Libby Doyle's Blog, page 6

The Painful Past of Zan O'Gara

Like books with strong female protagonists? Meet Alexandra "Zan" O'Gara, part of the pair whose scorching attraction gives The Passion Season its name. Zan is an FBI agent, a decorated army veteran, and a recovering alcoholic. Like many people in recovery, Zan sometimes speaks at AA meetings. Here she dives into her painful past and her relationship with Rainer Barakiel (Ry-ner Ba-rack-ee-el), my male protagonist.
 
Scene: Alcoholics Anonymous Women’s Meeting, Center City Philadelphia
 
Hello, I’m Zan, and I’m an alcoholic.
 
Thanks for inviting me to speak today. I could use it. I’ve been skipping meetings lately because I’m so busy at work.
 
Ha! My sponsor Becca is giving me a dirty look. Yes, Becca, more than work has kept me busy. I met a man, an amazing man, and he’s got me totally freaked out.
 
From your nods I can tell I’m in the right place. Sharing about it will help me, but don’t worry. I know I’m supposed to talk about my sobriety. I guess my theme is how people like us struggle with relationships because ours were so messed up for so long. I’m not used to feeling out of control, at least not since I worked so hard to get my life together.
 
The first time I sobered up was during my service. I did three tours of duty in Afghanistan, in the Army. I was a mess through the first half. Headed for a dishonorable discharge. I got blind, stinking drunk whenever I could, which was surprisingly often considering we weren’t supposed to have alcohol. I won’t beleaguer the fact, but suffice it to say I had a lot of bad sex with a lot of pig men.
 
No one can understand like you can. Nothing compares to how much a certain species of man will shit on a woman who doesn’t think she’s worth anything.
 
So, yeah, I was fucked up, but midway through my second tour I got a new commanding officer. He was a sober drunk and he saved my life. This program saved my life. I surrounded myself with sober people and they held me up while I put myself back together.
 
I did well after that, got recruited into a special unit. I was proud of myself, but that phase of my service was intense. When I finished my third tour I didn’t re-enlist. I wanted to go to college and I had just lost my best friend Patrick to the war.
 
While I was still in the army, I could cope with his death. The structure helped me, I guess. But when I got out I relapsed. I was so lost. I was already in school and I felt so out of place. I play the guitar, so I joined a rock-n-roll band.  I hoped the band would make me feel like I belonged somewhere, but it just meant I was out at clubs a lot. This was not good. I fell into my old patterns. I found out frat boys are just as bad as army grunts. Worse maybe. Entitled. I come from a long line of Idaho mountain trash, so I hated them.

You know how the program teaches us we need to let go of our resentments? Well, I held onto mine with both hands. Same way I held on to those pretty frat boys while I fucked their brains out, hating them all the while.
 
Yeah. Perverse. I finally sobered up after I almost broke one of the frat boy’s jaws with a dictionary, one of those giant Oxford things. It was a pretty good weapon.
 
Heh, heh. It’s okay to laugh. He deserved it. He tried to introduce his buddy into the action. Kind of a trigger for me.
 
Um, um, let me see. I used to talk to Patrick in my head. I could hear him telling me I shouldn’t be living like that. The program saved me again. I sobered up and worked my ass off and graduated with honors. I got accepted into the FBI training program, probably because of my service. I’ve never looked back. I’ve done well. Done my job.
 
After a while, I tried dating. I figured that’s what normal people do, but I was just going through the motions. Mostly, it was boring. Or horrible.
 
Now I’m seeing this man. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met. He’s totally smoking hot, but it’s more than that. Sometimes he’s rock solid, filled with wisdom. I want to trust him, rely on him. I want to tell him all my secrets and have him soothe me. Other times he seems confused and sad. So sad. I want to wrap him in my arms and stop anyone from hurting him, ever.
 
And I, um, I can’t handle these feelings. I don’t know how to act. I started binge drinking when I was 13 and this man, he turns me into that scared, neglected little girl again. Like I don’t know what’s real. I know it’s the disease talking. I know alcohol robbed me of the years when I was supposed to learn what it was like to have healthy relationships. I can’t get that back, but I can try to be grateful for all of you, here today. Many of you have probably been through something like this. I’ll listen and learn. Thanks for letting me share.

