Those sexy secondaries...

Okay, for absolutely no reason other than the fact I'm wired weird, I've been thinking about secondary characters and what it is about them, at times, that gives them the power to hijack a story. As writers, we've all had it happen, but why is that? Where do they come from? No. Don't tell me. I probably don't want to know, though I must admit, when it happens it's almost always a good thing.

In DemonFire, I knew I was going to have my protagonists travel to the mythological world of Lemuria, but I had no idea what a big part of the series my Lemurian characters would play. For the record, the legend of Lemuria is real. Lemurians were supposedly forced from their island continent by a huge cataclysm, similar to what happened to Atlantis. Unlike the Atlanteans, though, Lemurians ended up relocating to a new home inside the dormant volcano known as Mount Shasta. They supposedly live in rooms lined with gold and jewels, and on occasion their jeweled homes are visible to the local residents if the sunlight hits the mountain just right. Looking at the picture I took of Shasta last year, it's easy for me to imagine an entire civilization deep inside that huge old volcano, but I digress...

When I was working on DemonFire, I met Alton. He's the son of the Lemurian leader, heir to the Chancellor's seat on the Ruling Council of Nine, but as the son of an immortal, he knows the potential for job advancement isn't all that great. He gets caught up in the battle between Earth and demonkind, but he doesn't do it from the sidelines. Nope. He goes and falls in love with a human woman.

Ginny Jones was another minor secondary character, sort of the foil for my heroine, Eddy Marks. Mouthy and hard-headed as she is, Ginny doesn't stay in her supporting role for long, though she really doesn't want anything to do with that big, tall blond guy who claims he's Eddy's friend from college. Yeah, right... like she's gonna believe that? Here's a quick look at what happens when the secondaries start jostling for the lead spots in a book:



She brushed her hands over her face, scrubbed at her eyes. Planted her hands on her hips and glared at Alton.


Standing behind Ginny, Ed shrugged helplessly and shook his head. They couldn’t let her remember what she’d seen.


Alton wasn’t sure it would work, but he reached for Ginny, lifted her up to her toes and leaned over and kissed her. Their mouths connected, hers slightly parted in shock, his firmly covering her soft, full lips and he poured the strength of his hypnotic powers into her startled mind.


She fought him for but a second, until the strength of his mental touch calmed her, confused her, left her breathless and wondering who she just kissed and why. Alton felt her confusion, sensed her blossoming desire and realized he could end the kiss at any time.


Slowly, reluctantly, he moved his lips over hers for one, last taste and then set her gently back on her feet. Ginny blinked, touched her fingertips to her mouth and then turned away.


Ed gently took Ginny’s arm and walked with her into her house.


Alton waited impatiently. He refused to think about the kiss, but it had been the only way he knew of to overwhelm her strong will. He couldn’t risk her recalling that she’d almost been killed by a concrete statue of a grizzly bear.


One that was powered by not one, but four demons. Four of the evil beings, cooperating...demons, working together.


It was worse than he’d thought.


So was his reaction to the woman. Ginny. Her name was Ginny and his kiss had made her forget.


Unfortunately, the taste of her lips, the soft curve of her breasts against his chest, the taste of her sweet mouth, was all he could think of. He’d never reacted to any female on such a visceral level, especially one so inappropriate. He had no time for a human woman. None at all for one with a will as strong as Ginny’s.


If you want to get to know Alton and Ginny, along with Dax, Eddy Marks, Eddy's dad, Willow the will 'o the wisp or Bumper the mutt, look for DemonFire, my first mass market release coming out on February 23rd, and there are first chapters of both DemonFire and HellFire posted at Kensington's site. And if you're at all into photography and want a chance to win an ARC of HellFire, Alton and Ginny's story, I'm doing sort of a fun contest--asking for readers to take photos of DemonFire wherever they see it displayed and send them to me at kate@katedouglas.com. I intend to post them on my Facebook page and the reason I'm doing this is to see all the different places the book shows up.

I'm published in trade erotic romance, and those books have limited distribution, so I'm absolutely jazzed about seeing my newest book in places where a lot of people go to buy books--like grocery store racks and Walmart or Target, and I can't wait to see what kinds of photos readers send me. If you want more details, join my newsletter. There's a link on the front page of my website. Or, you can find out more on my Facebook page.

So tell me--are there any secondary characters you've fallen for? Hoped they'd get their own story? So far I've been lucky--whenever I've read one, they've usually had a book written at some point, and whenever I meet one in my own work, they generally haunt me until I give in. They're tough, I tell ya. Tough and persistent, but that's probably what makes them so endearing!