Thanks for joining me and my readers today, Jeffe! I’d like to learn more about your supernatural heroes. Ivan, is a
vampire, in Feeding the Vampire, and
Beast, the leading male in Petals and
Thorns.
About Ivan…
How does Ivan compare to other pop culture vamps like those in
Twilight? What are his supernatural abilities?
Ivan is a more world-weary vampire. He’s been around for a long
time, surviving in the shadows. The tumult in the world has made it more
difficult to hide and to feed. He has extraordinary strength and healing
ability, but needs blood to survive.
What is he protecting the city against?
The city in the story is one of the few surviving places not
decimated by the earthquakes and follow-on disasters. Safe places with
resources are at a premium, so the city needs strong guardians to protect what
they have against an array of increasingly desperate attackers.
Does he struggle against his powers and wish to enjoy the simple
pleasures of being human again?
More, he longs for love and companionship. He’s been a vampire for
so long that being human holds little appeal, especially in a disaster-torn
world, but he does relish finding a real companion to enjoy.
About Beast…
He is under a curse, preventing him from being a normal human. Is
he willing to risk killing her to have a chance at regaining a normal human
life?
Oh no! Lord Beast is beastly with decidedly wicked tastes, but
he’s not cruel or inhuman. He recognizes a kindred spirit in Amarantha. He has
no intention of harming her – despite her fears otherwise.
In exchange for her father’s life, Amarantha, the heroine, agrees
to marry the dreadful Beast and be his wife for seven days. What will happen to
Beast, Amarantha, and her father if love doesn’t result from their marriage in
seven days?
The Beast agrees to annul the marriage and turn over his entire
fortune to Amarantha – and by extension, her family – if she does not willingly
consummate the marriage with him by the end of seven days.
How does Amarantha’s desire for a normal life potentially jeopardize
the love that will save them both. How may love save them?
Hmm. That’s difficult to answer without giving the story away. Everything
hinges on Amarantha accepting the Beast for who he is, with all his darkness
and intensity. It’s tempting for her to turn her back on that, on the wicked
things he does to her, and have a life like all the other noble girls have.
Feeding the Vampire
By Jeffe Kennedy
Publisher: Ellora's
Cave
Date Published: August 3, 2011
ASIN: B005HBYPGW
Through good luck and healthy cowardice,
Misty has survived the earthquakes that have torn the world apart, but has no
skills to speak of. Or so she thinks. She does have blood, and someone must
feed the vampire who has offered his protection and strength in exchange for
sustenance. Feeding Ivan is a priority, and Misty finally serves a purpose. But
when she awakens tied to his bed, an unwilling gift to Ivan from the
townspeople, she discovers he has hungers other than blood. Hungers he expects
her to satisfy in the most carnal manner. Under his seductive persuasion Misty
discovers she has the power to sustain Ivan in all ways, while experiencing
unspeakable pleasure herself.
Feeding the Vampire
Excerpt
I was compelled to
feed him. I had no choice, really.
Earl cleared his
throat. “Thank you.” Our town administrator looked around for agreement, but
they weren’t meeting his eyes either. Like kids ducking the teacher’s gaze.
“Thank you, Misty. We all appreciate your…” He trailed off uncomfortably.
Sacrifice? Surely no
one wanted to hear that word aloud. Martyr to the cause? No, not much better.
Earl shuffled the
papers in his lap. Waiting for me to get to it, I supposed. Well, he had just
said that feeding Ivan ought to be the first order of business. We couldn’t
very well make plans for our community while the guy in charge of our defenses
wilted before our eyes, especially since we needed him alert and focused. Me? I
was pretty damn expendable. I hadn’t brought much to the table so far, except
my survival, which really was accidental. Right place at the right time. Turns
out stolid New England was just the right place to be for the particular form
this apocalypse took. Granite bedrock and all that.
My boring hometown
was a safe haven and everyone wanted in on our resources. The people turning up
every day were let in or turned away depending on what they offered. I counted
my lucky stars I’d been grandfathered in simply because my neighbors didn’t
have the heart to kick me out. Excellent keyboarding skills and a
customer-friendly personality didn’t count for much in this economy. Especially
without, um, customers or working keyboards.
I couldn’t afford to
be a useless mouth to feed. Their hearts would harden—they already had. Tonight
was pivotal. We’d acquired a vampire of our own for defense. Everyone felt
better about our future—if we could keep him happy. At least I knew how to make
blood. You could say I was a natural. And yet, the certainty that had propelled
me to my feet seemed to be bleeding away, frightened off by Ivan’s fixed
intensity and everyone else’s obvious relief. They waited, restless, for me to
just get on with it. Uncomfortable silence.
Hi, I’m Misty and I’m
a Fool. I haven’t done anything really unwise in twenty-seven days. Kind of a
record for me really. Apparently I was due.
The vampire just
stared at me.
