A Different Kind of Shapeshifter by Michele Hauf

Michele Hauf has created an entirely unique shapeshifter hero for her novella “A Kiss of Frost” in the Winter Kissed anthology from Silhouette Nocturne. Read on to discover who this special hero is and how you can win a free copy of Winter Kissed!

by Michele Hauf, author of “A Kiss of Frost”, Winter Kissed

I’m familiar with werewolves and werecougars, werejaguars, smoke-men, selkies, and the like. But a hero who is made of frost and can shift to human flesh? That’s a little different.

The idea to write “A Kiss Of Frost” was sort of a no-brainer for me. I’ve lived in Minnesota all my life. I love snow. Seriously. Frost patterns on the windows? That rocks. Snowbanks sparkling in the sunshine? Sigh… So I had to write Jack Frost as a hero. Or Jal, as I call him. But what’s so alpha macho about a dude who creates frost patterns on your windows? Well, my guy is a god/faery who does have a job: he’s an assassin. Actually, Old Man Winter sends Jal after environmental offenders. One touch from my hero’s frost and bye-bye!

What if he touched a woman’s soft, warm skin? Jal can take on human form and flesh if he chooses, and oh man, does he choose to be in a form that will allow him to communicate with the sexy snowflakeologist, Kate Wilson.

But there are very obvious worries when one is dating a frost god. Firstly, if he gets too warm…could he melt? Well, you’ll just have to give it a read and find out. 🙂

I’ll give away an autographed copy to one commenter who tells about their favorite part of the winter season.

Michele

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UPDATE: The last day to enter the contest with your comment is MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, so be sure to share your winter pleasures before then for a chance to win! ~Amy

Author Karen Whiddon’s Sexy Shapeshifters

Karen Whiddon continues her popular series The Pack in not one but two stories this month: Mate of the Wolf, available now from Nocturne Bites, and Dance of the Wolf from Silhouette Nocturne (on sale early at eHarlequin.com). Here Karen talks about what readers can expect from her latest sexy paranormal short…

by Karen Whiddon, author of Mate of the Wolf

Wow – I can’t believe it’s July already. And now my Nocturne Bite MATE OF THE WOLF is out! You can expect a page-turning, sexy read in this short story. And this time, I’ve added a Vampire to the mix! My Pack characters often fall in love with humans, but never with a Vamp, so this book takes the story of the Pack in a new and completely different direction.

Writing this book was so much fun! The shorter format, combined with a hot male Vampire inspired me to sit down and write non-stop. I wrote the entire book over a three or four day period, intense writing – and I loved it! I love the story, the characters, the heat, the premise, everything! While it was challenging to show character development in a short story, I love stretching my writing wings. I started thinking of other paranormal beings and how they might mix in my Pack world.

While MATE OF THE WOLF is completely separate from DANCE OF THE WOLF (My Nocturne out in August), I am constantly seeking new ways to test my Pack people, to expand their world. My hero in DANCE, Shapeshifter Dr. Jared Gies, is a recovering drug addict. My heroine owns a male strip club. Talk about stretching their boundaries!

Since I have many more Pack stories to tell, I’d like to know what you, the readers, think? Do you like the idea of intermingling shapeshifters with other paranormal beings? Do you think Vampires have been done to death <G>? Let me know, as I need to develop a couple more Nocturne proposals.

I hope you enjoy reading Mate of the Wolf as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Karen

 

 

Vampires Done to Death?

By Jenny B, Digital Content Manager

Is it time to kill the vampire hero? I was catching up on my blog reading and I saw this interesting post over at Dear Author.  In passing, the writer comments on the relative popularity of the vampire as alpha hero:

Aren’t vampires on their way out? I can’t read another vampire story. I’m into shifters and in a poll I had a few weeks ago, shifters were preferred 3 to 1 over vamps.

Is this true? Are you over vampires as heroes? If so, what are you into now?

My journey to writing paranormal romance

By Lori Devoti, author of Guardian’s Keep

When I first heard about Silhouette Nocturne I knew I wanted to write for it, but at the time it seemed like a long shot for me. I read a ton of dark paranormal and I am a major fantasy reader, but everything I had written at that point was light. I went so far as to say I couldn’t do dark.

But I wanted to, so I tried. I started out with what I saw as a sexy and unique shape-shifting creature, hellhounds. Then I tried to put everything into that first book that I loved about what I think of as traditional romances — the intense alpha hero, who doesn’t take guff from anyone — but I also wanted to write books where the heroine is strong — she may not think she is in the beginning, but she is and the hero knows it. No alpha heroes talking down to the heroines in my world.

As I built my world, things started to grow. I realized my characters really lived in a modern world based on Norse mythology. I discovered lots of fun and dangerous beings in this mythology, one of which I also saw as having hero potential — the Garm. Garm are wolf shapeshifters, but not werewolves.  They don’t “catch” shapeshifting from a bite or wound, and they aren’t ruled by phases of the moon. They are just shapeshifters, just as hellhounds are hellhounds, and elves are elves.

As I continue to write new Silhouette Nocturne books, I learn more and more about my world. And I love taking existing myths and updating them into modern versions. In Guardian’s Keep I used the myth of Fenrir, a mighty Garm feared by the gods themselves. I gave him a family and a motivation that wasn’t talked about in Norse mythology (although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, right?).

In my upcoming June 2008 Nocturne title, Wild Hunt, I visit the myth of the wild hunt, in which hellhounds are spectral beings that hunt down humans and drag them off to hell… or wherever the being running the hunt wants to take them.

I invent places and beings and powers. There are no limits. What more could a writer ask for?

Paranormal Inspiration: shapeshifters and hungry ants

 By Bonnie Vanak

What would happen if evil beings could shapeshift into any animal or insect form, retain their intelligence and clone themselves into a killing army?

This is what happens in my December Silhouette Nocturne book, The Empath.  In The Empath, army ants attack Nicolas and Maggie, werewolves who are forced to run for their lives. The Morphs, former werewolves who turned evil to gain power, shapeshift into bears, ants, bees, wolves, an alligator with razor-sharp teeth, even a fire-breathing dragon. Morphs need energy from dying victims, feeding off their terror to gain power. Nicolas and Maggie must work together and learn to trust in each other and their powers to defeat the enemy.

In one scene, army ants crawl over Nicolas and begin munching on him as if he were fast food. Of course (spoiler alert!) he survives. The idea for this scene stemmed from my childhood, when I accidentally sat on an ants’ nest while wearing shorts. They were only carpenter ants, but I’ll never forget the sensation of feeling something crawling on my skin and looking down to see a mass of black ants teeming over my bare legs. 

Maggie is a veterinarian who tries to find a cure for the mysterious disease killing her beloved dog. She’s unaware that she’s a werewolf, and the pack’s long-lost empath who can heal injury and disease. Nicolas must convince her of her true origins, and teach her to accept her destiny as a werewolf and the pack’s empath. As they race to cure the pack’s leader of the disease that is slowly killing him, they must continually evade the evil Morphs. At each turn, they wonder what form the enemy will take to try and destroy them.

Writing The Empath made me think about the tremendous power in the animal and insect kingdom. Of course it’s paranormal romance fiction, so all turns out fine in the end for Maggie and Nicolas; but as for me, next time I’ll look twice before sitting in the grass with shorts on.