What triggers heroine's latent shifter ability?

Do you like heroines who don't know they're shifters until it's too late and the change is upon them? Or, heroines who become shifters unexpectedly and then must deal with pack politics? It makes for an interesting twist on the usual alpha male "I'm your mate and I'm mating you now, damnit!" storyline.

Luckily there's a lot of leeway in the werewolf lore. Authors can take advantage of that to create their own twists on the shifter world. Recently I was reading a blog by Paige Tyler on her new werewolf cop series and she has this to say about hers:

To start with, my werewolves are essentially born, not made (getting bitten or scratched by another werewolf won’t turn a person into one). They’re born with what I think of as a recessive gene that lies dormant inside them, only turning on when the person (man or woman) reaches a certain age, essentially when they become an adult.

By itself, the gene isn’t enough to make that person a werewolf, though. Once the gene flips on, the person has to go through an adrenaline-pumping, life-or-death situation. Something about the physiology of almost dying allows the gene to do its work, and that person becomes a werewolf. If that isn’t hard enough, the gene only stays active for a certain period of time. If the latent werewolf doesn’t goes through that dramatic event during that open window, which could be a few months or a few years, he or she never changes.

As you can imagine, that leaves a pretty small window for actually becoming a werewolf. But notice that the people can carry the gene - without knowing what they are - until a life-or-death situation triggers the change.

I like the idea of trigger as well. In my Sexy to Go serial, the heroine Casi has a shifter bloodline but she's unaware of the animal lurking within. Only after she meets and mates with a local shifter do the first inklings appear. Here's how the story starts out:

Volume 1 - she meets the alpha Liam and his mate Dahlia. They have a menage in the woods which leaves her body thrumming.

Volume 2 - Casi returns to the woods and meets Flint aka Snake. They have an intense sexual encounter which ends with him mating her.

But neither of these instances are enough to trigger Casi's wolf to appear .... although she's quickly rising to the surface. What's Casi's trigger going to be? Check out the next installment in Sexy to Go, Volume 3 for more info!

AND catch up for less! Sexy To Go Volume 1  is only $0.99 for all of April!

                                      

Happy Reading!

Eva!

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

I Cut My Paranormal Romance Teeth On A Werewolf Book

Technically it was a short story by Tielle St. Clair.

Since it had been so long since I'd had ventured into the world of paranormal romance-- you know since The Lost Boys debacle of the 1980's.  (You can read about it here...)  I was reluctant to read the genre.  I must admit back in the day there wasn't a great selection outside of Laurell K. Hamilton books which weren't my cup of tea.  So I was left floundering in a sea of Fred Saberhagen novels that didn't quite satiate my lusty desire erotic paranormal romance. 

Fast forward to a few years back and I'm totally into my paranormal romance thing again.  I figure I'm going to skip fan fiction and go right to the pros, expert edition... you know Erotic Romance.  I didn't know who was good or what to buy.  

I knew I didn't want to start off reading vampire novels because I think everyone was still in love with Twilight at the time and I was too afraid of delving into reading vampire books for fear of getting a vampire not of my liking.  So I turned to werewolves. It had been my experience Pre- Being Human that werewolves did not make great love interest because they often did horrible things to like everyone even their love interests.  

And though there was Josh from Being Human, he was a vicious werewolf every full moon but it was a generally a sad tortured puppy who piddled on the floor the other four weeks out of the year... so I wouldn't have thought to create an entire erotic romance around him.  Undaunted I charged ahead. 

So after reading tons of promos from fellow authors online I narrowed down the type werewolf book I'd be interested in reading along with some promising authors.  Note I also choose shorter works because I didn't want to buy a long book for fear of not being able to finish it.  

Armed with my knowledge and lust, I went to Ellora's Cave's website. I happened upon Tielle St. Clair's book, After The Ceremony.  It's a part of the Wolf's Heritage series.  The short story which at the time was free, (I got lucky) seemed intriguing. 

It was a menage, an MMF one in fact.    

Here's the blurb- 

Part of the Wolf’s Heritage series.The fun begins. After the ceremony.For Zach, Taylor and Mikhail’s wedding is a bittersweet event. He’s thrilled for his lovers but feels left out. Still, he’s going to do everything in his power so they can have the perfect wedding night. Just the two of them. But Taylor and Mik have other plans. Their perfect wedding night involves Zach and the wicked, wicked things they do together. 

----

So I read it and I loved it.  It was hot and sweet and interesting and I could go on.  It made me want to read the rest of the series!  Talk about going pro/expert edition-- I could teach classes after that one!

Then I thought, I got to have more.  And it's been a blur ever since.  I don't remember specifics about everything that happened since only bits and pieces... a menage here, two werewolves and a were bear over there. You know images...

Well anyway, that's how I wound up helping Peyton start the paranormal romance blog hop and this page because I watched Being Human on Syfy channel. And it was just a downward spiral from there.  

But oh what a ride it has been.  

Clare Dargin

www.theembraced.blogspot.com

www.claresblog2thehaven.blogspot.com