In the Darkest Night is a Hughie Award nominee for Best Unique Paranormal! Also in my category are Christine Feehan and Emma Holly, both writers I read and love, so I am in very awesome company!
There are a lot of awards out there, but being mentioned for a Hughie Award is really cool because it comes from readers. When I say it's an honor just to be nominated, I mean it. Truly, it is an honor to be nominated especially when I look at the other two authors in my category. Talk about a whoa moment. :-) So thank you to the ReBeLs!
I've been lucky to be able to write more than one book of my heart. In the Darkest Night is the third that falls into this category for me. Kel, the hero, was broken and he's withdrawn from the world and that includes his family. I knew as soon as he showed up while I was writing his brother's story that Kel would have a book. He fascinated me, and while I knew pretty early on that he'd been tortured, I didn't know why or what, exactly, had happened. I wanted to find out.
I saw comments online from a couple of readers who said matching Kel up with Farran was predictable, but I guess I'm slow because I didn't know who his heroine was. I think I still have the email I sent to one of my writing buddies telling her that I'd just learned it was Kel and Farran and expressing my shock.
In every book, one character changes more than the other and I call it their book. This one belonged to Kel. Yes, Farran changed and grew, too, but Kel did the heavy duty changing. He needed to.
There were actually a lot of surprises for me with Darkest Night. First surprise was who his heroine was. The other big shock was what--specifically--about his time held captive caused him the biggest problem. I think I learned this big secret a couple of scenes before I had to write the part where he reveals it to Farran. The rest of the surprises were smaller, things like Kel being afraid of the dark or being branded, but they interested me nearly as much as the big ones.
Anyway, I loved this h/h and writing their story was an intense experience for me. Receiving this nomination means a lot. Thanks!
