Friday, December 22, 2023

Serpent's Kiss Guest Post

  


New Release!

Serpent’s Kiss

By LisabetSarai

Paranormal Erotic Romance

Five flames

36,000 words, 136 pages

Smashwords and Amazon KDP

ISBN (Smashwords): 9798215674734

ASIN: ‎ ‎ B0CL2HPVV4

Hashtags/Keywords

#Paranormal #Shifters #Mayan #Mythology #Guatemala #FatedMates #Tikal #Ritual #Quetzlcoatl #Reincarnation #Apocalypse

Blurb

When a woman atoning for past sins heals the human avatar of an ancient god, she’s drawn into a perilous dance of destiny and desire.

From the first, Dr. Elena Navarro senses that the wounded man she discovers outside the gate of her rural clinic is not an ordinary mortal. With his chest ripped open, Jorge Pélikal still demonstrates unnatural strength and power. Elena is irresistibly attracted to Jorge, although he warns her their coupling could open the gates of chaos and cost her life. Despite his dire predictions, they fall in love. Gradually Elena comes to understand that Jorge is a supernatural player in a cosmic drama that will determine the fate of the earth and of mankindand that even if he triumphs in his apocalyptic struggle with his nemesis, she may lose him forever.

Note: Serpent’s Kiss was previously published by Totally Entwined. This new edition has been re-edited, revised and expanded.

Reader Advisory: This book may not be appropriate for individuals with a fear of snakes.

Excerpt 

The waiting room was dim. An unfamiliar smell lingered in the air, some kind of petroleum smell, like tar or kerosene. She sniffed suspiciously. She kept two Coleman lanterns in the storeroom, in case the generator ran out of diesel. Could some animal have got into the place and knocked them over?

Elena moved cautiously towards the door of the infirmary, not wanting to alarm a possible animal intruder. As she placed her hand on the doorknob, she heard noises behind her—footsteps, and the sound of the front door bolt being thrown.

She whirled around. “Who’s there?” In her sinking heart, though, she already knew.

You lied to me,” Teodoro Remorros growled at her. He looked as affluent and dapper as ever, but his handsome features were twisted into a grimace of rage. “You told me that you didn’t know Jorge, that you hadn’t seen him.”

Elena tried to swallow her fear. He might be only guessing, threatening her in order to get her to talk.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He’s been here, here inside this pathetic clinic of yours. I can smell him.”

The man’s nostrils flared, exactly like a beast’s.

How can you smell anything? The place reeks of kerosene. I was just going to check the storeroom…” Elena began inching backwards, toward the infirmary, the rear exit and freedom.

Remorros lunged forward and grabbed her arm. His nails bit into her flesh like talons. “I warned you, woman. You don’t know what you are dealing with. Jorge is not a normal man. He doesn’t have a man’s heart. He’s a power, a force of nature, hard and pitiless, implacable, vicious, evil.”

No, he’s not! He’s not evil!”

Fool!” Remorros dragged her into the infirmary and threw her on the cot. “You’ve been meddling in matters far beyond your puny mortal capabilities. And now you will pay the price.”



Embracing the Shadows

What makes paranormal romance so popular? I've been pondering this question for a while. Readers, it seems, are happy to consume as many tales about vampires, shape shifters, ghosts and psychics as we authors can produce. You'd think that they'd get bored, but that doesn't seem to happen. Why not?

I've got a theory. We're all tempted by the dark side.

The realms of paranormal romance are vast, but most books offer characters with dual natures, torn between normal humanity and―otherness. The “other” aspect conveys special powers―unnatural strength, heightened sensation, hidden knowledge―but always at a price. The characters suffer because of their power. Blood-drinkers and half-beasts are ravaged by conscience because they maim or kill. Immortals bear the weight of lonely, isolated centuries and the pain of watching mortal companions wither and die.

In my novella Fin d’Espoir, vampire Etienne de Rémorcy haunts the forest around the ruined plantation of his former mistress, guilty, bitter and alone. He has sworn to never again taste human blood, but when the woman he rescues begs him to take her, he cannot resist. My prescient hero Kyle in At the Margins of Madness can see the future but the fury of his visions drives him insane. In my new release Serpent's Kiss, Jorge Pélikal is the incarnation of an ancient god but each time he makes love to his human mate he comes close to killing her.

In the paranormal genre, power and darkness go hand in hand. Yet somehow, we are attracted to the darkness. We brush the suffering aside; we want to feel the power. A vampire isn't sexy when he's fighting against his blood craving. Only when he sweeps his victim into his arms and buries his fangs in her flesh does he make us breathless and moist.

How many books have you read where the human hero or heroine willingly submits to “the change”, the transformation that will make them “other” as well? How many characters, in contrast, manage to resist the pull of the dark side? Not many. Normal mortal life seems absurd, bland and empty after you've tasted power. This is especially true because sex on the dark side in erotic romance is always more intense, more extreme, transcending the limits that bind ordinary humans.

Even a villain with supernatural powers tempts us. A well-written antagonist should invite enough identification that the reader can understand what moves him to do evil. The best bad guys are ambiguous, able to justify their deeds so well that they draw our sympathy. They dazzle us with their logic and their beauty, until we can't see their wickedness. Lucifer still looks like an angel as he bargains for your soul. Stefan Aries, my villain in At the Margins of Madness, is handsome and brilliant enough to make Kyle want him, despite his being a murderer. Jorge’s evil twin Teodoro Remorros is suave, handsome, and terribly convincing as he tries to persuade Elena to abandon Jorge and the world he’s trying to save.

We're drawn to the dark side, I think, because it's an escape. Sometimes the real world leaves us feeling so powerless―we can't help wanting the ability to take control, to bend the world to our will the way our paranormal characters do. Who wouldn't want to leave the dirty dishes and the unpaid bills behind and slip away into the night, to slink through the shadowy streets scenting for blood or to howl, unfettered, at the moon?

The dark side calls to us in paranormal romance. Every time we open a new book, we flirt with the possibility of ecstatic surrender.

About Lisabet

Lisabet Sarai became addicted to words at an early age. She began reading when she was four. She wrote her first story at five years old and her first poem at seven. Since then, she has written plays, tutorials, scholarly articles, marketing brochures, software specifications, self-help books, press releases, a five-hundred page dissertation, and lots of erotica and erotic romance – over one hundred titles, and counting, in nearly every sub-genreparanormal, scifi, ménage, BDSM, LGBTQ, and more. Regardless of the genre, every one of her stories illustrates her motto: Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Youll find information and excerpts from all Lisabets books on her website (http://www.lisabetsarai.com/books.html), along with more than fifty free stories and lots more. At her blog Beyond Romance (http://lisabetsarai.blogspot.com), she shares her philosophy and her news and hosts lots of other great authors. Shes also on GoodreadsBookBub and Twitter. Join her VIP email list here: https://btn.ymlp.com/xgjjhmhugmgh




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