YA Urban Fantasy Author Parker Blue Revisits Get Lost in a Story

Get Lost in a Story Readers, I’m excited this morning.  Because today YA Urban Fantasy Author Parker Blue joins us to clue us in on a major secret she's been keeping regarding one of her lead characters in her Demon Underground Series. 

Everyone knows Shade is Val Shapiro's love interest, right? And that he's swirly one moment and hot the next.  Right?  But do you know everything about this enigmatic Shadow Demon?  You might want to fasten your seatbelts.  It's time to read Shade's story in Forget You. 

“Parker’s voice is edgy and smart. I smile as I read because this book takes me back to my Buffy days–yep, that kind of smart and sharp-edged humor. Love it." — The Bradford Bunch

“Above all, Bite Me is an entertaining, police procedural mystery with loads of action and witty banter. Val’s’ adventures take her into an unrealized world of the supernatural, whose depths she is only just beginning to understand. Engaging for readers of all ages, this new YA urban fantasy is recommended. I look forward to Parker Blue’s next ‘Demon Underground’ tale with Val, Dan and Fang. You will too.” SciFiGuy.

FORGET YOU. . .

Sixteen-year-old Shawn, "Shadow Boy," is the exact opposite of his sister, Sharra, whose nickname is "Sunshine Girl." While she  sees the joy and bright side of everything, Shawn sees the dark-side all too often. Feels the isolation forced on them by their father more sharply. And chafes under the constant discipline needed to hold their powers in check. When an argument with his father sparks Shawn's shadow demon half, his world implodes.

FORGET YOU is free now at:   

http://www.amazon.com/Forget-Demon-Underground-Series-ebook/dp/B00CA6Q7RC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365567105&sr=8-1font-family:%22Calibri%22,%22sans-serif%22;color:#1F497D
 

 

DONNELL:  Parker, wow it’s been awhile.  We haven’t seen you since March, 2011   http://getlostinastory.blogspot.com/2011/03/get-lost-in-story-welcomes-parker-blue.html  It almost seems like you’ve gone underground with your characters.  Whatcha been up to?

PARKER BLUE:  What, you think I’ve been spending time hanging out in the Demon Underground?  I wish…would really like to meet a couple of my characters!  On second thought, maybe not.  They always get in way too much trouble.  Actually, I published another book in that series since you last interviewed me.  Where have you been?  :-)

DONNELL:  Around. ;) Val Shapiro is one kick-ass heroine, but her creator has a soft spot.  You’re big in the adoption business.  Can you tell us about that?

PARKER BLUE:  Just to set the readers straight, my adopted children are furry.  No, not werewolves—dogs.  I wouldn’t say I’m big in it, but National Mill Dog Rescue is.  Their mission is to find forever homes for breeding dogs past their prime who have been discarded by puppy mills (Grrr) and I’ve adopted three of them.  Abby, a Yorkie, only lived for a month after I took her home (cancer), but the other two are slowly learning how to be real dogs.  It’s heartbreaking sometimes how damaged they are.  Never adopt from a pet store, please!  

Daisy is a Maltese and Trixie is a Jack Russell terrier.  My third dog I adopted ten years ago from Dreampower before I knew about NMDR.  Her name is Mo, and she is the model for one of the characters in my book, Fang.  He looks exactly like her—imagine that!  

DONNELL:  They're great dogs and you're a terrific human to them.  I’ve had an opportunity to read FORGET YOU and I can’t wait to tell readers about it.  But I’ll leave that to you.  You’re such a world builder.  Do these ideas swamp you all at once, or do you have to work at them?

PARKER BLUE:  I usually have the idea for a character, and the world builds from there.  For example, for the first book of the series, Bite Me, I envisioned a vampire slayer who was part demon.  She’s young, so to give her conflict, I made her part succubus.  We all deal with lust at that age—both wanted and not—so I thought it would be interesting to explore that.  In this case, she almost killed someone when she came into her powers (BTW, I wrote the first book long before Lost Girl came on the air—GMTA!).  To add to her conflict, I had her parents kick her out of the house when she turned eighteen.  But she needed friends and a job, so I created the world of the Demon Underground and the Special Crimes Unit for that.  And Fang, of course. 

So, to answer your question, I do have to work at world-building, but ideas occasionally swamp me, too—especially when I’m in the bathtub or in the car.  Both places it’s difficult to write them down, of course.  I’m sure I’ve lost a lot of stunningly brilliant ideas for lack of a suitable recording device.  Murphy’s Law in action!

