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Q: How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
A: I will share my responses for each of the seven stories,
separately :)
1)
For The Photo and the Letter, I transitioned
from a location that exuded warmth of a traditional college town to a secluded
exotic place. I did this to exemplify the difference in characteristics of
Larissa and Sasha. This is further demonstrated in Sasha’s isolated beach home
versus Larissa’s natural habitat of college campus life.
2)
For Strength of Feathers, I kept it in a
metropolitan city and specifically within a stunning, exotic, and
state-of-the-art corporate building and then transitioned to a mysterious, expansive,
and naturally bountiful location at the end of the story. This I did to blend
the hybrid nature of environments (modern versus organic), the natural
supernatural existing secretly within hi-tech. It also underscores what happens
to Vanessa at the end of the story.
3)
For The Aunt, I created two fictitious nations
gifted with naturally bountiful lands, separated by a vast ocean which has a
tumultuous side bordering one of the nations where the story takes place (the
nation called Baluur). The Kingdom of Baluur is surrounded by a majestic and
formidable snowy/icy mountain range in the north, and a tumultuous ocean in the
south. The other nation, The Republic of Xenia, also has the same ocean in its
southern part, though the ocean is not tumultuous where it borders Xenia. A
formidable and vast desert wraps around Xenia to its north. Both the mountain
(for Baluur) and the desert (for Xenia) host beings that pose threats to each
nation, respectively, with the ocean being the only thing that is traversable
by each nation upon ships. I like bringing natural landscapes into my story
because civilization tends to be sculpted in various ways by what defines its
natural habitat and by the dangers or gifts that native environments pose on
the humans in that habitat. This sculpting impacts a civilization’s habits,
evolution and characteristics and I have shown that in my story through the
people from both fictitious nations, the Kingdom of Baluur and the Republic of
Xenia.
4)
For Ravenous, I truly wanted it to be a creepy,
gothic setting, secluded, in a vineyard property in a town that had a
mysteriously tragic past. This setting lends itself to creating the
goosebump-factor near the end of the story.
5)
For The Bride’s Matchmaker, I shifted from a
rural close-knit community, to a dynamic fashionable metropolitan city and then
to a secluded mansion surrounded by dense forests, and then I shifted
temporarily back to the same city before ending in the mansion property. The
reason I did this is to show the transformation of Mylakena, the female
protagonist, as she moves from the warmth of her hometown to a daunting city
and then to a scary and haunting mansion. Her further transformation is
supported when I take her back to the city and then return her to the mansion,
all of which happens while there are dire consequences not just for Mylakena
but for the other characters connected to her in the story.
6)
For The Picture Ghost, just like the first and
fourth stories (from above), I started off from the social warmth of a farming
town-community, to a university town/campus, where, it should have been a good
experience for the female protagonist Elsa, because it was not in a city, but
unfortunately it was not a good experience for her, even though the quaint
university town/campus was situated amidst a beautiful mountainous natural
park. There is a strong undercurrent of feeling alone, like a stranger,
disconnected and intimidated, for Elsa, when she starts her first semester in
the university as a freshman. This helped me to show that even though the
university campus/town was not in a metropolitan city, the place’s cultural
difference from Elsa’s farming community had a drastic and an unexpected impact
on her.
7)
For the final story, The Old Willow Tree, I took
my female protagonist Helen, from a metropolitan city where she led a hectic,
tiring, and ambitious professional life to a calm, beautiful and sedentary life
in a naturally bountiful place. The property where most of the story takes
place is unsuspectingly serene, to lend itself to the outcome at the end of the
story.
Q: What's the "elevator pitch" for your new book
“The Sexy Seven Supernaturals”?
A: “The Sexy Seven Supernaturals” will satisfy any reader
looking for drama, mystery, thrills n’ chills, creeps and scares, sensual
excitement and forbidden lust, handsome and gorgeous characters, loathsome and
evil characters, wicked n’ scary plots! There is all that in my book sexily
curated within these 7 short stories!
Q: Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally
done?
A: I edit after I am totally done with my story
Q: Describe your writing space/office!
A: A little nook by my apartment’s window that faces a river
and the city. My desk has my parents’ picture of when they got engaged and, on
the wall, there are spiritual posters to help me have faith in pursuing my
passion for writing fiction. The desk also has candles for nighttime writing
and a thin, red lamp for gray morning/afternoon writing. My monitor and
keyboards are placed upon my favorite books.
Q: What's your favorite foodie indulgence?
A: Tacos with toppings of cheese, salsa guacamole with rice
crispy treats to sweeten the meal at the end :)
Q: What's your favorite genre to read?
A: Gothic Horror
Q: What's a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly
recommend?
A: I recently finished reading a non-fiction book titled
“Lean Impact, How to Innovate for Radically Greater Social Good” by Ann Mei
Chang.
Q: What do you do when you have free time?
A: I work on my next fiction book :)
Q: What are three words that describe your Main Characters?
A: The three words that describe all seven female
protagonists in each of my seven stories are : Sexy vulnerable, and inquisitive.
Q: What can readers expect from you next?
