Hello everyone! I am Edenmary Black and I’m
very pleased to be here today. Chatting about writing is always fun. When I
have the opportunity to do so, a topic that always comes up is where authors
find inspiration. The short answer is, “Everywhere!” One of the longer answers
is through personal experience.
Although I am not supernatural, my debut
e-novel, Sanctum Angels: Shadow Havens
Book 1, opens with a scene in the heart of the Demesne, a powerful
supernatural haven, where a young, male vampire named Saan, is fighting a
mysterious illness. Of course, traditional literature often shows us that
vampires are impervious to disease, which is why I wanted to create something
different.
As a reader, I find villains, whose hearts
are completely dark, to be less interesting than a those with a few redeeming
qualities. Heroes who are purely good have always seemed less intriguing than
those with a few dark secrets. When I began to create characters for Sanctum Angels and the e-books that
follow in the series, I was fascinated with the physical imperfections a
supernatural character might cope with. It was a departure from the norm that I
really wanted to explore. While a number of possibilities came to mind, a
personal experience hung in my memory.
On a bright morning in 2009, I rose early,
dressed and took my dog walking, as I did most days. By the time I returned to
my home, I was feeling warm. Aching a little, but unconcerned, I went on with
the day and soon found myself coughing. Hacking, really, with a steadily
climbing temperature. By around three in the afternoon, I was seated on an exam
table, staring at my doctor. My joints were on fire and my eyes literally throbbed.
A couple of hours later, I was armed with antiviral medications, antibiotics
and orders to get into bed and stay there.
The diagnosis was influenza and I did not
emerge from my home for another fourteen days for fear of infecting anyone
else. During that time, I avoided my family, ate little and slept a lot. Influenza
brings new meaning to the word, ‘uncomfortable,’ but one of the worst symptoms
I experienced was the soaring fever that was far less responsive to medication
than I’d hoped. At the fever’s heights, I was sure I glowed. When my
temperature was on a downhill swing, I shook with chills. In my imagination,
the fever became like wails from my besieged immune system. It was a battle for
physical balance that I’m thankful to have won.
Months later, as I considered Saan, for Sanctum Angels, fever became one of his
hallmark symptoms. I was writing what I knew, yet he would grapple with far
more, shivering beneath his duvet. His symptoms would ultimately send his
mother, Ilea, flying through the halls of her haven to confront her Mate,
Sebastien, with a demand that he call for the help of his enemies, the fallen
angels of the Sanctum.
I would not consider influenza a gift, yet,
I could never dismiss the experience it gave me. My works are completely
fictitious, but it’s my hope that anyone who has ever fought an illness or
watched a loved one struggle in this way will relate to this part of my
writing. It’s the beginning of the story, yet what these characters undergo
influences the plot and many other characters as the tale unfolds. By the time
I sat down at my computer to write Sanctum
Angels, with Saan, Ilea and Sebastien at my shoulder, my imagination and a
powerful memory had taken me to the young vampire’s rooms in the Demesne.
Thank you for having me on today, David.
Hope everyone enjoys the excerpt from the Prologue of Sanctum Angels: Shadow Havens Book 1. At my website – www.edenmaryblack.com – interested
readers can find the entire Prologue and first chapter of Sanctum Angels: Shadow Havens Book 1, as well as passages from Sanctum Warriors: Shadow Havens Book 2 and
Sanctum Retribution: Shadow Havens Book
3. Just click the ‘Excerpts,’ tab.
Happy reading,
Edenmary
Excerpt from Prologue of Sanctum Angels: Shadow
Havens Book 1 by Edenmary Black.
For The Indie Ebook Review Site.
Prologue
Ilea Galaurus pulled her
skirts up, tucking her legs into the overstuffed brocade chair. Dragging it
closer to the carved bed had been a struggle, but she’d been watching her son
in the candlelit bedroom for hours, needing to be close. His pale features and
occasional soft whimpers frightened her, demanding her vigilance, yet she was
unable to do anything to help him.
Saan shivered despite the
thick, ebony duvet covering his limbs. He rubbed his inflamed eyelids but
remained unconscious. Although he’d only fallen ill three days ago, the fever
had struck him like a hurricane. It seemed like something that could fell a
human even though there was no possibility that Saan, the child of a daemon and
a pureblood vampire, could be infected by any of the diseases a human would
carry. The young male had grown hot and delirious, despite the efforts of the
best daemon healers of the Demesne, who hadn’t seen anything like this illness.
Although used to healing injuries, large and small, they’d never met fever. One
had heard of an illness like this that could take a supernatural quickly, but
nothing was known of a cure.
