Rin Navarro's Blog

A Devil’s Deal by Rin Navarro (Me)

This is the preview of my book, A devil’s Deal! Check it out guys! It’s on Amazon!!

The Beginning

First of all, nobody is perfect. Let’s get that straight right now. Second of all, people shouldn’t judge others. Now that we got those two things established.…I sold my soul to the devil. Don’t judge! Remember, everybody makes mistakes. Mine was just the worst fucking mistake anybody could make in life, but a mistake nonetheless. The stupid thing was that I did it for a guy. Not fame, not fortune, though that was part of the deal, but mainly to be with a guy. A guy that I loved. Keyword: loved. Past tense. He didn’t love me as much as I thought he did.

              Let me back up a little bit. The year was 1820 and that was the year I laid my eyes on the most beautiful man ever. James Harrington. A Texan soldier who came from a strong, wealthy family. I was just a young Mexican girl who was the daughter of a rancher. A poor rancher. Pretty obvious where this story is heading now. He swore he loved me, wrote letters to me all the time claiming how strong his devotion was, but said that we could never be together based on my financial background. Long story short, I met the devil in a saloon and made a deal to become rich in exchange for my soul, and I would therefore have the love of my life.

Once I became rich, we were married, but sadly, all of that money didn’t make him faithful. I fell into a depressive state and ended up hanging myself, prepared to face the terms of my deal. Now, to be perfectly blunt, I was expecting hell. Fire and brimstone and whatnot, but instead everything was dark. Not even a flicker of light. I mean, come on! I lost everything and was ready to serve out my part of the deal in years of eternal damnation, but there was nothing. I didn’t know how long I was there. Time didn’t exist in that place, but eventually he showed up. The distinguished man in the cowboy hat. The devil. I had hundreds of questions, naturally. Where am I? Why am I here? What’s going on? And he dismissed them all, of course, but told me that I proved to be interesting. One thing about the devil is that he loves a good show. Apparently, I didn’t give him enough of one when I decided to cut my lights off early.

Once again, I found myself making another deal, except this time I was doing it to save my soul. So what’s the deal now? Simple, do what has been done to me. I have to find a poor sucker, get them to fall in love with me, kill them with a broken heart and their soul replaces mine in my old deal. There’s also this time limit of two hundred years that I have to watch out for, so I get to be “immortal” until I get the replacement soul. Sounds easy, right?

Wrong. It’s not that I fall in love with these guys. Trust me, James was enough for my heart to handle. The problem was that I couldn’t find a good candidate. I didn’t want a good guy to screw over. No, I needed a real jerk, someone that I wouldn’t mind giving their soul to evil incarnate. But all the guys I catch are nothing like my first love. Their nice, sweet, fall in love with me till I run out and find the next one. It was really hard to find an asshole. The year is 2020 and my 200-year limit is about up. So far, I’d been playing around with only three real serious relationships that I ended before my guilty conscience came in. I already made peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to save my soul. And don’t even start thinking that at the last minute I was going to find a guy, fall in love, and somehow end up saving myself in the end. This isn’t that kind of story.

Another thing I’ve come to realize over my extension of two hundred years is that I think I was born in the wrong lifetime. You would think that a young Texan girl from the early 1800s would ignore the sins of the growing world and focus on her task. Yeah, right. The rest of the 1800s went by in a blur. In fact, after I offed myself, I didn’t exactly jump into this new deal right away. I spent years still in a depressed state before the timer went off in my head. Every guy in my Texan home looked and sounded just like my James. I had to leave. The 1900s were extremely interesting. Almost died on the Titanic (lost a few good candidates on there), partied hard in the Roaring Twenties, nearly starved in the thirties, died too many times in the forties because of the stupid war, met a really good guy in the fifties (ran out of there real quick), lived through another stupid war in the sixties, and the seventies…well, that decade was one big high memory. I rocked the Madonna look in the eighties and the nineties were all about partying with military guys until I woke up with my head in the toilet.

