You think there aren’t any monsters? - Descendants of the Rose by Juliette Harper

“You want to know what I do for a living? I rip souls out. Cut heads off. Put silver bullets where silver bullets need putting. You think there aren’t any monsters? . . . I have some disturbing news for you. You might want to sit down. Monsters walk among us. I’m looking for one in particular. In the meantime? I’m keeping the rest of them from eating people like you.”

Description:

Published: May 6th, 2015

Selby Jensen’s business card reads “Private Investigator,” but to say the least, that downplays her real occupation. Let’s hear it in her own words:

“You want to know what I do for a living? I rip souls out. Cut heads off. Put silver bullets where silver bullets need putting. You think there aren’t any monsters? . . . I have some disturbing news for you. You might want to sit down. Monsters walk among us. I’m looking for one in particular. In the meantime? I’m keeping the rest of them from eating people like you.”

In this debut novel of her new paranormal mystery series, Juliette Harper, author of The Lockwood Legacy books and The Study Club Mysteries creates a cast of characters, most of whom have one thing in common; they don’t have a pulse. The dead are doing just fine by Selby, who is determined never to lose someone she loves again, but then a force of love more powerful than her grief changes that plan.

Join Selby Jensen as she and her team track down a shadowy figure tied to a murder at a girls’ school. What none of them realize, however, is that in solving this case, they will enter a longer battle against a larger evil.

GUEST POST

"Good Stories" 

Lately I’ve been getting a lot of questions about a statement I made in my author bio. “Refusing to be bound by genre, her primary interest lies in telling good stories.” Many well-meaning folks have pointed out that all the “conventional” wisdom suggesting picking a genre and sticking with it. Respectfully, I did pick a genre, “writer.” 

Now, understand, that because “I” am actually two people (Patti and Rana), mine is something of a schizophrenic existence anyway. Patti is from Massachusetts and is Italian. Rana is from Texas and is a Scot. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of what they like to call their complementary differences. The two of them together are a Lucy and Ethel combination. 

The pool of creativity their partnership generates makes genre hopping natural for me. The paranormal is more Rana’s genre in terms of reading, but the entire plot line of Descendants of the Rose came from Patti. But that’s the beauty of bringing two active minds to a project. 

The whole point of writing, at least for me, is to make a connection with the reader, regardless of the genre at hand. When my proofreader texted me at the end of working with Descendants and said she was sobbing, I was thrilled -- not because I made my friend cry, but because I knew I’d pulled it off. 

As a writer, my two halves evolved and grew during this project, just as the main character of the book changed from the first scene to the last. Selby won’t be waking up in any more cheap hotels, and she has a friend with a pulse now. Trust me. When you read the book, you’ll see what a huge step that is for her. 

The more Patti and Rana brainstorm and channel their diverse thoughts and ideas through me, the better writers we all become and the farther afield our settings and plot lines range. Arguably I’m the third wheel here, but because of the unique partnership underlying my work, I’m not a one dimensional construct. 

So when you ask “us” what a good paranormal story should be or should have, the answer is the same one we’d give for a mystery or romance -- connection with the reader. Paranormal characters operate outside of what society accepts as the “norm,” but Bonnie Raitt said it best, “Whether your sunglasses are off or on, you only see the world you make.” 

My vampire, Johnny Devereux, is still an honorable man even if he does need a warm pint of O-negative to stay alive, and he’s still reverent enough that . . . oh, wait, that would be a spoiler. Sorry. Back to my point. 

Whether you’re taking blood, going furry at the full moon, walking through walls, or grieving your dead husband, life (or the afterlife) can be tough. A good paranormal story should show you that even if the parameters of the situation change, the major questions remain the same. It’s how you answer those questions that matter. 

I may be writing about “monsters,” but the ones that are Selby’s friends are the good guys. They grapple with universal questions on paranormal playgrounds. They remind the reader that there’s more to life than meets the eye and more than one way to define what it means to be human.

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About the author:

Juliette Harper is the pen name used by the writing team of Patricia Pauletti and Rana K. Williamson. Descendants of the Rose is the first installment of Harper’s debut Selby Jensen Paranormal Mystery series.

Pauletti, an Easterner of Italian descent, is an accomplished musician with an eye for art and design. Williamson, a Texan, worked as a journalist and university history instructor before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 2002.

Juliette Harper is also the author of The Lockwood Legacy, a nine-book chronicle of the lives of three sisters who inherit a ranch in Central Texas following their father’s suicide. Three of the novels are currently available: Langston’s Daughters, Baxter’s Draw, and Alice’s Portrait. The fourth book, Mandy’s Father, will appear in Fall 2015.

And don’t miss her hilariously funny “cozy” Study Club Mysteries, a light-hearted spinoff of The Lockwood Legacy. The books, set in the 1960s, take on the often absurd eccentricities of small town life with good-natured, droll humor. The first book, You Can’t Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet, will be available shortly, with the second, You Can’t Put a Corpse in a Parade, coming in Summer 2015.

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