The daemon healers had looked
to the Internet for answers but found few. Three deaths had been reported in
Europe from an illness that could be the same. None of the stricken
supernaturals had survived. Calls had crossed the Atlantic, from southwestern
Pennsylvania to the capitals of Europe. Promises to share any information were
exchanged, but time was trickling through an hourglass in Ilea’s heart. She knew
her son might never regain consciousness. Death could take him this very night.
The thought propelled her to his bedside for perhaps the hundredth time.
Leaning over, moving the voluminous amber skirts of her long gown, she
whispered his name and ran a fingertip across his blond eyebrows. Even so ill,
he was handsome.
Perhaps you should lie down
with him, my lady,” the only healer left in the bedroom suggested from behind
her. “It might still his shivering.”
Ilea whirled on the young
female. “Get out,” she said, but her words lacked fury. Instantly, she
regretted the dismissal. The daemon healers had done as much as they were able.
“Forgive me. Your name is Lily?”
The healer nodded shyly.
“Saan is….my only son and …”
…he’s
dying in front of me…
“I understand, my lady,” the
daemon healer named Lily replied. “I will go now. One of my sisters will return
later.” After bobbing her head of light curls, she left quietly.
“Thank you,” Ilea said,
turning back to Saan, searching his face for any sign of improvement. She sat
on the bed’s edge to take his face in her hands. Just for a moment, Ilea saw
the pupils of his beautiful, dark eyes. The whites had gone crimson, as if he
were bleeding from some injury behind the bones of his face. His pale skin was
hot and moist to her palms. Carefully, she dropped her hands and found to her
shock that tiny bruises had formed on his pale cheeks exactly where her
fingertips had been, leaving discolorations from the lightest touch.
Pulling the duvet gently back
from Saan’s pallid chest, Ilea found bruises. Tiny smears of blood had formed
over some. “Dear God,” she breathed. Looking at her own hands, she saw blood on
her fingertips. Wiping them against her skirts, she flew to the door. Two huge
vampiric warriors stood guard on either side of the doorway, a measure that
Saan’s father, Sebastien Galaurus, the Demesne’s leader, had commanded. No one
but Ilea, the healers and Saan’s sister, Iridea, would be permitted to cross
the threshold. “Where is my Mate?” Ilea demanded.
“In his study, my lady,” the
vampire answered instantly.
Ilea picked up the skirting
of her gown and rushed through the richly carpeted halls of the elaborate
underground Demesne haven she’d shared with her Mate for centuries. By the time
she reached Sebastien’s study, her flaming hair had come undone from its tight
chignon and her face had grown hot. Saan was dying and a tiny thought she’d
kept buried for the past two nights would find Sebastien’s ear whether he
wished to hear or not. Drawing breath, Ilea whipped the black double doors
nearly from their hinges to stride to the dark, massive desk in front of her
Mate. A small group of the Demesne’s vampire warriors were with him but they
stepped swiftly from her path.
“Leave us,” she ordered.
The warriors of the Demesne
were unused to taking orders from their leader’s Mate, whom they rarely saw,
but left after Sebastien gave them a fast nod. Hearing his Mate’s pounding
heart, Sebastien sat quickly, as if the air had been knocked from his lungs.
“Has our son passed?” he asked quietly.
“He lives but he may well
pass before the morning unless something is done,” Ilea gripped the edge of the
desk and leaned over it, into her husband’s perfectly sculpted face.
“Call your brother at the
Sanctum and seek his advice,” she commanded. “Ask him to send one of the
angelic healers. It is the only thing that can save our son.”
Sebastien had thought this
might be requested of him, but he had also expected Saan to recover, having his
mother’s daemon blood and his own vampiric blood.
“Andrieu is not my brother. I
cannot contact anyone at the Sanctum,” he said.
Ilea pulled her hand back and
brought it forward in a mind-numbingly fast arc to connect with Sebastien’s
jaw. Her Mate’s head bounced backward against the high back of his carved
chair, yet he didn’t lift a hand. “You could not have heard what I asked,” Ilea
said. “Call Andrieu and ask…no, Sebastien …beg
him to send an angelic healer. Tonight.” Ilea’s eyes were changing to the
silver swirls associated with strong emotion among daemons. “Do it,” she
hissed.
####
Author Bio:
Edenmary Black has been
writing since she could clutch a pencil. She has always been fascinated with
the mysteries of the paranormal and loves the question all writers answer when
they pen fiction. For her, it's all about that magical, "What if?” When
not working her keyboard, she enjoys long walks with her golden retriever,
reading and spending time with her family, all of whom are male. She spends far
too much on lingerie and is very, very weak for chocolate.
You can also read the review from this site here.