              When the first “End of the World” was coming for us in 2000, I made a New Year’s resolution that night that I was going to finish this deal and free my soul. I’d had enough fun for one century. It was time to buckle down and finish what I started. One year passed, then another, and another. It was really hard for me to concentrate on the important things. Then the second “End of the World” came in 2012. Another year, and another. The world was growing, building new attractions and sights with awesome music, movies, and nightlife. When you can’t stay dead and you have an enormous amount of money, of course you’re going to have some fun.

Now I’m at the end of my bargain. I know I fucked up and fooled around too much, but if it counts for anything, I really was trying this last year. I even met somebody, but he’s kind of a dick and not in the way I wanted…

Kingdom of the Wicked

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This book!! LOVE!! LOVE!! LOVE!!

First off, Kerri Maniscalco is an amazing writer and I loved every single book she has ever written. If you haven’t read Jack the Ripper series, you need to right away. Absolutely fell in love with that world just as I have fallen in love with her new one.

This book revolves around two twin witches who were raised to believe that the princes of Hell were the Wicked. Evil. Sinful. Will take your soul with their charms and their looks. You know, the usual “Devil’s evil,” blah, blah blah, type of stuff. So when Emilia’s twin sister, Vittoria, is brutally murdered, Emilia vows that she will find her murderer and make them pay. Especially if they are one of the Wicked.

So she starts her research and accidentally end up summoning one of the evil princes, Wrath. He claims that he’s only there to find out who has been murdering witches, but Emilia instantly doesn’t trust him. But like all stories, she finds herself working with him to uncover the truth.

Let’s talk about Prince Wrath. I don’t know what it is about Italian men (Book takes place in Italy, by the way) but wow! Maniscalco made an “evil” being sound like a dream. He also has tattoos which is another plus for me. But what I love most about this story was that Emilia was rude, direct, bold and stood her ground with him. She didn’t let herself be intimidated by him. I love characters like that! While I was reading I was like, “You go, girl! Tell that devilishly handsome prince off!”

Overall, this one is a five star for me. I loved the characters, the description, the imagery. It was all beautiful. And for some reason, I love characters who are supposed to be evil, but then they do really sweet things. Like caring for another being. Or saving someone’s life. It makes you conflicted while reading the whole story. This is a book I would read again and again and again.

Hard Lessons

When we transition from kid to teen to adulthood, we learn some pretty hard lessons. Let’s face it, we get kicked down a lot. Especially turning from a teen to an adult. I’m almost thirty and I still feel like I have so much to learn. Some lessons we learn through experience and others we learn from our parents.

There were two lessons that my mom taught me without meaning to.

One, keep your friend circle small and two, don’t fall in love easily.

I’ve seen my mom have some shitty friends. She would go to the moon and back for them, but they’ve never returned the favor. My mom is the kind of person that was there when you needed her, but when she needed someone, no one was there.

I am lucky enough to have the friends that I do. My circle is small, but I’ve been blessed to have people who put up with all my craziness. They help me, support me and are always there when I need them. They became my family.

Lesson number two, that was a hard one to watch. Giving everything to a guy where you end up losing yourself in the end. My mom used to write and draw and gave me her creative talent, but I realize that when someone you “love” comes into your life, they can become a parasite, sucking all that life right out of you.

When I think about it now, I see that my mom was a selfless person. Always trying to help others, but that’s the problem. Sometimes, when it comes to you and your well-being, you need to be selfish. You need to know when enough is enough and let go.

So thank you to my mother who taught me two of life’s hard lessons through observation. Even now, there’s still people out there who struggle with these lessons.

We are the Worst

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Over a billion species on the planet, and yet (we) humans are by far the worst. We’re the only ones capable of destroying ourselves. We won’t help our fellow man in the street unless we get some credit for it. A video or a post on social media will make us feel better about ourselves when that’s not the reality of it. We want that recognition that we’re “good”.

Women, (we) hide behind a mask that we paint on, but why? What’s wrong with our natural face? Our natural hair? Our natural bodies? Every woman has a beauty inside of them if they had self-love. But instead we get tore down by society’s standards. Filters is where we hide.