Master of Matter and Energy

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
                                                                                                                   – Arthur C. Clarke

I led this blog post with a quote from the great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke because this post is all about Pellus, an important character in The Passion Season: Book I of the Covalent Series. Pellus uses science in a way that seems like magic. He is like a father to Barakiel, my male protagonist.
 
Both of them are Covalent, ancient beings who use their great power to keep the forces of Creation and Destruction in balance. Barakiel is a warrior whose purpose is to defend the Covalent Realm against its enemies, but Pellus is much different. He is a traveler, the type of Covalent who can travel between dimensions using rifts in the fabric of existence.
 
Moreover, Pellus has achieved the highest rank of traveler. He is an adept, able to manipulate the properties of matter and energy as well as pass between dimensions. What does this mean? He can change the phases of matter from gas to liquid to solid and back again. He can bend light and muffle sound. He can desiccate corpses and send electromagnetic waves to do his bidding. This may seem like magic, but it’s science with a touch of art. Travelers are born with the ability to perceive the molecular structure of things at the subatomic level, but they must study for an age before they can fully understand the bonds that give structure to all things. Before they can break and reform those bonds at will. Pellus has achieved this mastery. He is badass.
 
Below is an interview with Pellus by Roan, his apprentice at the Travelers Guild. Roan conducted this interview for his fellow apprentices, who are all slightly in awe of Pellus, one of the Covalent Realm’s most powerful traveler adepts.
 
Q: When did you first realize you were a traveler?
 
A: My earliest memory was watching my parents and noticing their vibrations. I could see they were different from one another yet in harmony, an impression of beauty and love. I did not know what it meant until my mother began to teach me about the different types of Covalent. When she told me about the travelers, I knew I belonged with them.
 
Q: What was your apprenticeship like?
 
A: I was fortunate enough to be apprenticed to the legendary adept Segellen. She was demanding, but she taught me well. During one lesson she taught me how to construct a barrier over my head, to strengthen the bonds between the molecules in the air so they could not be broken. Then she placed heavy objects on the barrier. If my concentration had wavered they would have come crashing down on me. That is one way to learn how to focus.
 
I loved Segellen dearly. I would not be who I am were it not for her. Some time ago, she and her mate grew weary of life, they were so ancient. They met the Stream together. They let themselves be absorbed by the furious power of Creation. I will always miss them, but I am happy they were able to choose their death together. Whirlpool Galaxy. Photograph courtesy of NASA. Q: Tell me about your period as a journeyman traveler.
 
A: Sometimes I miss it, flowing through the rifts, the beauty of the vast heavens spinning before me, the dark energy taking me wherever it wanted to go. I encountered phenomena so fantastic it will take the adepts and scholars an age to decipher to the information. I am often tempted to shoot off into the cosmos once more, to gather more data, but I have responsibilities.
 
Q: You are traveler to the great warrior Barakiel, who lives in exile. No other traveler adept has ever had such a duty. What is it like?
 
A: I enjoy it. For all the times I have passed to and from the dimension of the Earthly Realm with Barakiel, I still relish the task. I hold the memory of the curves and waves of the fabric of existence within me. The journey is like riding along the petal of an intricate flower to find the point it joins with other petals, their surfaces quivering with energy.

I've also had the chance to build a strong relationship with Barakiel. I value our friendship and I feel privileged to know him so well. Not many do.  
 
Q: Covalent are generally forbidden from traveling to the Earthly Realm. Can you tell us something about it?
 
A: A fascinating place, a realm that offers the highest beauty and the most visceral ugliness. I love earthly weather. Once, when Barakiel was feeling broken-hearted because he had to leave some humans of whom he had grown fond, he asked me to take him to a storm. We stood on a plateau and watched it approach, a wall of driving rain and wind and flashing electrical power that swallowed the boiling reds of the sun. I could feel the beating heart of the Earth, and I could see Barakiel gather its strength. I knew Barakiel was powerful, but at the time I did not know what he could do with a storm. It was astonishing to behold.
 
That was a long time ago. The Earthly Realm still holds great beauty, but there are too many humans now. The idiotic creatures are befouling their own home. I fail to understand what Barakiel sees in them.
 
Q: Do you have any advice for apprentice travelers?
 
