I have the great pleasure of hosting my good friend (and top-notch critique partner) Sabrina Garie for her blog tour for her novel, Fires of Justice.  Take note – she’s giving away a copy of her book to one lucky commenter!!!

Thanks for hosting me Sarah. I am so glad to be here. You exemplify bravery and humor and practicality in the face of the unknowable and unexpected.  In tribute to that, I thought I’d talk about the power of stories and books—how they make us stronger and more adaptable.  I know many people use books to escape from life and I admit to doing that myself. But I also rely on them to help me be better at life and my goal as a writer is to fuse that into my work.

By touching our hearts and minds, stories give us a fun and risk-free ways to learn to handle the unexpected—those things that we can neither practice nor prepare for.  Horror stories, roller coasters and zombies retain their popularity partially for that reason.  Engaging with stories through film, books, however you like to do it, can help us learn to sit and act with fear in our bellies and panic-induced adrenalin weaving through our veins.

Paranormal and science fiction also take us into places where we cannot go, which is why I love to read and write them. What should we do if a werewolf knocks on the door or an alien lands in our backyard?  As silly as these questions may sound at first, they strike a chord on some level of our psyche. At their base, they bring to light how we deal with the unknown, the untested, the other that we have yet to meet.

In my new release, Fires of Justice, I try and pull a few punches in this direction.  Here are a couple of my favorites.

Calista, our heroine, is a witch, so she’s used to some pretty strange things happening in any 24 hour period. Even so, the story starts with the simultaneous arrival of an ominous dream and a shifter setting up camp in her backyard and she, naturally, is weirded out by the whole thing. Turns out, the shifter is one of the characters in the dream.  So what would you do if you crashed into a person who you’d only seen in a dream?  Isn’t this just like asking if you believe in love at first sight in a slightly off-beat way? In college, I crushed on a guy because every time I looked at him, he felt familiar, like I’d known him somehow.  Whenever I saw him, the lyrics from the Eagles’ Peaceful, Easy Feeling would float around in my head “I get this feeling I may know you as a lover and a friend.” It was strange and exciting and I had no idea how to handle it.  That experience influenced the creation of this scene.

When Cullen first meets Calista, he’s predisposed to hate her because of some of the damage he carries around from his past.  Surprise, she’s nothing like he expected. Sometimes that werewolf or that alien is just the boy (or girl) next door you can’t see for the fangs or your own scars.  The power of stories is that they help us see past the fangs and the scars—to look underneath the facades that often get in the way.  Even if we have to hex it off to do it.

Thanks for visiting.  I’m giving away a free e-copy of Fires of Justice to one commenter.  How do stories help you deal with the unknown in your life? 

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To Purchase:

Ellora’s Cave

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Always read the fine print when swearing an eternal oath to gods and guardians…

Beholden by the sacred vows of her coven, fire witch Calista Reid agrees to temporarily mate with shifter Cullen McMahan to fulfill a mission assigned by the guardians. When tall, dark and damaged arrives on her doorstep, generating enough heat to scorch a fire witch, Calista finds herself drawn to his battle-hardened body and broken soul. His pain speaks to her own deep-rooted isolation and the intensity of his hunger slakes her passion like no other.

Cullen, scarred by a past that left him an indentured soldier to the guardians, resents yet another hump-on-command assignment…until he encounters the compassionate, fearless, incendiary redhead who detonates his body and reawakens the emotions sacrifice and loss had suppressed. But Cullen harbors a terrible secret—one that reaches back into Calista’s troubled childhood and threatens the foundation of their growing bond.

Link to Excerpt: http://www.jasminejade.com/productspecs/9781419941542.htm

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Sabrina Garie is on a journey to create the most kick-ass heroine romance fiction has ever known and the hero who can take her. A believer that big, audacious goals spice up life, she relies on coffee, red wine and laughter to make those goals (and her characters) come alive. When not at the computer, she wrangles vegetables and extra helpings of homework into her star-spangled, fashion-loving progeny, kowtows to a fat cat and reads, a lot. Since it is more fun to travel in packs, come along for the ride. I’d love to chat.

You can find me at:

Website/Blog: www.sabrinagarie.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/SabrinaGarie

Facebook: www.facebook.com/SabrinaGarieAuthor

I also blog at Darker Temptations (Paranormal and Science Fiction Romance Blog):  http://darkertemptations.wordpress.com/