Men, (you) get tore down too by society. Always having to play the strong one, keeping everything inside, drinking away the pain for years until it becomes too much. And then it’s too late. Your mental state should be just as strong and powerful as the physical, and yet (we) make fun of a man being tore down. Memes and hashtags are our weapons.

So yes, (we) humans are the worst species on the planet. We want acknowledgement for our good deeds instead of just doing them for the simple act of kindness. We want to fit in with society’s beauty standards, another carbon copy, instead of just being ourselves. And we make fun of a broken down mentality of a gender that is always supposed to show “strength” instead of helping them.

We, are by far, the worst.

A Harsh Reality

[image error] A broken heart that is stained with blood.

“I liked him. And that’s the truth. Even though I know he’s bad for me and we aren’t good together, I can’t leave him. So I stay in this imaginary world that I created, while I ignore the harsh reality – He will never love me, and these little moments of happiness will always be fleeting.”

We’ve all been heartbroken at some point right? Despite whether you’re a man or a woman, it sucks. The worst kind of heartbreak though is when we know the truth and yet we still stay. Why? Why do we put ourselves through that?

I’ve been writing my second novel and a character of mine has this kind of mentality and the more I write about it, the more I think, “Why does she stay?” If she knows that the guy does not love her, why does she stick around?

It made me think of my personal life and the heartbreaks that I went through and then the answer became so simple. We crave happiness that when we get it, even if it’s just a little bit, we try to hold on to it. Sometimes we fall in love with the good memories and ignore the bad ones.

Women in the Walls

[image error] Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics

First book that I have read of the year (and I’ve been reading a lot this year already) and what can I say?? No, really. What can I say about this one…this one was…something. A good something! Not a “Ohmygosh, when will this book be over” something. Shall we begin?

I LOVE horror and I’m starting to realize that if you want a good horror book – besides the infamous Stephen King – You need to check out this author. Her books are short, easy to get into and you can’t stop until the end. I found myself thinking “WTF” with this book because the gory scenes that Lukavics describes is like…you really get that mental image.

This book is about Lucy Acosta and her cousin who live in a great Victorian mansion that is kind of sad and creepy all together. Lucy is okay though living there with Margaret, (her cousin), Penelope, (her aunt) and her father. Margaret is like her best friend and though her family is small, it is all she has. Then one day, Penelope walks into the woods and never comes back.

Crazy thing is, nobody calls the cops, there’s no search parties; Lucy’s father is too quick to accept the fact that she’s dead and life goes on. Margaret, on the other hand, claims that she’s being haunted by her mother and she can hear her in the walls. Lucy’s thinking that she’s just depressed, nothing strange is going on, and then she starts to hear voices too.

I don’t want to say more because I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone who may be reading this, but there is so much more to this that you just have to read it for yourself. It’s very graphic on the gore factor and I’m not going to lie, some of those images travelled with me to my dreams turning them into nightmares. These are the kind of books that I love. The ones that stick with you for a while and get underneath your skin and just make you feel a certain type of way. This was a great way to start off my reading year!

Blood Countess by Lana Popovic

Blood Countess by Lana Popovic

I love historical fiction books! Mainly because I’m a huge history nerd, so it’s no surprise that this is one of my favs.

If you don’t know who Elizabeth Bathory is then I highly recommend looking her up. She is known as the female Dracula and yes, she was a real person. A countess in the 16th century who was a ruthless female serial killer, taking hundreds of women as her victims. She was sadistic believing that drinking the blood of these young women would preserve her youthfulness, hence the name, “The Female Dracula”. That is fact.

Here is fiction of this book: Anna has begun to work as a scullery maid for the countess when Elizabeth soon takes a liking to her. She goes up in ranks to a chambermaid and pretty soon, Anna is taken under her spell. She soon realizes that her friendship is on a thin line as she witnesses Elizabeth’s cruelty. Then, there’s the murders. Anna knows that her life is no longer safe at the hands of her new friend.

This was an amazing story and I it was like I could feel Elizabeth’s cruelty. I think we’ve all met someone in our lives who are a “fake” nice. You know, they know what to say or do to get people to like them and then once they have you in their grip, they switch showing their true colors. Crazy, right? Which was exactly what this countess was. While I was reading this, I found myself thinking, “Anna get out of there! Run! That’s red flag number one! Number two!”