A: When you graduate, you will begin your duty as journeyman travelers. Many will be lost or return insane. You must hone your ability to avoid this danger as much as possible. Before you set foot into a rift, your concentration must be unwavering. Spend some time outside Covalent City’s protective barrier. Test your survival skills there. When the wasteland is as easy as a stroll through the gardens, you will be ready for the rifts.

Who Are the Covalent?

​The Passion Season is the first book in the Covalent Series. Now, I can imagine you saying to yourself, “The what series?” This blog post will go some way toward answering that question with a slice of backstory on my groovy aliens, the Covalent. I dig my aliens. They are beautiful, strong and immortal. They live at the still center of reality. They have existed for billions of years.

​My novel is a complex love story between Rainer Barakiel (ry-ner ba-rack-ee-el), a powerful Covalent warrior, and Zan O’Gara, a human FBI agent with the strength of will and body to match her hot alien lover. They have a lot of hot alien sex, but the story is much more than that. Rainer is connected to a murder Zan is investigating. She thinks he’s human. As if that weren’t bad enough, to love her breaks Covalent Law.   

So who are these aliens who would seek to keep our lovers apart? As you would expect from such an old culture, Covalent society is sophisticated. They write histories. Here is part of one.
 
The Annals of the Covalent: The Origin of Balance 

Long ago, we had no name, for we were all that was.

Our lives were as simple as flowing water and we trembled before the unreasoning forces of Creation and Destruction. Creation called to us, hummed in our minds with the tones of our birth. Destruction was the other, the agent of change that pushed our world along the arc of time.

We were all that was sentient. We felt the play of the great forces in our marrow, and when we fought our way to Balance, the boundless power of the realms was born within us.
Language and civilization rose from this power, a shining city, steeped in the expression of our finely tuned minds. We cultivated beauty and love and violence and death. We mapped our own Realm and wondered at the forces at our borders. We were too frightened to venture into Creation and Destruction yet we yearned to explore. We began to join in love and grow our numbers.

In the midst of a great flowering of our culture, the Calamities began. At first, our Realm trembled and moaned, set upon by phenomena we did not understand. The ramparts of our city crumbled. Many died.

In times of respite, we grieved and rebuilt. The quakes grew more frequent and the firmament joined this violence with great flashing storms. We knew we were nothing before this terrible migration of elemental forces. We came to believe that our Realm was no more than a chance expression of their ever-expanding fury. Our civilization decayed in the fatalistic acceptance that Creation and Destruction would grind us to dust, caught as we were between them.

Among this despair, there were those who kept their minds as sharp as blades. Those in whom the forces balanced so perfectly that chaos fell tame within them. They did not believe in the inevitable. They shouted, we are here, and we will not lay down to be erased. They studied the forces, measured the Calamities.

The greatest among the ancient ones learned that the forces of Creation and Destruction reached out to each other, attracted by the opposition of their natures to join and transform, one into the other. All that was, would be again. All that was, would be made new, but those who existed would be lost. The ancient ones trumpeted a challenge from the rubble of our great city. We built something, they sang. We will not let it disappear. We are here, and we love. We will save the loved.

Thus determined, these ancient ones unleashed the power of Balance within them and joined with the Realm in a blinding fusion. Their memories were released, their minds united, their bodies absorbed. The power swirled around them to create the Turning, ever renewing, holding the Realm in its embrace. They joined their energy and released their power so that we, the loved, could go on. They are the Guardians. When they had bound the calamitous forces there came a terrible roar. The Realm trembled as Creation and Destruction swelled and met the Turning. Violent quakes destroyed all that was left of our city. Fiery bolts of energy rent the land, carving seas of shimmering power, raising mountains, infusing the soil. Those who remained lay huddled together, certain the forces would swallow them, but the Turning held. With a mighty convulsion, the violence ceased. Our Realm bonded the Creative and Destructive Realms, holding them in Balance. Those realms erupted into myriad dimensions as their expansion toward one another was transformed by the great power of the Guardians.

The few who remained wept for the sacrifice of the Guardians and for our lost civilization. Soon the Stream gushed forth from the Creative Realm, pure energy so fearsome we could not hope to tame it. Many tried and were lost in its torrent. We bowed before its power.
The demons came as well, surging out of the Destructive Realm through the Turning and into our ruined city, tearing our flesh in their unreasoning lust for violence. We were no longer all that was.

