I am excited to welcome author Paula Altenburg, who’s celebrating the release of her new novel, Black Widow Demon.
Passionate and headstrong, half-demon Raven is nearly executed on the orders of her fundamentalist stepfather. She escapes from the burning stake using the gifts of her otherworldly heritage and the help of a mortal stranger named Blade. Now she’s set on revenge, and only quiet, intense Blade stands in her way.
A retired assassin weary of the weight of his past, Blade has crossed the desert to seek out a new life. His journey is interrupted when his conscience demands he help Raven find an old friend who can help her. Saving her from her need for revenge and delivering her into the hands of loved ones means he’s one step closer to redemption.
But as Blade’s sense of duty becomes something more and threats, both mortal and immortal, stalk the woman he can’t abandon, he could very well fall back into the life he’s trying so hard to escape.
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How to Torture an Assassin
My family finds it really hard to believe I write romance.
“Shouldn’t you be a little, I don’t know…romantic?” my husband once asked me.
“Does Stephen King need to be homicidal?” I replied.
I’ll be the first to admit my husband might have a point. And there’s a very good reason I write paranormal romance and fantasy. It’s entirely possible I have a little of that homicidal streak because I really like writing about blowing things up.
I also like happy endings.
Of the three heroes in my Demon Outlaws trilogy, (Black Widow Demon is Book 2), Blade is the character who most deserves a happy ending and is least likely to seize it when it’s within his reach. This guy is tortured. I love him so much that we had to cut scenes from the first book (The Demon’s Daughter, a March 2013 release) because he had an entire storyline running.
In The Demon’s Daughter, Blade had a good business. He had a woman in his life he was comfortable with and his best friend was the Demon Slayer. He even had a physical handicap that he could use as an excuse to give up on life. He was as content as he could ever hope to be.
At the end of Book 1 I took everything away from him. In Black Widow Demon, Blade has nothing. At the start of the story he’s crossing the desert in search of a purpose, because I even took away his excuse for not living.
Blade is the kind of hero you have to push and push to get a reaction from. He has his own priorities and beliefs. His own code of ethics. He doesn’t care what the rest of the world does or thinks. He never smiles. In fact, as soon as he feels an emotion coming on, he crushes it. He reasons everything through and rarely responds to his feelings. Mind you, he has plenty of them. They’re buried so deep, however, that he’s forgotten he owns them.
To give you an idea of who Blade is, this is a scene cut from The Demon’s Daughter in which he’s about to propose to a woman named Ruby who’s been a longtime friend to him, but who he’s not really emotionally invested in:
Blade was not proud of his past. Before he asked her to marry him, he planned to tell her about it. He cleared his throat, nervous now, and she stiffened as if she knew he was about to say things she didn’t want to hear.
“I was an assassin before you met me,” Blade said to her back.
Some of the stiffness went out of her spine. Her tone, when she replied, was neutral. “That’s not a surprise.”
Of course it wasn’t. She’d seen him practice with his knives. She knew he’d murdered the woman Mamna had condemned. What she did not know was how he had become one.
“I killed my uncle when I was fourteen.” That earned him a bit more of her attention. “He raised me after my parents died. I hated the bastard. He beat me and made me work in the mines like a slave. There wasn’t a bit of kindness in him.”
“Then it sounds as if he deserved it.”
Blade had always thought so. The rest of the community, however, had not shared his belief. The mining tunnels his uncle owned had collapsed shortly after, leaving them unworkable, and he had been blamed for the bad luck.
“My uncle was a leader of the Godseekers. He had been one of the goddesses’ favored, and according to local legend, chosen by them to become the Demon Slayer. I had no choice after I killed him as to what I’d become. Only the lawless would do business with me.”
For the first few years he had not asked questions regarding who they contracted him to kill. Women and children had been among their numbers, although very rare and speedily done. As time went on and his skills improved, he had become more select. But when he’d tried to cross the desert on his own, his lost battle with a demon meant he again had no choice with regard to his future. (Excerpt from a deleted Blade scene in The Demon’s Daughter)
And then Blade finds Raven. She’s a bundle of raw emotion. She’s all the things he’s afraid to feel, wrapped up in one neat little package. She’s also half demon.
If Blade has one fear, it’s of demons. But what does Blade do when he’s faced with any strong emotion? He buries it as deep as he can.
This creates a problem for Raven, because the second he thinks he might be developing strong feelings for her, he’s going to crush them.
So what do I do? I have Blade fight the demons he fears in order to save the woman he loves. Literally as well as figuratively.
I love Raven, too. She’s strong and determined, and as willing to give in to her emotions as Blade is to avoid his. She never backs down.
She’s definitely not going to let him walk away without a fight.
I really hope people enjoy reading about Blade and Raven in Black Widow Demon as much as I enjoyed writing their story.
I’m also curious. How many of you have favorite heroes—your own or ones you’ve read about—who worked so hard for their happy endings that their stories stay with you for a long time after you’ve finished the book?
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Meet Paula Altenburg!
Paula Altenburg lives in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband and two sons. Once a manager in the aerospace industry, she now enjoys the freedom of working from home and writing full time. She currently writes demon westerns for Entangled Publishing. Paula also co-authors paranormal romance under the pseudonym Taylor Keating.
Contact Info
Website: website
Blog: Blog
Social Media: Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
Want to purchase Paula’s novels?
Demon Outlaws
Jackie, Thanks for having me here today!