Fiamette Jurato is on a mission: to fix her broken past. She’s teamed up with the world famous DJ, Maximillian, to search for the ex lover who can help her put all the pieces back together. There’s only one problem: he’s been dead for over two hundred years.
Description:
Cover Artist: Stephanie Nelson
Fiamette Jurato is on a mission: to fix her broken past. She’s teamed up with the world famous DJ, Maximillian, to search for the ex lover who can help her put all the pieces back together. There’s only one problem: he’s been dead for over two hundred years.
As a healer to the supernatural, she’s no stranger to navigating the impossible maze of magical complications. But getting lost in the magic isn’t the problem; finding her way back home is.
GUEST POST
I want to start out by thanking the hosts of Mythical Books for having me on their blog today. My name is Melissa Lummis and I write paranormal and urban fantasy. My latest project is the Little Flame Series about a magic healer who not only can help those with ordinary illnesses, but specializes in magical ailments. 
One of the magical problems she encounters in Echo, book 5, is spirit possession. Whenever I embark on a new magical problem, I spend time researching world-wide traditions about the mythical phenomenon and the things I learn often reshape the story I was planning on telling.
For example, this time I came across traditions from many cultures, but the most fascinating possession tales came from Haitian Vodou and Louisiana Voodoo because it wasn’t what I was expecting.
I learned that Voodoo itself is often misunderstood. It is, in many ways, a peaceful religion, but because of Hollywood hype, the need to hide behind Catholic practices, and, believe it or not, political intrigue, it has gained a frightening reputation. I’ll never forget a movie I saw as a teen where a voodoo priest (the Houngan) convulsed dramatically, spewing out gibberish in an unearthly voice before being ridden by a spirit, and then everything exploded in gory violence.
While it is true that Houngans and Mambos (priestesses) call upon spirits to possess them, it’s not like that movie portrayed. The truth is they call upon helpful spirits known as the Loas or Lwas to assist them with many things, including helping to banish troublesome spirits.
While the laos are not gods, they are powerful and serve as intermediaries between Bondye (translated as “the good God”, the Supreme Creator) and humanity. There are many laos in Voodoo tradition, each with his or her unique personality and predilections. They can be quirky, even mischievous, but not evil.
If you went to a Mambo for help with a troublesome spirit, she might call on the laos Papa Legba for assistance. I learned that, in Voodoo tradition, a spirit may be lost or angry after it has passed from the body, but not necessarily evil. True evil spirits are usually called upon by people with evil intentions.
Papa Legba guards the spiritual crossroads. He is known in Haiti as the great elocutioner and is believed to speak all human languages, as well as guard the gates to the spiritual world. He’s often depicted as an old man in a straw hat with a crutch or cane. He loves to smoke a pipe and likes rum, so both are offered when he arrives.
And how does Papa Legba arrive? The Mambo calls upon the spirit, offering ritual items: copper pennies, rum, grilled chicken, cake, tobacco, among other things. Papa Legba will possess or “ride” the Mambo, so he can talk through her.
A straw hat, a cane, and/or a pipe will be offered to him. And when it’s time to go, the Mambo may be left tired and weak. Hollywood plays all this up, but it’s interesting to note that this kind of spirit possession is considered an honor, not something evil.
I’m often surprised by the things I learn while researching my next book and the research will often change the way I was planning on approaching the magical phenomenon. The spirit that was trying to possess my character turned out to have very different motivations than I originally planned, but I think it made the story better in the end.
EXCERPT
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The club lights
blinked out, and in the humming dark an amplified voice yelled, “Give it up for
Maximillian!”
Laser lights
flashed around the smoky stage, revealing human-shaped shadows and a DJ setup.
“Make some noise,” the DJ yelled.
A spotlight
strobed across the scene, then snapped back to the DJ. I stopped adjusting my
white go-go boots and squinted, trying to get a good look at him. The crowd
roared as he leaned over to a beanie-wearing guy on his right, a cigarette
dangling from his lips. Beanie-guy cupped the end of the cig and flicked a
lighter. Smoke obscured the DJ’s face and I sighed. I wanted to see him, dang
it. I’d been running late tonight and missed the usual meet-and-greet. Story of
my life.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the DJ mumbled into the
mic as he twisted knobs and pushed buttons, puffing smoke and music into the
air.
Even with the
spotlights, the details of his face were buried under swirling smoke and
pulsing laser beams looping the hazy club. The first high notes picked like an
electric guitar sample, and words I couldn’t make out repeated in jittery
bursts over a subdued bass. Black lights flipped on, turning teeth and all
things white into glow-in-the-dark neon. The fog machines bellowed clouds of
dry ice that burned my nose. Damn, shouldn’t I be immune to it after so many
shows?
Rising up from
my kneeling squat, boots finally tied, I dropped my hula hoops onto the
platform, then set one thigh-high boot at a time inside the circles. Jutting a
white-sequined hip, I waited for the music to build to that explosion of bass
and high-pitched alarms that had been driving me deaf the past two months. Yet,
I couldn’t say I hated the job. I’d tried different settings, but this was
definitely the best fishing spot. The catch I was after liked the nightlife and
large crowds.