DONNELL:  FORGET YOU leads up to your upcoming release, DARE ME. There some exciting new twists to the Underground Series.  Can you share any of it, or do we have to cross our arms and stamp our feet?

PARKER BLUE:  Shade’s past comes back to haunt him and Val has to clean up the mess.  This one was fun because you get to see both Shade and Austin’s points of view as well as Val’s.

DONNELL:  Here’s a test for you.  If you had to choose your favorite character in the Demon Underground Series, who would it be?  

PARKER BLUE:  Easy test!  My favorite is everyone else’s favorite as well—Fang, the fiesty telepathic hellhound.  He’s soooo much fun to write ‘cause he allows me to get my snark on.  He says the things everyone else is thinking but is too PC to say.

DONNELL:  How much fun was it to reveal Shade’s past?  

PARKER BLUE:  I don’t know if fun is the right word.  Enlightening, maybe.  Some readers weren’t happy with how he acted in Make Me, so I wrote Forget You to explain his past so they’d understand where he was coming from.  I kind of discovered his secrets as I wrote it, and those secrets come out in my upcoming book, Dare Me.  Some things surprised me!  No, I’m not wacko—I’m a writer.  ‘Nuff said.  BTW, Forget You a short story, so it’ll be out in e-book form only, though may be included in an upcoming anthology.

DONNELL:  You’re working on something else for Bell Bridge Books, correct?  A novella, I believe.  Can you give readers a hint on what it’s about?

PARKER BLUE:  Funny you should ask.  Forget You may be reprinted in that anthology, tentatively titled The Big Book of Wicked, composed primarily of paranormal romances.  My novella is called Wicked Secrets and features a witch who has to convince a werewolf to turn her into a lyncanthrope before she dies of a deadly disease.  Fair warning—it’s darker than my Demon Underground series.  Not that I’m ever all that dark.  My friends Jodi Anderson, PJ Bishop, Karen Fox, Laura Hayden, and Evelyn Vaughn also have stories in it.

DONNELL:  Parker, thanks for joining us today.  Readers, I can’t wait for you to read FORGET YOU. I already have, and I promise you’ll love Shade more than ever.  And maybe we’ll have Parker back after her novella’s released.

 

In addition to reading Shade's story in Forget You for free at the link above, Parker will give away a book from her the Underground Series to one lucky commenter.  

PARKER BLUE'S QUESTION FOR READERS: When an author writes two different kinds of books, like light and dark, do you read both, or do you prefer to stick to one?

Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/ParkerBlueWrite .

Twitter @ParkerBlueWrite

Web Page etc.  http://www.parkerblue.net

Note: COMMENTERS are encouraged to leave a contact email address to speed the prize notification process. Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to North America addresses only unless specifically mentioned in the post. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Winners of drawings are responsible for checking this site in a timely manner. If prizes are not claimed in a timely manner, the author may not have a prize available. Get Lost In A Story cannot be responsible for an author's failure to mail the listed prize. GLIAS does not automatically pass email addresses to guest authors unless the commenter publicly posts their email address.

 

DON’T FORGET to FOLLOW us on Twitter #GetLostStories or LIKE us on Facebook to keep up with all our guest authors and their prizes.  And come back tomorrow when Alexa hosts Sabrina Garie. ~ Donnell

Parker Blue

YA Urban Fantasy Author Parker Blue writes the Demon Underground Series, brought to you by Bell Bridge Books. The first book in the series, BITE ME was a #1 Bestseller in Young Adult in Fictionwise.com and on Amazon! Then of course, there's TRY ME and out just this month ... FANG ME!

Please welcome the award-winning, prolific and extraordinary....Parker Blue!

Excerpt:

Weird. Definitely weird. I stood outside the wrought-iron gates of the Alamo Heights mansion at a quarter to midnight and gawked. Sure, the dark spooky brick mansion housed the biggest vein of vampires in San Antonio--I knew that. But the fact that said creepy mansion was lit up by cheery red and green Christmas lights? Too surreal.

Okay, it was the season with Thanksgiving over and done with a week ago, but after all the mayhem and violence that had happened here, it seemed totally bizarre.

Fang snorted. YOU WERE PART OF MOST OF THAT MAYHEM AND VIOLENCE, he said on a private channel in my mind. Here I am Val Shapiro, the mighty Slayer, feared by vampires, demons and humans . . .yet somehow totally disrespected by my own dog.