Those who felt the furious energy of the Stream humming within them became warriors among us. They drove the demons from our Realm, but when the first had been vanquished, more came in endless waves. The warriors accepted the great burden of keeping the demons from our gates and we honored them as our protectors. They battled in the Turning so the citizens could live without fear.

The best among the warriors gathered such breathtaking power that we saw high purpose and brilliance in their eyes. We recognized them as descendants of the Guardians who had saved us from the elemental forces.

​They are the Warriors of the Rising, and they became leaders among us. They called our home the Covalent Realm, the bond between all realms, and we became the Covalent. We stand between Destruction and Creation. To bond them, to bind them. Our blood we pledge to this. To Balance, preserver of life.

Urban fantasy, paranormal romance, erotic fiction.

The Changing Seasons

I’m wagering almost everyone loves the springtime. I say this about spring because the days are longer, the weather warmer, our energy levels higher. Spring gets our blood pumping and our juices flowing. Spring is the season of passion.
 
All that holds true in the world of my novel. Rainer Barakiel (pronounced Ry-ner Ba-rack-ee-el) is a superhuman warrior from another dimension, exiled to Earth for the sins of his father. When he meets the strong and talented FBI agent Alexandra "Zan"  O’Gara, blood pumps and juices flow. The season lives up to its name with an added twist. On the vernal equinox, the day that spring begins, monstrous demons shoot through a rift in the fabric of existence to attack Barakiel. Massive, drooling beasts with an endless thirst for violence, the demons are sent by Barakiel’s father to kill him.
 
I released The Passion Season on March 20, 2016, because the vernal equinox occurred at 12:30 a.m. on that date. Chapter 1 begins with the demon attack shortly before Barakiel meets Zan. We learn in the prologue that Barakiel has been fighting demons for centuries. He is Covalent, a race of ancient beings who use their great power to bring stability to the cosmos. Barakiel was exiled after his father, the once-admired warrior Lucifer, led a rebellion against the rulers of the Covalent Realm. As Barakiel grew up, the rulers of his world came to mistrust his power. They feared he was his father’s son, so when he reached adolescence they banished him to the Earthly Realm.
 
Their fear was misplaced. Far from being his father’s sleeper agent, Barakiel refused to become his father’s slave. As a result. Lucifer never stops trying to kill him, sending demons against him at every change of season: the vernal equinox, the summer solstice, the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.
 
Why only the changes of season, you ask? Because the kind of inter-dimensional rift used by the demons opens only at that moment when the Earth’s axis shifts position relative to the sun, the moment of a solstice or an equinox. During the brief time the rift is open, demons cram inside to rocket through and attack Barakiel.
 
As you can see in image #1, in the autumn and winter the northern part of the Earth is tilted away from the Sun. Spring comes to the northern hemisphere when the Earth has traveled far enough along its orbit for the northern part of our planet to once again tilt toward the heat of the fiery star.
The rift opens because the Earth stretches the fabric of existence when it reaches one of the far points of its elliptical orbit. Imagine the Sun sitting at the center of a vast vibrating cloth, as in image #2.
The Earth travels along the surface of same cloth, following the same furrow in the fabric over and over again, held in that groove by the gravitational pull of the Sun. At the far points, when the Earth’s axis shifts relative the Sun, small tears appear in the fabric that almost immediately repair themselves. But the tears are open long enough for the demons to enter. The beasts rush through to set upon Barakiel, seeking to satisfy their blood lust and please their master, Lucifer, by ripping apart his son.

The axial rifts, as these tears in the fabric of existence are called, look something like enormous trees, their branches embracing the Earth.
 
Zan and Barakiel are brought together by a murder, a macabre ritual that happens shortly before the vernal equinox. Fearing the gruesome crime has something to do with the demons, Barakiel offers to consult for the FBI because he has expertise in antique daggers like those found at the scene. His goal is information, but after Zan shows up at his door to question him about the knives, he he can’t get her out of his mind. And so begins Barakiel’s passion, a season of more happiness than he has ever known, with more at stake than he has ever had to lose. 

The Passion Season Playlist

Music is important to the characters in The Passion Season. Zan O'Gara, my female protagonist, is an excellent guitar player. She plays in a rock-n-roll band and with a group of bluegrass musicians, at least when her job allows it. Rainer Barakiel, my male protagonist, plays the violin, a pursuit that has given him comfort through the lonely centuries on Earth.

