Guest Post: The Making of a Hero by Erin Kellison + giveaway

Today we have one of our favorite authors on talking about heroes and her new book, Erin Kellison.

First of all, thank you to Heather for having me here today to celebrate the release of Shadow Play, the second in my Shadow Touch enovella series. For readers today, I’d like to offer a $25 gift certificate to the bookstore of their choice for telling me a quality that a romance superhero has to have. Sense of right/wrong? Humility? Great abs? I want to hear it!

I love the origin stories of heroes—how they got to be that way in the first place. Sometimes there’s an event, the wrongful death of a loved one comes to mind, that enrages them and motivates an all-for-nothing transformation. Some heroes are suddenly invested with super powers and must wrestle with them to find their way and purpose. Some are born with power and an innate goodness (I never really liked Superman).

Cameron Kalamos is a good man who really isn’t interested in heroism at all—he likes his lab work and he likes World of Warcraft and he likes this girl named Ellie, who has the singular problem that her shadow runs around separately from her flesh-and-blood body, making mayhem at every turn. Because Cam is good man, maybe even like guys we know, he tries to do the right thing. He’s the kind of guy who “has greatness thrust upon him” because he certainly didn’t choose it for himself. In Shadow Touch, part one of the series, this is the moment he makes that (very desperate) choice at the insistence of an angel:

             “…Say it. What will you do, if and when it becomes necessary?”

Cam put his hands over his face for the privacy of dark to make a promise. He would do everything else first before taking this too-easy way out. Absolutely everything else first, but this.

“It’s hard, I know. But say it.”

Son of a bitch angel. This was not what he signed up for. Not what he came to Segue for. What the hell was wrong with the world that he, of all people, would be asked this?

“Now, please.”

Fine. Only if absolutely necessary. “I’ll kill her.”

In Shadow Play, which released this week, Cam and his girl Ellie confront their first mission, to save a child from the fae of Twilight. Once again Cam is called upon to be more than he anticipates, fight harder than he could have imagined. His motivation? You guessed it: Love.

Here’s the blurb:

 Shadow

The world is growing dark with it as mysteries from antiquity and legend creep into our time, bringing a new world of danger, beauty and…

Magic

Dr. Cam Kalamos has dedicated his life to studying its strange properties, but nothing is more intriguing than a woman whose soul is split in half, one part under her control, one part bent on…

Seduction

How can he resist the lure of a lover with no inhibitions and an insatiable desire to possess him? Both Ellie and her shadow want Cam, but there is an innocent child to be rescued from the forest and the strange fae creatures of…

Twilight

Love, loyalty, betrayal – which will rule? As Ellie sends her other self into the darkness, there is only one certainty: Trusting in shadows is a dangerous game.

Thanks so much for having me! This was a blast. Stop by my website for more info on my upcoming releases, and to read excerpts from all the books in my Shadow series. You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook – links are below:

My website: www.erinkellison.com

Twitter (@ekellison): www.twitter.com/ekellison

Facebook: www.facebook.com/erinkellisonauthor