One thing that I didn’t get in this story was that Anna’s relationship with Elizabeth was taking to the next level, if you know what I mean. I saw it coming as I read more of the story and then when their relationship grew, I was like, “Of course.” It’s not the lesbianism of it that got to me, but the fact that Anna could’ve gone crazy because Elizabeth rejected her after to stay with her husband. Getting rejected hurts and it can make people do some crazy things so I felt like the story could’ve turned out way different.

Other than that, I devoured this in one sitting. 4 stars out of 5 and I hope that she continues on in the historical fiction genre.

A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This book…wow. Just wow.

What’s it about? A young boy struggles with life as his mother falls ill. His world is dreary and gloomy until one night he is visited by a monster. A monster who tells him three stories, but he wants something in return, something dangerous: The truth.

I read this book before the movie came out and the only reason I picked it up was because I am a huge fan of Patrick Ness. And I am so glad that I did. This book was beautiful in every way and the illustration just takes you there. Ness weaves a story where I really felt for the boy and at the end, it had me tearing up. I love books that give me realization in my own life and this one definitely did. It made me realize that there’s truths that we hide from ourselves. The unbearable truths. The truths that make you feel like a monster.

Please, please, pleeeease read the book before watching the movie! Don’t get me wrong, the movie was amazing too, (tears were shed) but the book makes you really feel like your going through it with the main character as well. It’s like what I always say: Words can take you to a whole other place.

The Afterlife of Holly Chase

The Afterlife of Holly Chase by Cynthia Hand

Okay, so I’m not even going to start this one off with apologizing because we all know by now that I am horrible when it comes to keeping up with this, but hey…it’s a nice surprise when I do post. So with that being known, we’re just going to jump right in to this one.

We all know of the Christmas story of Scrooge and the ghosts of past, present and future that visits him during the night so he can gain his jolly good spirit back. Must I go on? It’s a classic. And like with any classic, it has retellings and so many versions of the story that it has become a worldwide phenomenon during the holiday season. Usually with stories like this I kind of frown at because it’s like how many versions can there be before the story finally breaks? This book, however, changed my mind on it.

It starts right off with Holly Chase being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve so she can change her spoiled and selfish ways.

She doesn’t.

Now this is where I’m immediately intrigued because I have never known a scrooge who didn’t learn his lesson. Was being visited by three ghosts not scary enough, or what? So she ends up dying. The real twist here is that she ends up working for a company called “Project Scrooge” in her afterlife and she plays the part of Christmas Past. Each year they save a Christmas grouch and each year, Holly is stuck being seventeen, watching as her family and friends go on with their lives without her. It is the same thing every year, until it’s not.

This year, the grouch that they are supposed to save is her age and he’s the most gorgeous thing she’s seen since she’s been dead. She ends up breaking the rules and getting close to him with a fake name, but we all know this love is not meant to be. She did promise herself one thing though: She may have not saved her life, but she intends on saving his.

This is a great read for the season in the YA genre and I give it about 4 stars.

P.S. my little creature in my picture is Bob. He’s going to be showcasing my books from now on and I’m sorry that the picture isn’t very pretty. I’m working on getting a better scene for my books. Until then, keep reading!

Self Publishing is HARD!

Self publishing is not for the weak. It takes some discipline and that mentality to sit down and write. From the picture above, that’s what I really do. I tend to do everything, but work on my book. That’s not even what I want to complain about though. It’s the publisher and communication, or the lack of…

I don’t know if it’s the same for traditional publishing, but doe anybody else have trouble getting in contact with their publisher? Emails after emails, yet nothing. Don’t they understand that writing is hard enough without the extra stress? It’s like I have all these expectations and when I have questions about these expectations, I get ghosted! Like WTH! I think I’m going to try my hand in the traditional publishing route.

Moral of this post: If you do decide to go the self publishing route, make sure that you get a very good publisher. Someone who is easy to contact, answers your questions in a timely manner and doesn’t make you lose your hair. Trust me, as a writer, you do not need that stress.