H-E-L-L-O paranormal romance junkies

What better way to follow up a fab cover reveal of Night Demon than by welcoming DaVinci Kittie of GraveTells to share with us about her first experience with the lovely Lisa Kessler.

Take it away, DVK!

H-E-L-L-O paranormal romance junkies! *waves*

If you love all things supe and just can’t get your hands on enough lit to keep you occupied & addicted, you just might be a PNR junkie. If you DON’T love Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse and The Black Dagger Brotherhood, and all that jazz… well, maybe you just haven’t found the right book or author… and I am happy to dish til you discover your own personal brand of paranormal-heroine.

I came late to the Twilight scene. I was one of those people who was too “adult” to bother watching it in the theater, so sure I would just absolutely hate it. Then a year later, there I was, addicted to the books and soaking up every snippet of text, video, and rumor I could snag. Twilight-addiction led into Sookie-Stackhouse-addiction, which led into a whole new world of paranormal-romance-addiction (which, by the way, most definitely includes the equally-addicting TV versions of some of these book series).

That’s when I discovered I’d been missing out on an entire genre of literature! Neglected! Lonely! Abandoned in my relentless pursuit of all things fantasy and sci-fi and gamer-girl-geek! I also found that, while it was awesome that I now had fuel for my overpowered and bloodthirsty new addiction, I also had NO idea where to start. Apparently, unbeknownst to the me who’d studiously ignored the rise of vampire fiction in pop culture, paranormal romance has become such a hot item in the publishing world that there are more authors and series and storylines and blah blah blah than you can shake a stick at. (Although, honestly, I’m not sure what kind of measure that is. I can shake a stick at a lot of things if you line them up in front of me…) So where to start? Where to go from Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series? From Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series?

Photograph by Tyler Shields. See it on TylerShields.com here.

I was addicted and I needed my vamp-fix, and the two whole writers I’d fixated on just weren’t pumping the books out fast enough. However, there’s only so much review scouring and forum-crawling I can do before I lose all will to live… ok, less dramatic… before I forget what the hell I was looking for to begin with. I started feeling like Alice, chasing after fairies here and weres there, and ended up following a long convoluted line of authors and series. Which brings us back to why I’m here, chatting with you lovely peeps here at Entangled.

When I started requesting titles through NetGalley for review, I found myself baffled by a wall of ZOMG-what-to-request. The cover of a book might be worth a thousand words and a title can be make-or-break when a gal has to make a snap decision about which new author to venture forth with, but sadly there’s no metric or trick or magical crystal ball to tell us about the most important part of a book – the contents… the story, the world, the way characters can come to life right in your head!

So as I requested titles and slowly started getting approvals for access to the advance review copies, I started to get a feel for Entangled. First off, I just have to say, the covers are stellar. No, it’s not the most important part and I know the authors don’t always get a say, but eye-candy goes a loooong way toward the will-I-won’t-I choice, and my first approved galley was Night Walker by Lisa Kessler with it’s ab-solutely yummy cover. I know this sounds silly, but I remember exactly when I got the approval email – I was sitting in Chuy’s in Tyler, Texas waiting to make my order. I got so excited that I completely forgot what I wanted and confused the waiter (which, really, isn’t that uncommon since my order is usually complicated anyway, but still…).

Then Lisa contacted me after I posted my review and was so enthusiastic. When she agreed to do an interview on GraveTells… well, it’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to order food, let’s just say that. To all the authors out there reading this, you guys are our rock stars and when you communicate with us (in ANY way, seriously), we get a little star struck and flustered. *grin* Maybe sometime I’ll tell you about how I embarrassingly fangirled all over Jeaniene Frost at Comic Con, but I digress…

I’ve reviewed several Entangled titles now on GraveTells (Rosalie Lario’s Mark of the Sylph was our Book of the Month for September and she is an absolute sweetheart) and this company is professional, dependable, and personable on all the levels I’ve experienced so far.

When Misa tweeted about needing reviewers for the blog (and seriously Misa, even your NetGalley *rejection* emails are friendly!), I jumped on it. I have read a ton of fiction (possibly literally – I should try to weight it out some day) and have a lot of insight to offer in the genres of paranormal romance and urban fantasy specifically. I also want to get to know the peeps that are part of the Entangled web-o-sphere better and strike up some fun conversations. What makes a great hero (besides the washboard abs, of course)? Why do we love to hate some villains and just singularly hate others? What is the appeal of vampires and their fangs (I mean really, it’s a gaping, bleeding wound every time he bites you, but somehow still SO sexy!)? Is there really a stigma surrounding romance literature and if so, what can we do about that?

Art by Nathie. See it on DeviantArt here.

I’m wrapping this up, I promise. *grin* Starting this week, I’ll be posting a series of discussion topics on GraveTells and also here on Entangled called The Hero Chronicles, and I’m excited to hear what everyone has to say. Ok, I’ll let your bleeding eyes recover and shout out a parting “à bientôt, mes petites!” (I was channeling Jean-Claude…. but you guys got that, right? Yeah, ‘course you did… ok, signing off for real…)

To read more about The Hero Chronicles discussion series, go here.
To check out DVK’s blog, GraveTells Paranormal News & Reviews, go here!
To read more about DaVinciKittie (DVK for short), check out her bio on GraveTells here.

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