And this club
was packed to the gills. Good. Better pickins. I bent with deliberate flare,
popping my ass into the air and giving it a shake as I scooped up one of the
glowing hoops and spun it around my hips. I gyrated and dipped, swinging the
hoop higher around my exposed midsection, my arms swaying to the music. I didn’t have to think about my next move. It
poured out of me like the music from the DJ’s hands. I turned in lazy circles,
taking in the jumping crowd as one living, breathing beast. Individual faces
surfaced in rare glimpses.
When I completed
a 360-degree turn, the bright eyes of the DJ arrested me. I sucked in a breath.
He was the hottest thing in L.A. at the moment, exploding all over the music
scene. His lips twisted in a sideways Popeye grin, and holding my gaze with
penetrating eyes, he flipped black hair over his shoulder and winked. Damn!
Heat flushed through me in a prickly flood, followed by a startling surge of
disappointment when he returned his attention to the MIDI boards.
He bobbed up and
down, one hand constantly flickering as it tweaked the boards in front of him.
Everything about him moved to the music, even the occasional finger jabbing his
black-rimmed glasses back.
The music
decelerated as he pulled the cigarette from his mouth and raised it to the sky,
granting the crowd a huge smile that said something mind-blowing was about to
happen. The mass of bodies bayed in anticipation. He tucked his smoke back
between his lips, and his shoulders rocked as he worked at bringing the music.
He raised his palms to the crowd, encouraging them to take it up a notch, and
they obliged with glee.
Suddenly, he
lifted his euphoric face to the sky, swaying back and forth in focused ecstasy.
One arm shot up, an index finger pointing the way to heaven, as he squeezed his
eyes shut.
A synthesized
female voice cried out, “OOOH MY GOD – god – god – god - god!”
Music burst in a
sizzling shower over the DJ and crowd as they leaped together to its driving
beat. It got to me. He got to me. I licked the heavy gloss I’d applied preshow
before I realized what I was doing, and pressed my lips together trying to fix
it. Things lower clenched. Too bad he’s so young. I sighed. And not a vampire.
A tingling on
the back of my legs dragged my attention back to my goal for the evening.
Peeking over my shoulder, I drove the hoop around my hips, the LEDs smearing
white and seven-colored orbits over my mostly bare body. Turning toward a pair
of crimson eyes, I dropped my Day-Glo-painted eyelids to half-mast as his
burning gaze slid over my boy-shorted backside.
My white halter
top glowed in the black light as the strobes made the sequins flash like
Christmas lights. The music paused unexpectedly and the DJ mumbled into the
mic, “I just finished this song half an hour ago on the tour bus.”
The horde
screamed its ridiculous approval. When he turned the music back on, I kicked
the second hoop into play. It was all improvised, of course. I had no idea what
the DJ was going to do during the show, and he apparently hadn’t known either,
considering I never got a playlist. So, to prepare, I’d practiced to all his
music all week. This song sounded
familiar, but if he’d just created it, I guess it had to do with absorbing his
style.
The blipping
sample of a laser blast penetrated my sternum, my heart tripping with it. As a
quiet drum calmed the moment, I returned the hot stare of my quarry. I couldn’t
make out the details of his features, but when I blurred my gaze and tapped
into what most healers referred to as their “third eye”, I could see the subtle
energy pulse of his aura: definitely vampire. Anticipation bubbled up my spine.
About the author:
Melissa Lummis writes new age suspense in a fantasy setting, but her stories are also straight up, steamy adult romance. The Love and Light Series is currently available at Amazon exclusively, as well as the Little Flame Series, a spin off focusing on the character Fiamette from the Love and Light world.
Melissa considers herself a truth seeker and a peaceful warrior, in addition to a paranormal and fantasy author. With too many interests for her own good, she has rarely been content with one vocation. Her first professional life was as a high school English teacher, which led to another incarnation as a wife and an instructional designer /technical writer. After starting a family, she found herself reincarnated yet again as a mother, yoga instructor, and personal trainer.
While all her past lives have contributed to who she is today, yoga has become a part of how she gives back, maintaining her Registered Yoga Teacher status with Yoga Alliance so she can help people one-on-one to overcome physical limitations and heal themselves. But she has always been and always will be a writer. She’s authored dozens of wellness articles for various publications, as well as maintains a blog focusing on wellness, healing, and living a life on purpose.
A Yankee by birth and a Penn State graduate, she lives in rural Virginia with her husband, two children, an Alaskan Malamute, and a myriad of forest creatures. Melissa believes the universe conspires to help an adventurer, and if we live our lives as if it is a daring escapade (and it is!), then everything we need will find its way to us.
Thank you for having me on your blog! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the giveaway!!!
ReplyDeleteMagic and vampires, that's new twist. I think I'd like to read these books :)
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like such an interesting series. I really appreciate knowing how much research is done to make the stories authentic.
ReplyDelete