Hi everyone– Today it’s my delight to welcome my good friend, Selena Illyria, to the blog. Se is sharing some wonderful memories with us and to one lucky commenter, she’s giving away a copy of the first three books in her Hades Helmet Series!! So be sure to leave a comment and your email to win! Here’s Selena:
Memories of My Father
Rather than do a simple promo post I decided to do something a bit different and get a bit personal. June is my birthday month but it’s also my father’s birthday month as well. His birthday was on the 24th and mine is on the 26th. My father died a few years ago but his imprint on my inspiration is very prevalent. As a kid I wasn’t really as interested in paranormal or sci-fi and fantasy. They were passing fancies from the movies we watched. I can remember watching old, really bad sci-fi movies where you can see the zipper on the monster costume or the thin line that held up the flying saucer. But the movies I loved the most came for Disney, lol. I hated horror movies and just watched sci-fi because it was what my dad watched.
As I kid I also wasn’t much of a reader. The books of choice were Nancy Drew, The Babysitters Club and the Sweet Valley series. It wasn’t until several years later in my late teens that I discovered the paranormal genre from a chance ad in a magazine for the YA book In the Forests of the Night by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. Up until then Vampires came from movies like Blade. For the first time I was hooked on paranormal and vampires in particular. Reading a recommendation on Ms. Atwater-Rhodes’ site, I checked out Laurell K Hamilton’s Anita Blake and from there the Merry Gentry series from there I ate up other series from Mary Janice Davidson’s Betsy series and onward.
My father enabled my reading habit, we’d take trips to Barnes & Noble when we could. The books were a comfort to me. I began to appreciate sci-fi more, horror and fantasy. My horizons broadened and I was able to finally see what he saw in all those movies he could watch over and over again and never tired of.
Now that I’m an adult and my father’s gone I find myself thinking about all those movies. When I was younger I would never have thought I’d get excited about watching Alien vs Predator or eagerly anticipating Prometheus. I didn’t even have a lot of love for Batman as I do now. It’s both sad that I can’t share this new found appreciation for the genres he loved and yet now I can through my writing. Although, my father would probably have preferred that I didn’t write about sex or use swear words, lol. But I think he’d be proud to know that his daughter has written and wants to write more sci-fi, paranormal and fantasy.Contest: Comment with your email and win copes of the first 3 books in my Hades Helmet series. Good Luck!
Unmask Your Desires, Satiate Your Hungers. Author, part vampire, part pixie, Selena Illyria was born with a need to write and enable. Her imagination takes her into the paranormal, sci-fi and fantasy genres and all sorts of mischief. When not writing she enjoys catching up on her TBR pile, watching some of her favorite programs and listening to her favorite music as well as teasing people with posts on decadent food and plot bunnies. To connect with you her can either go to: Her Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Selena-Illyria/100175079107?ref=nf
Her Twitter: www.twitter.com/Selena_Illyria
Her Amazon Central Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0075NG31K
Her Yahoo Group:
Her publishers are: Etopia Press, Loose-Id, Purple Sword Publications, Liquid Silver Books, Changeling Press, Tease Publishing
There you go. A heartfelt memory and a wonderful contest. Be sure and comment with your email to win 3 books from Selena’s wonderful backlist.
Also, the Beach Balls Blog Tour is going on at Beautiful Boys Books. Go over and enter to win a$10 GC plus MORE!! Thank you so much for visiting. : )