Hi! Thanks for having me back here at Jaunty Quills.

This month marks the release of my third paranormal, TO CRAVE A BLOOD MOON – all very exciting as the early reviews have been great and the reader feedback very heartening. Like most writers, I always bite my nails over that stuff. I would say this is the darkest of the three in my paranormal series and probably the most adventuresome with exotic locales and a deepening of the paranormal world I created with the first book.

When I first began the series with MARKED BY MOONLIGHT, I had no plans for future connected stories. I simply wrote a “lycan” (werewolf) book with plans and hopes to sell it … beyond that, who knew? When my brilliant editor bought it and asked, “what’s next?”, I suddenly had to look at the first book and see where I could take a second book. The first idea I tossed at her, my editor claimed was too similar to the first book, and correctly so. After further conversation with her, I finally understood the importance of building and layering my paranormal world and the stakes with each subsequent book. With that in mind I added hybrid lycans (dovenatus) to my second paranormal, and increased the stakes with world-wide threats … not simply threats to my h/h.

When I sat down to brainstorm my third paranormal, it took awhile to come up with a book that differed but also built on the first two books, ie, weaving in with the mythos that I’ve created. This is the tricky part in creating a paranormal series. You want to build off each book while not contradicting anything previously established in earlier books. Also, I never want to invent something totally from left field either. For instance, I’m not going to include vampires in my paranormal world as late as book three of four. At that point, it would just feel contrived.

Consequently, TO CRAVE A BLOOD MOON took even more brainstorming than my first two books. Since I already did lycans and dovenatus … what could be next? What kind of hero or heroine could I create that differed from the others? The result was a dovenatu hero and heroine who happens to be human but an empath. The idea of an empath came to me after watching some of those paranormal reality shows on A&E. After a little research on empaths (fascinating!!) I arrived at Ruby and Sebastian’s story. Here’s the summary:

A BITE TOO FAR…

Imprisoned and tortured by a lycan pack, half-breed Sebastian Santiago is determined not to break. But now they’ve come up with a cruel plan — starve Sebastian until he is half-mad with hunger, then force him to succumb to his werewolf instincts by giving him human prey to feed on.

Snatched from the streets of Istanbul, American tourist Ruby Deveraux has already seen the horror of her companions torn apart. Now she is thrown into a dark cell with a shadowy shape she can barely see. But Ruby is no ordinary woman. All her life she has been able to sense the emotions of others, and she knows instinctively that while Sebastian does not want to be her enemy, he is in the grip of sensations so dark and primitive that he can barely control them. But amid his surging feelings she can detect passion — passion for her as a woman. This, she realizes, may be her only hope. In the unrelenting dark, trapped in a hideous prison, can Ruby and Sebastian somehow forge a fragile alliance and break free from their deadly captors to seize a love neither dreamed possible?

Of course, having met the challenge of creating a new twist in book three, I’m facing the same issues with book four of the series, MY SOUL TO KEEP. Solution? My heroine is a dovenatu this time … and the hero? Well … let’s just say, he’s a dovenatu with a definite twist.

Thankfully, through no deliberation of my own (it’s lovely when those type of convenient flukes happen!) I introduced the existence of witches in the first book. Ever since, I’ve made it a point to reference witches, knowing it may come in handy. I’ve been able to link witches to demons … can you see where I’m going? Now I’ve opened up several more doors in my paranormal world. Turns out the hero in my fourth book will be a demon-slayer dovenatu. Hmm, say that five times fast! Anyway, it fits with the direction of the first three books, and maybe even more importantly, it keeps me from getting bored! Always important for a writer.

Well, I guess I’ve blathered on enough. Now it’s your turn. I would love to hear your thoughts on series and world-building.

Thank you, Jaunties, for having me here today!

Best to all,

Sharie/Sophie