I set my yellow pad
on the chair and made myself walk across the circle to where he sat in the
tacky folding metal chair. My sandals slapped lightly on the tiles, making
tinny echoes. Ivan’s roving gaze sent tremors of anticipation up my thighs.
A few murmured
conversations resumed. They probably didn’t like the creepy silence any more
than I did. I appreciated their polite attempt not to gawk. I’d never seen a
vampire feed—probably none of them had either. I stopped in front of Ivan. He
leaned back, long legs sprawled out in careless indolence. He tilted his head
at my hesitation and held out his hands as if to help me down from a carriage.
“Perhaps we should
step out of the room?” I tried.
“I haven’t the
strength to stand.” His grave eyes watched me with avid intent.
If I ran, he would
definitely find the strength to hunt me down. After all, he’d walked into this
room. Heck, he’d arrived at the bridge leading to our sleepy town only last
night, offering his protection in return for our shelter and sustenance. He had
to have gotten there somehow.
He wrapped his long
fingers around my wrists, cuffing them with bands of steel. Exerting steady
pressure, he drew me closer, parting his lips. White fangs gleamed with
fluorescent highlights. My heart thumped in panic, hot fear filling me.
“Will it hurt?” My
voice sounded thready, weak.
Hunger flared in his
eyes at the question. “It always does.”
Ivan snapped me
against his hard body. The sharp movement splintered any second thoughts. He
pulled me astraddle his lap. My cheap cotton dress hiked up alarmingly. The
chafe of his dark denim jeans sent tremors up my fully exposed thighs. Shame
and terror flashed through me.
Then all thought and
emotion burst in flame, immolating me through the fierce violence of his teeth
sinking into my throat. The agony of the deep puncture, fear feeding pain,
fired through my blood. I struggled like a wild thing, without thought. Animal
instinct screamed at me to flee, to escape by any means possible.
The vampire held me
trapped. There was no escape for me, the mouse flailing under the cat’s paw.
My will, never my
strong point, snapped. The fight ebbed away with the tide of my blood. The
steady drop of pressure left me enervated, without resistance. Darkness filled
my brain, prickled with sparking stars. I wilted, becoming a bit of detritus
washed upon the shore of Ivan’s body.
Pain filled my veins,
pumped through my heart. It replaced my blood, spiraling through my body from
the insistent penetration of Ivan’s teeth in my throat. Helpless against the
crashing waves, I relinquished my last hold on consciousness and sank into the
hot, tarry sea of oblivion.
Petals and Thorns
RWI More Than Magic Finalist
Genre: BDSM Fantasy
In exchange for her father’s life,
Amarantha agrees to marry the dreadful Beast and be his wife for seven days.
Though the Beast cannot take Amarantha’s virginity unless she begs him to, he
can and does take her in every other way. From the moment they are alone
together, the Beast relentlessly strips Amarantha of all her resistance.
If Amarantha can resist her cloaked and
terrifying husband, she gains his entire fortune and will be allowed to return
to her family and a normal life. But the Beast seduces her at every turn,
exposing, binding, tormenting, and pleasuring Amarantha until she no longer
knows her own deepest desires. Increasingly desperate to break the curse that
chains his humanity, the Beast drives Amarantha past every boundary. But her
desire for a normal life may jeopardize the love that will save them both.
Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit
sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find
objectionable: Anal play, BDSM theme and elements, dubious consent.
About the Author:
Jeffe (pronounced Jeff- ee) took the crooked
road to writing, stopping off at neurobiology, religious studies and
environmental consulting before her creative writing began appearing in places
like Redbook, Puerto del Sol, Wyoming Wildlife, Under the Sun and Aeon. She has
been a Ucross Foundation Fellow (2001), was a Wyoming Arts Council roster
artist, when she lived in Wyoming, and received the state’s 2005 Frank Nelson
Doubleday Memorial Award for a woman writer of exceptional talent in any
creative writing genre and the 2007 Fellowship for Poetry. Jeffe has
contributed to several anthologies, Drive: Women’s True Stories of the Open
Road. (2002), Hard Ground (2003), Bombshells (2007) and Going Green (2009). Her
first book, Wyoming Trucks, True Love and the Weather Channel was published by
University of New Mexico Press in 2004. An erotic novella, Petals and Thorns,
came out under her pen name of Jennifer Paris in 2010, heralding yet another
branch of her path, into erotica and romantic fantasy fiction. Jeffe lives in
Santa Fe, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range
lizards and frequently serves as a guinea pig for an acupuncturist-in-training.
Who Is Jennifer Paris?
I was doing the
“Jeffe Kennedy writing as Jennifer Paris” thing, but Angela James, my editor at
Carina, said no, no, no. Since I really don’t want to “flesh out” Jennifer
Paris and tweet or blog as her (she was only a cardboard cut-out anyway), I
decided to retire her. However, I have one book “Petals and Thorns” that is by
Jennifer Paris.
2 comments:
Thanks for hosting me, Marsha!
You're very welcome! Glad to have you visit for a day.
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