I created characters that value music because I value music. It is a huge part of my life, so it's not surprising that I would curate a soundtrack for my novel. Some songs reflect the characters’ aspirations or states of mind. Others are pieces performed by the characters in the story. Still others are meant to reflect the plot.

Now that I've obsessively tweeted every one of these songs, I thought it was time to post the whole shebang. So here it is: The Passion Season Playlist. Enjoy!

1. Love Reign O’er Me – The Who
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDbAtWpoA6k
2. Burn – Nine Inch Nails
https://vimeo.com/3685071
3. Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkXIYgsvO0c
4. Rosary Sonata n. 6, The Agony in the Gethsemane Garden – Heinrich Biber -- played by Le Bizzarrie Armoniche (Riccardo Minasi, violinist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vr-qxq-KnA
5. Indiscipline – King Crimson (live, feat. Adrian Belew)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr70ttkMoHE
6. Brendan -- Fugazi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdMJX73Krs
7. Top of the World – Shonen Knife
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhYhOHaGSoo
8. Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down – Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpvKyMy4Yfw
9. Caprice 24 – Paganini -- played by Hilary Hahn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpnIrE7_1YA
10. Nasty – Janet Jackson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWHIMUfi1Q
11. La Cumbia Campesina – Luis Ornelas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwTC1kZFNNI&list=PLCWuLdMGn0csZz94hwQ2ygGIlvP4cxLrp
12. There Goes My Gun – The Pixies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5OReS4qvVQ&list=PLhj6R3nBEgyIdyIVKV2XDfDUdyhcWsWpw&index=12
13. Sex Machine – James Brown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mjQ1i5V7qA
14. Cover Me Up – Jason Isbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdwnGG29Upw
15. The Ice Miner – Leo Kottke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPfgEftDBgM
16. Past and Pending – The Shins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6dYB35lF_0
17. The Weirdness – The Stooges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGE6KsemuiQ&list=PLN5_30IiLIAbTc15gSCMNJHzjs7e_bFFw
18. Dark Road – Sarah Jarosz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAdRcQGTmgs 
19. Salt Creek – The Tony Rice Unit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JgaYm7DsSs
20. Chaconne, Partita No. 2 – Johann Sebastian Bach – played by Hilary Hahn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqA3qQMKueA
21. My Idea of Fun – The Stooges
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IStR5LlouMw&list=PLN5_30IiLIAbTc15gSCMNJHzjs7e_bFFw&index=4
22. Angel of Death – Slayer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_zsJ8KPP0
23. To Be Over – Yes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuYjj82R6eU
24. Love is Blindness – Jack White
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWir6wUkPtw
25. The World’s a Mess; It’s in My Kiss – X
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-U6dXK4Mig

Balance and the Covalent

The Passion Season© is meant to be entertaining -- a wild story to enjoy -- but like most works of fiction, there are themes.

One such theme is Balance. Barakiel, my male protagonist, is Covalent, a race of ancient beings who live at the still center of reality. In this passage from the prologue, he ruminates on why he has to leave the Saxons, a brave and loyal people among whom he's lived for 80 years. From the 8th to the 9th centuries, the Saxons were at war with the Franks. Barakiel had been fighting on their behalf, but there were consequences.

To continue in that way was a perversion of his purpose. He could not fight on one side or the other of internecine human battles. If he continued to slaughter the weak, he would lose Balance. He would become weak himself.

Balance was the wellspring of Covalent power, the equilibrium of Creation and Destruction, order and entropy, attraction and repulsion, love and hate. Balance allowed Barakiel to gather any energy he encountered, to bring it inside himself and transform it into unassailable strength and speed. His enemies fell before a hatred so strong and pure it guaranteed the sureness of his blade. His Saxon family enjoyed his love and loyalty, equally strong, equally pure.

Barakiel was born to slaughter the demons Lucifer sent to kill him, but physically weak humans were not worthy enemies. He had to choose. Leave his Saxon family or abandon Balance to live as a crippled warrior, good enough for the Earthly Realm, but a mere shadow of what he was meant to be. Abandon Balance and risk dying at the hands of demons.

As a Warrior of the Rising, Barakiel’s power called to him as surely as he knew the world through his senses. He did not wish to betray his nature. In the mornings, he looked at the fine woman with whom he shared his bed. He would have to leave her.

