Guest Promo (LXIV)

Today, I am pleased to welcome fellow author and cyber friend Mae Clair who has agreed to share with us a few things about her fascination with supernatural creatures and also about her  latest release.
Werewolves and Romance by Mae Clair

Thank you, Carmen, for inviting me to your blog today! I brought along my paranormal romance, WEATHERING ROCK, to share. It seemed a good fit given it’s October, and things that go-bump-in-the-night naturally creep to the forefront of our minds.

I’ve been fascinated by folklore, superstition and tales of supernatural creatures since childhood. Do thoughts of ghosts, ghouls and predatory beasts frighten me? *chuckle* They terrify me.

So why turn a werewolf into a romantic hero in my time travel novel, WEATHERING ROCK? Because there’s something compelling about a tortured soul chained to darkness and moonlight, especially when the character is noble at heart. I’ve always been attracted to heroes and heroines who harbor a dark secret, forced to carry the burden of a seemingly insurmountable curse. Maybe it goes back to childhood fairy tales where hexes and curses were as common as the heinous beasts and evil sorcerers who populated them.

The werewolf myth is ancient. The first ‘recorded’ sighting dates back to 1591 Germany, when a man named Peter Stubbe made a pact with the Devil that allowed him to shift into a savage wolf. He was eventually discovered, caught, and suffered a brutal execution, but not before killing innocent men, women, and even children, in a hideously barbaric manner.

Older still, there are some who say that when God cursed Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, and drove him from men so that he “did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles, and his nails like birds” that the disgraced king had become a werewolf.

Norsemen had fierce berserkers who were savage in battle and often adorned themselves with wolf or bear skins. Many cultures believe that by wearing the skin of an animal, an individual can assume its characteristics. Native Americans spoke of skin walkers who had the ability to transform into other animals at will.In Greek mythology, the Arcadian King, Lycaon, made the fatal mistake of trying to kill Zeus by having him dine on human flesh. Zeus cursed him to spend the rest of his life as a wolf.

I don’t think any of these ‘early’ werewolves would pass muster as the romantic, tortured soul, harboring a dark secret that I find so intriguing, but the myriad threads of the werewolf legend are interesting to say the least.

In WEATHERING ROCK, my lead character, Caleb DeCardian, is a werewolf who has traveled through time from 1863. My heroine, Arianna Hart, meets him when their paths cross on a fog-drenched night. In keeping with the month of October, mystery and spookiness ensue (along with a steamy dose of romance)!

 BLURB:

Drawn together across centuries, will their love be strong enough to defeat an ancient curse?

Colonel Caleb DeCardian was fighting America’s Civil War on the side of the Union when a freak shower of ball lightning transported him to the present, along with rival and former friend, Seth Reilly. Adapting to the 21st century is hard enough for the colonel, but he also has to find Seth, who cursed him to life as a werewolf. The last thing on Caleb’s mind is romance. Then fetching Arianna Hart nearly runs him down with her car. He can’t deny his attraction to the outspoken schoolteacher, but knows he should forget her.

Arianna finds Caleb bewildering, yet intriguing: courtly manners, smoldering sensuality and eyes that glow silver at night? When she sees Civil War photographs featuring a Union officer who looks exactly like Caleb, she begins to understand the man she is falling in love with harbors multiple secrets--some of which threaten the possibility of their happiness.

Finding a decent guy who'll commit is hard enough. How can she expect Caleb to forsake his own century to be with her?

Purchase WEATHERING ROCK from:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

iBooks

About Mae Clair:
Mae Clair opened a Pandora’s Box of characters when she was a child and never looked back. Her father, an artist who tinkered with writing, encouraged her to create make-believe worlds by spinning tales of far-off places on summer nights beneath the stars.
Mae loves creating character-driven fiction in settings that vary from contemporary to mythical. Wherever her pen takes her, she flavors her stories with mystery and romance. Married to her high school sweetheart,she lives in Pennsylvania and is passionate about cryptozoology, old photographs, a good Maine lobster tail and cats.
Discover more about Mae on her website and blog at MaeClair.net

You can find Mae Clair at the following haunts:

Website and Blog

Twitter (@MaeClair1)
Google+
Facebook Author Page
Amazon Author Page

Goodreads