Guest Author: Erica Hayes

Today, I’m excited to welcome Erica Hayes to Literary Escapism as we celebrate her upcoming release, Shadowfae!

Imagine a secret world veiled in fairy glamour and brimming with unearthly delights. A city swarming with half-mad fairies, where thieving spriggans rob you blind, beautiful banshees mesmerize you with their song, and big green trolls bust heads at nightclubs. And once you’re in, there’s no escape…

Enslaved by a demon lord, Jade is forced to spend her nights seducing vampire gangsters and shapeshifting thugs. After two hundred years as a succubus, she burns for freedom and longs to escape her brutal life as a trophy girl for hell’s minions. Then she meets Rajah, an incubus who touches her heart and intoxicates her senses. Rajah shares the same bleak fate as she, and yearns just as desperately for freedom. But the only way for Jade to break her bonds is to betray Rajah—and doom the only man she’s ever loved to a lifetime in hell.

Doesn’t this sound phenomenal? If so, stick around, we’re giving away a copy this week!
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Thanks for inviting me to join the fun here at Literary Escapism. It’s a real buzz!

Magical powers – you do the charm, you wear the harm

I always thought it’d be cool to have magical powers. I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to do the Jedi Mind Trick, like Obi-Wan Kenobi. I spent a lot of time wandering around, waving my fingers mysteriously and intoning in a deep voice, ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.’

Sadly, it never worked for me. So now I’m a grown-up, of course, many of my urban fantasy characters have paranormal or magical powers. Hey, maybe I’m compensating for something. But now I’m old enough to realize that maybe magical powers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Nothing gets you nothing, and like all good things, magic comes at a cost.

Jade, the heroine of my novel Shadowfae, is a succubus, which in my world means she’s a mortal woman granted a thousand-year lifespan by a demon. She wears enchanted golden bangles that give her the demonic power to seduce any man she desires.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? Live for a thousand years, stay forever young, have any guy you want. The catch? Jade’s bound to obey her demon’s will, and must spend her time hunting down the damned souls of gangsters and murderers and sending them to hell.

And because she’s always tricking men into wanting her, her self-esteem takes a real beating. Because they never see what she’s really like, she believes no one could ever want the real her.*

Bummer. Seems there’s always a downside. Take vampires, for instance, whatever flavor you like. They get some cool benefits, namely immortality, eternal youth and that sexy hypnotism thing. Maybe turn into a bat if the fancy takes you. Of course, to get those things, they have to drink human blood, stay out of the sun, sleep in a hard wooden box, that kind of stuff.

And it’s not just the old-fashioned creatures that get the raw deal. These days, you do the charm, you wear the harm. Sam Winchester from Supernatural gets premonitions of death. Sounds pretty cool, save some lives, that kind of thing? Bzzt! Guess what, Sam? It means you’ve been chosen by a demon. For… some bad stuff. {I’m only up to season 3, okay? No spoilys!}

Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse can hear people’s thoughts. Nice one! Find out what your friends think of you, right? The catch… well, you find out what your friends think of you. Not such a party after all.

Captain Jack Harkness from Torchwood can’t die. You wouldn’t think there’d be a downside to that. But there is. Oh, boy, is there. Defying death is the ultimate act of un-humanity, and in the end the world casts Jack as the Monster We Can’t Understand. I defy any of you not to cry for Jack at the end of Children of Earth. Sob. Sniffle.

So now we’ve had the grown-up, beware-of-authors-bearing-gifts talk: if you could have paranormal powers, just for a day, which power would you choose, and why? And what would be the downside?

I think I’d still go for the Jedi Mind Trick, even though it’d be tempting to join the Dark Side. I’m waving my fingers right now. They aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Really, they’re not. Okay?

* She could be wrong, of course. The book’s a romance, after all
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Thank you Erica for visiting Literary Escapism.

Contest Time! We’re giving away a copy of Shadowfae to a lucky commentator. and all you have to do is answer this one simple question: if you could have paranormal powers, just for a day, which power would you choose, and why? And what would be the downside? Remember, you do have to answer the question in order for your comment to count. The contest is open to everyone, so everyone overseas can join in the fun as well.

As always, if you want more chances to win, you can post about today’s contest on your blog, social network, or anywhere you can. Digg it, stumble it, twit it (#litesc), share it with the world. Wherever you share it, make sure you add a link to it along with your answer (all in the same post please). The more places you share it, the more entries you get.

For more entries, preorder Erica’s second novel Shadowglass or purchase any novel (or any novel) through LE’s Amazon store sometime during this contest and send a copy of the receipt VIA email for your purchase to: myjaxon AT gmail DOT com. Each purchase is one entry and it has to be through the LE Link.

Join the Literary Escapism Facebook page and you’ll get an additional entry. Make sure you leave a comment here so I know that’s why you’re joining. Only new readers to the group will be considered.

For an additional entry, subscribe to Literary Escapism’s newsletter in the sidebar. All current subscribers will also have an additional entry.

I’ll determine the winner with help from the Research Randomizer. All entries must be in by midnight on October 13th.