His departure broke his heart, but he knew it was the right thing to do. As a Covalent warrior, Barakiel's impulse toward violence is balanced by his devotion to his duty, but that belongs to the Covalent, not to humans, no matter how much he might care for them.

Barakiel sees violence as the solution to every problem. He is compelled to fulfill his duty to fight, but he is capable of loving with the same intensity he brings to battle. As he gets older and more powerful, he needs to express that side of himself. He wants love. And just as Balance demands a worthy adversary to fight, it demands a worthy woman to love. He finds her in Zan O'Gara, the female protagonist in The Passion Season.

I love the concept of Balance in our internal world as well as the external. I think we need to accept our flaws along with our qualities. We need to accept the yin and the yang. Bad temper? Maybe this aspect of your personality is inseparable from the strength of will you need to accomplish difficult tasks. Maybe it’s inseparable from your courage. Get down on yourself because people tend to push you around? Maybe your talent for conciliation could defuse a tense situation and help find a solution. The idea is to stop making value judgments and see things as more integrated. It’s an aspiration. I’m no Zen master.

Opinions on Strong Women

When I was a little girl, I remember watching Swiss Family Robinson, a 1960 Disney movie about a wholesome family shipwrecked on an island. At the beginning of the movie they encountered a child in the jungle. This child was quick, and possessed the skills necessary to survive alone. The family would see the elusive child hunting or gathering food, but in a flash, the child would melt away into the thick vegetation. When the family was in danger, the jungle child came to their aid. My memory is vague, but I think the jungle child was shooting a .22 rifle at the family's attackers. Then, of course, the child stuck around to meet them. It was a girl! They were shocked! They were flabbergasted! And from that moment forward they stuck that jungle child in a dress and she became as useless as a sack of moldy potatoes. No more shooting, no more hunting, no more flitting from tree to tree with agility. My seven-year-old self was indignant and the message was clear. Girls don't do. Girls are more like objects than human beings with agency.

Thanks to the hard work of a lot of kick-ass women, our stories have improved. Plenty of books, movies and television shows  feature strong, smart women whose fate is in their own hands. Zan O'Gara, the female protagonist in The Passion Season, is no exception. She is an army veteran who served in a dangerous, grueling capacity in Afghanistan. She successfully completed vigorous training to become an FBI agent. She is professionally and sexually assertive and true to herself. But The Passion Season is a romance at its heart, and some of the best elements of romance can present a dilemma for the romance writer who wants her protagonists to be feminist to their core.

Many romance novels spin tales of gorgeous, muscular men who rescue and protect the women they love at all costs. Men who are so enamored of the female protagonist they devote their lives to her wellbeing. Even though my book is different, I don't see anything wrong with these stories. Think about women's lives. Maybe they work all day, then have to come home and get dinner for the family, and clean the house some before it turns into a health hazard. They might have to care for elderly parents, and do their taxes, and get the car inspected, and make sure little Kyle doesn't flunk math. They spend their lives taking care of others and rarely get time to themselves. They are amazing. They may not be able to handle weapons and beat dudes up like Zan, but they are the epitome of strength in the real world. If these women want to sink into a fantasy in which a handsome man lifts that burden -- the burden of keeping it all together -- then they should be allowed that indulgence. Fantasies can be a balm for our bruised minds.

I've chosen to write a different kind of story. I try to achieve a balance between the wonderful feeling women can get when they realize their men would do anything for them, and the need women have to take care of themselves. To know they can handle anything that is thrown at them, and to have to whole world know it too. The balance that allows them to be self-determining in every aspects of their lives, while still allowing their men to enjoy that feeling of being the protector sometimes, of being strong for the love of their life. After all, men are caught in the same web of social expectations as women. I wanted to write about a relationship in which the lovers protect each other, physically and emotionally.

Witness the following scene from The Passion Season, in which I try to strike this balance. Zan and Rainer (pronounced ry-ner), my male protagonist, are out at a bar with Zan's friends. A drunken cop has just slapped Zan on the ass. Rainer is not pleased. 
* * *
“You fucking asshole!” Zan shouted, but that was all she got to say. Rainer was there. He grabbed Benson by the throat and pinned him to the wall with one hand, his blue eyes burning. He raised him so that Benson’s feet barely touched the floor.

