Guest Post and Giveaway: Allegiance (Penton Legacy #4) by Susannah Sandlin

Description:

From award-winning author Susannah Sandlin comes the fourth book in the smart and steamy Penton Legacy series.

British vampire psychiatrist and former mercenary Cage Reynolds returns to Penton, Alabama, looking for a permanent home. The town has been ravaged by the ongoing vampire war and the shortage of untainted human blood, and now the vampires and humans that make up the Omega Force are trying to rebuild. Cage hopes to help the cause, put down roots in Penton, and resolve his relationship with Melissa Calvert. The last thing he expects is an attraction to Robin Ashton, a trash-talking eagle shape-shifter and new Omega recruit.

Meanwhile, as a dangerous saboteur wreaks havoc in Penton, the ruthless Vampire Tribunal leader Matthias Ludlam has been freed on the eve of his scheduled execution. But by whom? And to what end? As war and chaos rage on, love is the last thing Cage is looking for, but will his attraction to Robin distract him from the danger living among them?

GUEST POST

PUTTING THE THRILL(er) IN PARANORMAL ROMANCE

by Susannah Sandlin

Paranormal romance and urban fantasy have always shared about 75 percent of their DNA—sometimes more. Most UF has a little romance sprinkled in (or a lot), and most paranormal romance has an urban fantasy-like action plot chugging along behind the relationships.

The basic difference for me, since I write series in both genres, used to be how the books wrapped up. With my Penton Legacy series, I’m starting to change those rules a little bit.

Used to be, if a book’s primary hero/heroine resolved their relationship by the end of the book but the action story line was not resolved, it was a paranormal romance. Think Black Dagger Brotherhood. Wrath and Beth might work out their relationship, but the war with the Lessers goes on.

If a book’s action storyline got resolved (at least for the time being) but the relationships were still in flux—or the same relationship carried over from book to book—you had urban fantasy. Think Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson books. The immediate danger to Mercy and her compatriots in each book is resolved by the end, while Mercy and Adam’s relationship continues to grow and evolve as the books continue. 

Then you have the troublemaker who upset the old applecart and tossed out the rulebook. Yes, Jeaniene Frost, I’m looking at you. (It’s okay, I’m smiling as I do it.)

Is the Night Huntress series an urban fantasy? You might think so, because it comes back to Cat and Bones, right? The immediate threat is handled and the couple carries over from book to book. But because Cat and Bones’ relationship takes up as much page time, or more, than the external plot, there’s also a good case for it to be paranormal romance. The action and romance is all woven together in a beautiful, genre-defying swirl. 

When I wrote the first book in the Penton series, REDEMPTION, long before I’d ever read the Night Huntress series, I set out to straddle that genre fence. In that book, Aidan and Krys’s relationship took equal weight with the external plot of a vampire world on the brink of starvation after a human pandemic vaccine rendered the blood of vaccinated humans poisonous. 

And I had trouble selling it. It has too much romance, said urban fantasy editors. It doesn’t have enough romance, said romance editors. Nobody wanted to break the genre line.

Finally, I gave in and changed the 50-50 romance-to-action ratio to more of a 60-40 with the heaviest weight on the romance. It’s been a good ratio for me because it lets me write the rich, engrossing action-laced story lines and complex worlds I love while also giving my hero and heroine enough page time to get to know each other and develop their relationships. The new book in the series, ALLEGIANCE, continues that ratio, with Cage and his romantic entanglements taking about sixty percent of the book, but the action-laced looming vampire civil war claiming the other 40. Because what goes with hot romance better than a little danger and sabotage?

What about you? Do you like a little romance with your urban fantasy, a little urban fantasy with your romance, or do you like to see it all blended together? 

TOUR SCHEDULE

Goodreads ** Amazon ** Barnes&Noble ** Book Depository

About the author:

Susannah Sandlin writes paranormal romance and romantic thrillers from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual. She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick. 

She’s the author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a spinoff novel, Storm Force, a standalone novelette, Chenoire, and a new romantic thriller series, The Collectors, beginning this month with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. Her Penton novel, Omega, is currently nominated for a 2013 Reviewer’s Choice Award in Paranormal Romance from RT Book Reviews magazine.

Website/Blog ** Goodreads ** Facebook ** Twitter

Author's Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway