Hello! We’ve got author Rosalie Lario here with us with another Author Spotlight! She’s also offering a giveaway, so pay attention to what she’s asking! [Hint: Anyone who calls this an interview is disqualified from the drawing. :X] I’ll leave her ending as is though, because she’s got a great question for you all!
The Conflicted Hero
I’ll admit it, I’ve always had a bit of a thing for a conflicted hero. I think it all started when, at the tender age of 12, I read Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Louis was the epitome of the tortured hero, from the beginning of his immortal life—when instead of being granted the death he seeks, he’s given eternal life—to the moment when he is “interviewed” by the reporter. Despite all his years on Earth, he never found comfort with what he was. He hated the monster inside of him, the one that needed to feed on humans to ensure his survival. Something about his inner torment resonated with me. It made an admittedly powerful creature vulnerable. It humanized him. And thence began my obsession with conflicted heroes.
I think readers automatically tend to empathize more with a hero who has had a difficult past. I know I do. This makes the man who’s always fighting his personal demons the perfect hero, especially for the genre I write in: paranormal romance. The paranormal romance hero may be something more than human—perhaps humans are even his prey—but he cannot help but fall for one. Seeing the hero overcome all obstacles to find true love is very emotionally satisfying.
In my paranormal romance, Blood of the Demon (Book 1 in my Demons of Infernum series), half-demon Keegan is an interdimensional bounty hunter who’s vowed to stop a demon with plans to bring on the apocalypse. Not because he sees himself as a hero…but because the demon is his father, an evil, vicious man who abused him and his brothers. When we first meet Keegan, he has vowed to do whatever is necessary in order to stop his father.
Then he meets Brynn…the key to the apocalypse, and the very woman he may have to kill in order to stop his father. She’s vulnerable but brave, and she takes him totally by surprise. Suddenly he’s forced with a very tough decision: keep his vow and stop his father…or protect the woman he’s falling in love with.
Here’s a brief excerpt from the book:
Keegan lives to exact revenge on the evil demon who sired and abused him. When his father devises a plan to bring on the apocalypse, he and his three half-brothers, interdimensional bounty hunters for the Elden Council, are charged with capturing and delivering their father for punishment.
Art gallery owner Brynn Meyers has no idea that her ability to read memories embedded in objects and drain people of their life force means she has demon ancestry. Unfortunately for Brynn, she’s also the key to raising an ancient zombie army, which puts her on every demon’s Most Wanted List.
And no one wants her more than Keegan’s father.
Keegan must protect Brynn from his father by any means necessary, but he’ll have to learn to harness the other half of his genetics—the far deadlier, uncontrollable half—when he starts to fall for the one woman standing between him and the vengeance he so desperately seeks. The one woman he’ll never be able to resist.
Keegan stood outside Brynn’s door, staring at it like some lovesick schoolboy.
What was wrong with him? She was just a woman. A human woman. But his body didn’t seem to care who she was or what he might have to do to her. It liked her anyway.
He’d given up lying to himself about not being attracted to her. Oh, he was. And the more he learned about her, the more he liked her. Earlier tonight, after he’d dropped the bombshell about the Book of the Dead, she hadn’t believed him. Judging by the way she gaped at them, she thought they were a bunch of psychos. But she didn’t freak. She listened when he explained to her that supernatural forces existed, and then she said she needed time to think about it, before picking up her fork and finishing her meal in silence.
Brynn was strong. Stronger than he’d imagined any human woman could be. But would she take it in stride when he told her about her ancestry, or when she learned that demon blood flowed through her veins?
The practical part of his brain wondered why he should bother telling her. After all, it didn’t change anything—either they’d find it before Mammon did and discover a way to destroy it, in which case Brynn would be free to return to her normal life, or they wouldn’t.
And then he’d have to kill her.
But he refused to take the coward’s way out. He’d tell her as much as he could without damaging her sanity. He owed her that much, at least. He might be many things, but he wasn’t a monster.
He wasn’t his father.
Find out more about Blood of the Demon at Entangled or at my website.
Bio: Rosalie Lario practiced real estate law for several years before finally admitting to herself that negotiating contracts wasn’t nearly as fun as dreaming up stories. When not writing, she enjoys spending time with her husband and son in their home state of Florida, as well as searching out things that go bump in the night. Follow her on: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
I’d love to offer an ecopy of Blood of the Demon to one person who responds to the following question: Do you read paranormal romance? If so, who’s your favorite paranormal romance hero?