“How dare you,” Rainer said, in a voice that rolled through the room like thunder. Everyone in the bar turned toward the sound. Spit dripped from Benson’s lips. His eyes were so wide it was like his lids had been surgically removed. A dark stain slowly spread over his pants.

“Rainer, let him go,” Zan said. Rainer did not move, staring like he was using his eyes to pin the man to the wall as well as his arm. “Rainer! Let him go!” He removed his hand. Benson stood there, coughing.

“Apologize.” Rainer’s voice demanded obedience with its vibration.

“Uh, uh, sorry, ma’am. Sorry, sorry.”

“Leave,” Rainer said, his eyes still burning. Benson stumbled away and out the door of the bar. As Rainer’s head turned to follow Benson’s exit, he exhaled, a sound more a growl than a breath. Zan could tell he did not want to let that man walk out of there. One glance at her friends told her they knew as well.

Great. Mel already thinks he’s nuts.

“What the hell, Rainer?” Zan glared up at him.

“What?”

“That man is a police officer. You just assaulted him. You might be in a lot of trouble right now.”

“Assaulted him? He assaulted you!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jamal said. “Rainer didn’t hurt him, and I don’t think Benson is going to want to publicize the fact that your boyfriend just literally scared the piss out of him.”

Mel and Michael started to laugh. “Oh my god, that was so excellent,” Mel said. Zan was surprised, but then again, Mel loathed Benson.

“Don’t encourage him,” Zan said. “Rainer, I don’t need you putting yourself at risk to defend my honor. I can defend my own honor.”

“What about my honor, Zan?” Rainer threw up his hands. “Do you actually think I would let a man touch you like that and do nothing?” He held her eyes. “No one is allowed to disrespect you.”

Zan’s anger was replaced by a rush of tenderness that she saw reflected in Rainer. They stood there gazing at each other, faintly smiling.

“Okay, kids, snap out of it.” Mel waved her hand in front of Zan’s face. “We’ve had an eventful day. Time to return to sanity.” They decided to leave, given that almost everyone in the bar was staring at them.

* * *  
What do you think? A good balance?

Release Day Blitz!

begins on the vernal equinox! 

Please stop by these blogs on March 20, 2016, to learn about Book I of the Covalent Series, interact with Libby, and participate in groovy giveaways.
 
Paranormal Tendencies Book Reviews
http://www.paranormaltendencies.blogspot.com
 
3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, and Sissy, Too!
http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com/
 
Roxanne’s Realm 
www.roxannerhoads.com 
 
Fang-tastic Books 
www.fang-tasticbooks.blogspot.com
 
The Creatively Green Write at Home Mom
www.creativelygreen.blogspot.com 
 
Lisa’s World of Books
www.lisasworldofbooks.net
 
Deal Sharing Aunt  
www.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com
 
Zenny's Awesome Book Reviews
https://zennysawesomebookreviews.wordpress.com/
 
Ramblings of a Book Nerd
http://booknerdramblings.com/
 
Happy Tails and Tales 
http://happytailsandtales.blogspot.com
 
Once Untold
http://onceuntold.blogspot.com/
 
Fantatical Paranormal Romantical
http://fanaticalparanormalromantical.com/
 
Am Kinda Busy Reading!
http://www.amkindabusy.com
 
Ali - The Dragon Slayer
http://cancersuckscouk.ipage.com/
 
T's Stuff  
http://teresanoel.blogspot.com/
 
The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange
www.anneliselestrange.wordpress.com
 
GothicMoms 
http://gothicmoms.blogspot.com/
 
Inner Goddess Forum
http://www.innergoddessforum.com/
 
Quest for More
http://MightierOption.blogspot.com
 
The Recipe Fairy
http://recipe-fairy.weebly.com/

Sunday Music

Philadelphia is overcast today, and I am listening to a record that perfectly reflects the timbre of the sky. Build Me Up From Bones, by Sarah Jarosz. Music is central to lives of my characters in The Passion Season, and in this way, I am just like them. In fact, like Zan and Rainer, music is something that brings me and my husband together. Although I think the hubby could live without the '80s hardcore. And the hip hop. And the thrash metal. Ha! What can I say? I have eclectic tastes. For your enjoyment, a link to a video of the super-talented Ms. Jarosz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X09s37tJ09s

Check out the new trailer for The Passion Season©!

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