Guest Post & Giveaway! J. Bennett author of Falling

The intellectual challenge of college and the warm embrace of a serious boyfriend have given Maya the wings she needs to break away from her bookish and shy reserve. Her world comes crashing down when a stranger with glowing hands kills her boyfriend and injects her with a DNA-altering serum.

After being rescued by two young men claiming to be her brothers, Maya begins to transform. Her senses sharpen. Her body becomes strong and agile. Most disturbingly, she develops the ability to visually see the emotions of those around her as colorful auras. 

...beautiful auras
...tempting auras

One brother wants to save her. The other wants to kill her before she becomes too strong.

Struggling to control the murderous appetite that fuels her new abilities, Maya must find a way to accept her altered condition and learn to trust her brothers as she joins them in their battle against those who chose the change and the evil it entails.

The ones who mockingly call themselves…Angels.

Please join me in welcoming debut author J. Bennett. Don't forget to enter the giveaway at the end of this post!

Just Because They May Have To Kill You Doesn’t Mean They Don’t Love You

A Family Under Stress

By J. Bennett

Thank you Karen for hosting me and for supporting so many talented authors. One of the major themes of my debut paranormal novel, Falling, is family. We all have family issues. Some of them are more severe than others. The issues that my protagonist, Maya, faces with her two brothers puts a whole new spin on the term “family dysfunction”. If you thought your family was bad, keep reading!

All families have….well, let’s call them “squabbles.”

So do Maya and her two brothers, Tarren and Gabe, in my debut novel, Falling – Girl With Broken Wings. Actually, Maya and Gabe are really tight. He’s pretty cool about her enhanced senses and the fact that she feeds off the auras of living creatures. It’s really Tarren who Maya has to worry about.

He has a suspicious nature. He also prefers to shoot first and ask questions later, as Maya finds out when she ends up on the wrong side of his semi-automatic.

See, family squabbles. Totally normal.

To be fair to Tarren, Maya had just been infected with a gene-altering serum that was swiftly turning her into an “Angel”. Angels in the world of Falling are not a good thing. In fact, they’re usually very, very bad. Human auras are their particular form of crack, so Tarren was just trying to save Maya from herself. He would’ve too, except that a timely intervention from Gabe saves Maya’s life.

Not a great way to start off a family reunion. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Maya didn’t actually know that she had any half-brothers right up until the point one of them (this would be Tarren, of course) tried to kill her.

Turns out, Tarren and Gabe are vigilante angel hunters living off the grid and Maya…well, even though her transformation into an angel wasn’t complete, she’s not exactly human anymore.

How’s that for a family in crisis?

The issues that Maya and her brothers have to deal with as she becomes a part of their lives are a bit extreme, but they mirror the difficulties that all families face. Sure, we don’t (I hope) have to worry that one of our siblings might decide that we’re too dangerous to be allowed to live, but we do have to put up with resentments, strong moral disagreements and all the little day-to-day annoyances.

It can get even more complicated and potentially explosive if a family business is involved. Maya finds this out when she tries to join her brothers on their angel hunting missions with distinctly mixed results (it doesn’t help that she’s never even shot a gun before).

In Falling, Maya has a lot to overcome. She struggles with her new abilities and the murderous hunger they entail. She feels lost, adrift, alone…. In the end, however, she discovers that family has its perks.

No matter how bad things get, family doesn’t run. They accept us even if we’re slightly less human then we’d like to be, if we’re still getting the hang of stakeouts, and even if we have a itsy bitsy addiction issue with needing to drain human auras.

Family is the first bond and, for many, the strongest bond. We might want to kill each other sometimes, but in the end, we’ll fight for each other. In the case of Maya and her brothers, that fight might just be to the death.

Falling is J Bennett’s debut novel and the first book in the Girl With Broken Wings series. It is currently available as an ebook for $2.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords Learn more and read a free sample at www.GirlWithBrokenWings.com. J Bennett is a professional copywriter and copyeditor. She also writes the blog www.ShyWriter.com

Thanks J.! That's definitely a complex family dynamic there - lol

Giveaway!

J. Bennett will be giving away an ebook copy of Fallen to 3 lucky winners. International entries are welcome.

Just leave your a comment with your email or twitter handle so I can contact you.

Giveaway open until Sunday March 4th 11:59pm EST