SOMEONE HAS TO KEEP YOU FROM GETTING A FAT HEAD, Fang retorted. AND WHO BETTER THAN YOUR BEST FRIEND?

It was my turn to snort. Fat head, me? Fat chance.

Shade bumped my shoulder with his. "You okay?"

Ah, Shade, my new boyfriend. How did I get so lucky? The shadow demon and I tried to date like a normal couple, but our relationship wasn't exactly ordinary. I kept the shadow demon within Shade grounded in this reality so he didn't let the big bad demons through into our world, and he fed the lust demon within me.

Not like that. I was still untouched, cherry, a total "V". I'd just found out recently that giving that up would be a way bigger choice than I'd ever dreamed. Lose my virginity, lose my powers. Yep, those very things that made me the Slayer--enhanced senses, fast reflexes, and rapid healing--would be forever lost to me if I ever did the deed. So, I remained a frustrated slayer.

As Fang put it, sucks to be me.

Readers, don't know about you, but I couldn't but the book down at this point. Without further ado, let's learn about Parker as she answers the GLIAS crew's Get to Know You questions.

DONNELL: Hi, Parker. Thanks for joining us here today. Which of your characters would you most want to invite to dinner and why?

PARKER: Oh, definitely my part-hellhound, part terrier mix Fang. He's telepathic, snarktastic, and uber interesting. Plus, he satisfied with pizza or burgers. My kind of friend.

DONNELL: Do you read reviews of your books? If so, do you pay any attention to them, or let them influence your writing?

PARKER: Yes, I read them. Sometimes I even pay attention to them, if the reviewer made sense. Or if there's a trend. But it's just one person's opinion, positive or negative, so...not so much.

DONNELL: Have you ever written a character who wasn't meant to be a hero but he wouldn't go away?

PARKER: Oh, yeah--Shade, Val's latest squeeze. He was just supposed to be a walk-on but he was so fascinating, he wouldn't go away and is becoming a hero. When no one's touching him, all you can see are these whirling swirls of interdimensional energy occupying the outline of his body. But ground him by touching another living being, and you can see a total hottie. Val touches him a lot. Go figure.

DONNELL: What's in your refrigerator right now?

PARKER: Mostly healthy stuff Fang wouldn't like. And lots of Diet Coke.

DONNELL: What color would you make the sky if it weren't going to be blue anymore?

PARKER: Peach. It's a really flattering color for me. It would look great against the green trees, too.

DONNELL: What do you do to unwind and relax?

PARKER: Read, bead and take bubble baths. I only do the first and third at the same time.

DONNELL: (Good to know ;) What dreams have you realized as a result of your writing?

PARKER: Uh...getting published.

DONNELL: What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

PARKER: They tell me it's my voice. Plus, I'm not sure this is interesting exactly, but I have to write out the idea in longhand the night before. Then I write the first draft on the computer the next morning. I write until I finish the scene. Sometimes it's an hour or two...sometimes it takes all day. I can do revisions at any time of the day.

DONNELL: Dog or cat person?

PARKER: Dog, obviously. Have you met Fang?

DONNELL: (I've met his alter ego ) What would you do if you had a time machine?

PARKER: What a fantastic opportunity to do some real historical research!

DONNELL: What question are you never asked in interviews, but wish you were?

PARKER: Would you like to accept this six-figure contract?

DONNELL: (LOL). If you couldn't be a writer anymore, what profession would you take up?

PARKER: A world famous-jewelry artist.

DONNELL: What's the first thing you do when you finish a book?

PARKER: Celebrate! And sleep in.

DONNELL: If you could interview one person (and it doesn't have to be a writer) who would it be?

PARKER: Nathan Fillion! Can you arrange it?

DONNELL: Er...no.

Well, there you have it, Readers. And now Parker Blue has a question for you...

PARKER BLUE: Are you tired of reading about vampires and demons yet?

Parker, thanks for joining us here today. I wish you the ultimate success with FANG ME, and your wonderful relationship with BELL BRIDGE BOOKS, http://bellbridgebooks.com/. GLIAS Blog Readers, leave a question or comment for Parker with your e-mail address, and you'll be registered in a drawing to win BITE ME, the book that started it all.

Readers, to learn more about Parker Blue, check out her web page at http://parkerblue.net/

Tune in tomorrow when GLIAS crew member Jillian Stone hosts Author Jill Sorenson.