anything other than normal. If that’s the case, my dear readers, welcome to the dark side because normal is overrated.

To see more from this author please visit www.tiannaxander.com, Twitter.com @TiannaXander, www.tiannaxander.blogspot.com, and  https://www.facebook.com/TiannaXander

About Tianna Xander

Sometime in the fall of 2000, after hearing that I loved reading historical romances a co-worker thrust a paper grocery bag full of books on me. For the most part, the books were what I loved to read, historical, mainly regency romances. However, hidden deep within this newfound treasure of books, I found a book of a type that I had never read.

The avid historical romance reader in me shuddered to find a vampire novel hidden deep in the bottom of that bag. Still, my husband was a sailor and out to sea. After reading the historical, I was bored. To me, an avid reader of almost everything, reading a vampire novel for the first time was infinitely better than reading an historical novel a second time.

Gingerly, I picked up the vampire novel and with very low expectations—boy I was a snob, wasn’t I?—I began to read. I stopped after the first chapter. It wasn’t because I didn’t like it. It was because the book was so good, so well written and quite in the middle of a series. Anyone who knows me and my reading habits, knows that I never start reading a series in the middle. I put down book four of the series and immediately went out to find books one through three and any others she may have written after book four.

After a year or so of reading every paranormal book I could get my hands on, I complained to my husband that my favorite authors didn’t write fast enough.

He said, “You’ve been wanting to write a book of your own for some time. Why don’t you give it a try while you wait?”

“Why not?” I replied and I immediately got to work. It should be easy, I thought. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t taken college English and vocabulary. This would be a piece of cake, right?

Wrong!

After countless writes and rewrites and close to a hundred rejections from agents and publishers alike, I almost gave up. Again my husband stepped up. “Darlin’,” he said, wrapping his arm around me and kissing my forehead. “You write all of the time. You write during your breaks at work, you write at breakfast, you write in bed… What will you do if you stop writing? You can’t stop writing. You love it too much.”

That made me think. I do love to write. I adore spinning tales that others read and touching people in some small way with whatever emotions are packed in my books. As much as I hate to admit it, he was right.

Not too long after that, a woman who I have come to realize is as beautiful inside as she is outside, offered me a contract for Virgin’s Blood.

The rest is, as they say, history. Now, after over eighty published stories later, I’m still writing and still hoping that I touch at least some of my readers the way my favorite authors have touched me. It’s my goal to make my readers laugh, cry and maybe hate a character or two before they see the character’s redeeming qualities. If I’ve made even one reader feel strongly about any one of my characters, I think I’ve done my job as a storyteller.

Pulling my readers into my stories is what I strive to do every time I write a new book. If I succeed in pulling readers into my fantasy worlds in some small way, then I’m happy in a job well done.

To see blurbs and excerpts please visit www.tiannaxander.com

Introducing Vicki Ballante

I'm so excited to be here amongst other paranormal romance lovers. I want to introduce myself as a new reviewer on this site.

I'm new to the genre as far as writing goes, but I have enjoyed reading paranormal romances for a while, mostly shifter romances, but I'm keen to try out others too. I also love watching paranormal shows on TV.

My take on the genre is more from the light / fantasy side. I don't write scary but rather sexy. My most evil villainess was tame. You can read about her in The Century Sage. But I enjoy writing about entering an alternate world where my characters have special powers or magic enters their lives and changes up things for them. As a kid I read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis and my love for fantasy was born. The way he created a whole new world in Narnia stirred me up. When I first became serious about writing, I naturally gravitated toward romance but started off contemporary. Since taking the plunge and dabbling in fantasy/paranormal, it's been an exciting road.

My first ever fantasy romance was The Love Commission. It's about fairies and gold and silver dust all set in Africa. Then I wrote Her Real-Life Hero about an antique bureau that has magic powers which brought Joanie an unexpected surprise in the form of sexy Theo. Her Real-Life Hero should be released in April/May. After that I wrote The Century Sage which truly was the most fun to write. I don't know why, but I loved the journey of the book. It's about Lina, the tree sage (or type of dryad), who heals trees and has powers to stop fires and floods. I also write sweet romances under another name and have started incorporating magic into those too.

You can find more info about my books here and here.