Guest Post and Giveaway No Angel by Helen Keeble

Expected publication: October 8th, 2013

Description:

Rafael Angelos just got handed the greatest gift any teenage boy could ever dream of. Upon arriving at his new boarding school for senior year, he discovered that he is the ONLY male student. But what should have been a godsend isn't exactly heaven on Earth.

Raffi's about to learn that St. Mary's is actually a hub for demons-and that he was summoned to the school by someone expecting him to save the day. Raffi knows he's no angel-but it's pretty hard to deny that there's some higher plan at work when he wakes up one morning to discover a glowing circle around his head.

Helen Keeble's debut novel, Fang Girl, has been praised for its pitch-perfect teen voice, and VOYA called it "refreshing and reminiscent of Louise Rennison's Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series." No Angel brings you angels and demons like you've never seen them-complete with the wry humor of Vladimir Tod, sinfully irreverent romance, and some hilariously demonic teenage dilemmas.

GUEST POST

You Gotta Laugh: Humour and Paranormal Romance 

Helen Keeble 

I admit it: I love a good paranormal romance, and I have a particular thing for guardian angels. I’m a sucker for all those chiseled, winged, noble guys who are perfect, emotionless warriors of light until that FATEFUL DAY when they meet THE ONE, and suddenly are riven between duty and desire… it’s so dramatic. So romantic. 

So completely and utterly ridiculous. 

Let’s face it, an immortal being that doesn’t even originate from the earthly plane of existence would be unlikely to have a great deal in common with your average human girl. It would be a bit like me, a fully-grown woman, suddenly conceiving a deep and abiding passion for a flatworm. 

I suspect that if I actually had an angelic boyfriend, we’d have a lot of conversations like this: 

     ME:        What are you thinking about, honey? 

   ANGEL: Nothing much. Just pondering the whether the harmonics of local hyperstrings in the ninth to sixteenth dimensions are likely to have adverse effects on the composition of the atmosphere in that planet that’s forming in the outer edges of Andromeda. 

    ME: … 

    ANGEL: Why, what are you thinking about? 

    ME:        Mainly, chocolate. 

Though actually, given guardian angels’ propensity for knowing literally everything about you, perhaps our conversations would go more along the lines of: 

     ME:       Hey honey, you know what happened to me today at work? 

    ANGEL: Yes. 

    ME:        … Oh. Well, you’ll never guess what happened when- 

    ANGEL: Yes, I will. And don’t touch me until you’ve washed your hands. I know where they’ve been. 

And even leaving aside the problems of the gulf between mortal and immortal perspectives, and the impossibility of maintaining any sort of feminine mystique when your other half is all-seeing and all-knowing, there is the problem that… well, ethereal and eternal beings don’t actually need to reproduce, do they? So why would they have the desire or the, er, equipment to do so? 

     ME:        Oh, you manly hunk of manliness! I swoon in your presence! Take me now! 

    ANGEL: Um. You do realize that when I refer to my “mighty flaming sword”, it isn’t a euphemism, right? 

I have a sinking suspicion that an angel would view human romantic overtures the same way that I view a small enthusiastic terrier trying to make love to my leg. 

The very concept of an angel/human romance is silly… so let’s embrace the silliness with both arms. Revel in the ridiculousness of it all. Because if we, as paranormal romance fans, don’t point and laugh at every last ludicrous trope in the genre, you can bet that others will do it for us. Paranormal romance and its readers have a bad reputation in the world at large. There’s no shortage of critics who turn up their noses at the genre. 

“How can you read this stuff?” the critics say. “Can’t you see it’s completely ridiculous?” 

And the only answer to that is: “Yep. And that’s just the way we like it.”

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About the author:

Helen Keeble is not, and never has been, a vampire. She has however been a teenager. She grew up partly in America and partly in England, which has left her with an unidentifiable accent and a fondness for peanut butter crackers washed down with a nice cup of tea. She now lives in West Sussex, England, with her husband, daughter, two cats, and a variable number of fish. To the best of her knowledge, none of the fish are undead.

Her first novel, a YA vampire comedy called FANG GIRL, is out 11th Sept 2012, from HarperTeen.

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