The Holy Dark
The Black Parade Series
Book 3
Kyoko M
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Date of Publication: April 24, 2015
ISBN 10: 1511543736
ISBN 13: 978-1511543736
ASIN: B00VULGGBK
Number of pages: 346 (eBook)
460 (paperback)
Word Count: 147,000
Cover Artist: Gunjan Kumar
and Christopher Cold
Book Description:
Sarcastic demon-slayer extraordinaire Jordan Amador has been locked in a year-long struggle to hunt down the thirty silver coins paid to Judas Iscariot. The mere touch of these coins is enough to kill any angel.
Jordan's demonic opposition grows more desperate with each coin found, so they call on the ultimate reinforcement: Moloch, the Archdemon of War. Moloch puts out a contract on Jordan as well as her estranged husband, the Archangel Michael. Now Jordan and Michael will have to find a way to work together to survive against impossible odds and stop Moloch's plan, or else he’ll wage a war that will wipe out the human race.
Available at Amazon
Guest Blog:
Topic- "Urban Fantasy vs. Paranormal"
To me, the main difference between urban fantasy and paranormal is based on the setting. Urban Fantasy means it’s set in a modern city setting, and Paranormal can be set at any date, time, and setting. I also associate ghosts, angels, and demons more with paranormal whereas urban fantasy usually has more fairies, vampires, and werewolves. For example, The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher are without a doubt urban fantasy: a smart-mouthed Chicago wizard/private investigator getting into trouble with the local supernatural folk, ranging from fairies to vampires to werewolves to skinwalkers. A good example of a paranormal story would be the 2005 film adaptation of the Hellblazer comic series Constantine, which directly deals with angels and demons as well as mentions of the dead reaching through to those who are still living. It is indeed set in a city, but the subject matter focuses mainly on those strange events that interrupt the everyday, whereas a lot of urban fantasy stories have the supernatural folk either out in the open, or at least somewhat acknowledged by the rest of the world, even if it’s only in certain circles.
I also think that paranormal deals with more horror elements than your average urban fantasy novel. Urban fantasy can have some creepy things happen, but for the most part it seems to be more about the spectacle and the journey, whereas paranormal novels talk about those things that go bump in the night. For my own series, I know I cross the line in both categories. The Black Parade probably fits closer into paranormal, but She Who Fights Monsters and The Holy Dark cross over into urban fantasy because of Jordan’s world expanding further than the three archangels she is friends with. She finds out about other Seers as well as the entire network of underground angels, demons, Seers, and humans who know about their existence. There’s a world behind the world, as Constantine once put it, and she’s discovering all these techniques and secrets she never knew before as the series continues. It’s an expansion on the mythos I loosely based on Paradise Lost and sections of Christianity, and that lends itself very well to a fantasy setting.
I don’t have a preference for either genre. I like reading and writing both of them because they have their own sort of flavor to them. I like the open worlds of urban fantasy novels and I like the more concentrated stories in paranormal novels. I fully intend to continue writing in either genre for my future projects because I find them so fascinating.
Excerpt:
Chattanooga had been a nice place to live for the past ten months, a fact proven by my utter disapproval of the hotel we checked in the following night we left. The safe house was in Montpelier, Vermont and by car it was an eighteen-hour drive. However, the two of us were exhausted from the recent fights we’d had and needed some sleep so we stopped in Newburgh, Connecticut. We’d camp out here for the night and then leave first thing in the morning.
Myra worked at an office supplies store back in Tennessee, which paid alright, but neither of us were exactly swimming in cash. The hotel we chose was not of the highest caliber. The only benefits it boasted were cable television and air conditioning. I missed my thin pillows and slightly lumpy mattress back home.
We were behind schedule, but only slightly. Myra went to buy some dinner while I opted for a long, hot shower. It wasn’t a nice place to stay, but it had one admittedly awesome amenity—a handheld sprayer with plenty of settings. I stayed in until my fingertips were pruny, mulling over recent events and hoping that a clear solution would arise. No such luck. We were still on defense. I didn’t like it, not one bit. The weight hanging off my soul was starting to make my knees buckle. I had to fix this. I had to save the angels. I owed them. They had shed blood for me more than once. I wasn’t going to disappoint them, not again. Never again.
I finished rinsing out my hair and groped for the towel with my eyes closed to avoid getting any residual shampoo in them. Weirdly, my fingers hit nothing but the moist air near the rack. Frowning, I reached out farther. It wasn’t there. Had it fallen onto the floor?
“Lose something?”
I froze. A deep, mocking, dry-as-sandpaper voice. No. Please, God, let it just be my imagination.
I pried my eyes open and ducked my head around the shower curtain. There, in front of the sink, stood a tall, pale-skinned man with shoulder-length hair as black as soot and a smile as sinister as the devil himself. His eyes were the lightest hue of blue that existed and the pupils were thin and diamond-like rather than round. His features were vaguely European—small forehead, narrow nose, thin but sensual lips, arched eyebrows—but I knew he didn’t have an accent.
He clutched my towel in his long-fingered hand, the other tucked in the pocket of his easily seven-hundred-dollar black suit pants. I recognized his favorite dark color scheme—a charcoal grey button up shirt, black silk tie, and Gucci dress shoes.
“Looking good, my pet.”
The archdemon Belial was standing in my bathroom.
Shit.
About the Author:
Kyoko M is an author, a fangirl, and an avid book reader. Her debut novel, The Black Parade, has been on Amazon's Bestseller List at #5 in the Occult Horror category. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Lit degree from the University of Georgia, which gave her every valid excuse to devour book after book with a concentration in Greek mythology and Christian mythology. When not working feverishly on a manuscript (or two), she can be found buried under her Dashboard on Tumblr, or chatting with fellow nerds on Twitter, or curled up with a good Harry Dresden novel on a warm central Florida night. Like any author, she wants nothing more than to contribute something great to the best profession in the world, no matter how small.
Website/Blog: http://www.shewhowritesmonsters.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/misskyokom
Newsletter: http://goo.gl/Wu2WIM
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