Turning on the
Blender: The Hybrid Paranormal Character
I’ve always loved a good paranormal tale. Vampires are
high on my list of interesting characters but I’m up for ghosts, shifters, and assorted
supernatural creatures of all kinds. I’ve also found stories about angelic
encounters fascinating. The beautiful images of angels in paintings, sunlit
stained glass, and sculpture capture my imagination. In Bespoken, I blend my love
of vampires and angels to write a paranormal romance with a vampiric angel named
Gabriel at its center. He’s no ordinary angel, no ordinary vampire. He’s a
nightangel and his arrival is quite a surprise for Casey Sloane, a driven young
attorney who is all business aside from her penchant for a little daydreaming.
The daydream world that Casey falls into is lush and
magical in contrast to the stressful realities an up-and-coming associate
attorney must navigate each day. Casey’s daydreams give a hybrid paranormal
being such as Gabriel two unique landscapes to operate within. This duality of
worlds that Casey slips between allows us to see what the nightangel brings to,
and holds back from, each environment. We learn how Casey, his quite practical
daydreamer, deals with her nightangel in two such diametrically opposed settings.
It might draw you to wonder what you would do if faced with Casey’s dilemma. How
would you react if an exquisite and dangerous nightangel strayed out of your
secret daydreams (where you couldn’t get enough of him) to turn up on your
doorstep (where the entire equation suddenly switches up)? Would you be
delighted or terrified? Would you let him stay or would you insist he go? How
his hybrid nature unfolds in the daydreams versus the world is sure to lead to
some interesting twists and turns. The dual setting surrounds Gabriel with some
extra mystery and presents Casey Sloane with some extra slippery slopes to
maneuver.
Writing a blended paranormal character is any setting
is fun because its hybrid nature opens so many doors for the character’s
traits, powers, and worldview. I did a lot of research on angels and vampires
but research is just a jumping off point with a paranormal creature. A vampiric
angel is more than a vampire with wings, more than an angel with a sharp set of
teeth. What it is, may be part up to the writer but it’s also partially
dictated by the character as it takes on a life of its own in your writing. Every
character is going to grow and change as they move through the story.
The
beauty of the paranormal character – especially the hybrid paranormal character
– is that it can grow and morph in so many wonderful and unexpected ways.
Gabriel is a nightangel.
What his nature encompasses intrigues me as a writer
because it holds the potential to harbor so many conflicting qualities. Is the
nightangel good, bad, or something in between?
Will his power and beauty make
it difficult for Casey to perceive the real answer? It’s going to be
interesting to see what surprises the nightangel Gabriel has in store for us
and for Casey Sloane.
I hope you’ll read Bespoken and meet the nightangel
Gabriel for yourself.
Bespoken
A Nightangel and Daydreamer Novel
Book One
Marie Michelle Coleman
Genre: paranormal romance/urban fantasy
Publisher: Suburban Island Publishing
ISBN: 978-0991146628
ASIN: B00IXA9UKK
395 pages on Kindle
368 pages in paperback
Word Count: 92,000
Cover Artist: Doug Pecht
Book Description:
Nobody ever told Casey how dangerous a little daydreaming could be.
Casey Sloane appreciates the power of a good daydream. It’s the perfect antidote to the pressures of her hectic life as an associate attorney at a high-powered Washington, D.C. law firm. When the nightangel Gabriel takes up residence in those dreams, Casey is more delighted than surprised. Gabriel is the perfect mixture of danger, otherworldly beauty, and out-and-out temptation required to throw her daydreams into a state of perpetual overdrive.
But when the nightangel sheds his wings and arrives in the real world for a real-time relationship with Casey, she gets a quick education on the unforeseen consequences of secret daydreams.
Book Trailer: http://youtu.be/4YeTJQqJy_g
Available at Amazon BN Smashwords ARe Txtr iTunes
EXCERPT
THREE:
His eyes shone
like the sun through the treetops on a summer day. Casey thought that was kind
of crazy considering he was a nightangel and preferred the darkness. All that
light raining down on her was banging against her heart like it was a tin roof
in a summer thunderstorm. The curve of his lips told her she would be swimming
in the fiery glow of his attention if he had his way.
She couldn’t
help but admire him. She gazed up at the nightangel, the way an artist studies
her own handiwork with proprietary pleasure. He was handsome, more than
handsome; he was the definition of masculine in her personal dictionary. His
nature was undiluted by modern convention. Everything about him was
unequivocally male—strong, purposeful, and confident. He had a little bit of
the knight in shining armor thing going but he played by his own rules. And he
was smart as hell. Gabriel was perfect. He was everything she had ever wanted
in a man and was afraid to get.
A fan of
soothing light stretched behind him and Casey realized it was the radiance of
the nightangel’s wings spread out at his back. Yes, he was perfect and it
didn’t hurt that he had a Class A set of wings sprouting out of his back
either. He was some dream. He beamed down at her. The world tipped on its axis.
The dreamangel
was looking more irresistible than she had ever remembered him being—and that
was saying something because vampires with the wings of fierce angels had a
certain natural tendency to hold a mortal in thrall by virtue of their very
presence. She tried to shake herself free of the spell he was casting over her.
Doing this was difficult. She could not get enough of her angel. Maybe she was
a kind of angel-holic. She shouldn’t like nightangels so much. They tended to
take advantage of it.
Marie Michelle Coleman is a paranormal romance and urban fantasy author whose book, Bespoken, is the first in the Nightangel and Daydreamer series. She's been in love with the written word since she was old enough to turn the pages of her first book. She's always had a fascination with vampires and angels. Sitting down at the keyboard and turning on the paranormal blender was a natural next step.
Marie lives in the Washington D.C. area. She believes in the power of a compelling dream, the therapeutic merits of loud music, and the benefits of always being in the middle of reading a great book. Marie has a soft spot for a good romance and likes to laugh. Jane Austen is her favorite author. She'll probably always be a little in love with Mr. Darcy.
She grows roses in her garden but no matter how hard she tries, they don't look anything like the ones in Casey Sloane's daydreams.
Website: http://www.mariemichellecoleman.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/M_M_Coleman
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/MarieMColeman/
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3 comments:
looks great!:)
Thanks so much for checking out this stop on Bespoken's virtual book tour and giving my guest post and excerpt a read!
Many thanks for hosting my guest blog today, Roxanne! I really enjoyed writing about the hybrid paranormal character.
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