A: My third novel just got published. It took me 12 years to
write and edit this book and it was the first novel I wrote. I am super excited
about its release. It has many characters - strong female, and male
personalities. The story spans across centuries and it is a dark, erotic,
futuristic fantasy for adults. I am now focusing on my fourth novel of another
set of short stories with male and female protagonists.
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The Sexy Seven Supernaturals
by Luki Belle
GENRE: Fiction - Short Stories, Fantasy, Paranormal, Erotica
Seven
haunting tales of women, young female adults, and an adolescent girl whose
lives change irreversibly because of entities who come into the lives of these
female protagonists, mysteriously, invited by yearnings and distresses that
exist in these women and girls -
1) The Photo and the Letter: Larissa, a heartbroken young woman, finds a
captivating photo of an elderly friend and becomes compelled to discover more
about the bitterly written letter that was addressed to the elderly woman, who
had a fascinating past.
2)
Strength of Feathers: Vanessa, an orphan, who struggled her entire life to
survive and achieve professional success, decides one night to overcome her
fear of heights and her reluctance to be spontaneous when she meets an
enigmatic, wealthy woman who has ulterior motives.
3)
The Aunt: Anika, a teenage girl, niece of a notable and authoritative commander
of her nation’s army, finds herself in a precarious situation when at a bloody
crossroads of her nation’s history, she falls for a young, ambitious, and
ruthless military man from a long-rival nation, who is about to take over
rulership of Anika’s nation and her uncle’s army.
4) Ravenous: Sabrina, a young adult, daughter of a coalminer, is forced to
leave her hometown with her father and siblings. Her family is taken in by a
kind doctor who has mixed intentions for helping the homeless father and his
three children.
5) The Bride’s Matchmaker: Mylakena, a young rural woman, comes to live in a
dynamic, metropolitan city with her uncle, when she falls for two handsome,
rich, and athletic young city men and realizes that her innocent infatuation
has severe consequences.
6) The Picture Ghost: Elsa, a young adult daughter of a farmer, starts
attending college far away from her hometown. Her poor grades lead her to a
professor whose art collection draws Elsa uncomfortably close to an enigmatic
stranger from the past.
7) The Old Willow Tree: Helen, a highly successful businesswoman, retires in a
foreign country where, while searching for a permanent home with a garden, she
falls in love with a stunning willow tree on a property that she desperately
wants to buy.
Buy Links:
Amazon
Barnes
& Noble
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt
Three:
6) The Picture Ghost
When Eugene came into his teenage years, the merchant used
the handsome lad’s innocent charms to attract single, female guests at social
events. The women were made to believe by Eugene that his benefactor, the rich
merchant, was a lonely, generous, and warmhearted man. Thus, the adolescent
enabled several affairs under such pretenses, for the merchant. The man, never
having had the talent for pursuing women found in Eugene an indebted being who
was willing to do anything for the person who gave the boy education and
luxuries. Their relationship became so close that the merchant practically
bought Eugene from his father, telling the fisherman that his son no longer
wished to maintain ties with the village. To this Eugene did not raise much
objection. However, he may have been coerced to break all ties with his biological
father.
7) The Old Willow Tree
The house belonged to an architect who had built many of the
prominent business structures in the country, including a famous public
greenhouse in their city that showcased exotic flowers and endangered trees. The
architect had designed his house and lived in it with his two sisters and wife.
The latter died at childbirth along with her baby. Following the tragic event,
the architect put his house up for sale. And then the facts became stories.
Helen could tell that the friend was adding his own imagination and
fabrications to what seemed to have happened next. However, one thing was
clear. At a certain point in time, the architect had given up or had decided
not to sell the house. The friend was certain it had something to do with the
property. Prospective buyers had rumored about feeling uncomfortable on the
premises and some had even heard a woman’s voice speaking to them and others
had heard a baby crying.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
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Luki
Belle works in the media industry. Storytelling was a fixture from childhood
when she would listen to stories told by her grandparents, parents, sisters,
and cousins, who would read to her from diverse cultural fiction books. Scary
and ghost stories in particular, captured Luki as a child and led to her
fascination with the concept of feeling haunted or being haunted by something
or someone, whether desirably or whether uninvited. In the Sexy Seven
Supernaturals, Luki explores the amalgamation between the psychological and the
paranormal, enabled by the human mind through its power to imagine, visualize,
and yearn. The female characters in this book each have strong or subtle
conscious desires created or triggered by subconscious or unconscious
distresses, leading each of them to unexpected fates.
Websites
Instagram
Luki Belle (@lukibelletheauthor) • Instagram photos and videos
Twitter
Luki Belle (@lukibelleauthor) / Twitter
7 comments:
Dear Dawn's Reading Nook, thank you ever so much for your kindness to host my book today! I look forward to connecting with your beloved readers :) My responses to all comments will be posted by 7p EST today. Wishing everyone a great start to the week!
Thank you for hosting today!
I enjoyed the post. Sounds like a good story.
Dear Marcy, thank you so much for taking the time to review :) and so nice to hear your thoughts on the post!
Sounds like an interesting read.
Thank you dear Sherry! :)
Thank you again Dawn's Reading Nook for making yesterday possible for my book! Much love to all :) Have a wonderful week everyone!
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