Saranna DeWylde: Back To The Beast

One of the first stories that ever really appealed to me as a paranormal romance was part of my beloved Howling Franchise. Howling VI: The Freaks (1991) was a straight to video B-movie gem. It gave me one of the first sympathetic views of the werewolf’s plight. Up until then, I’d been a hardcore vampire fangirl. I never saw the humanity in the beast the way I saw it in the leech. Vampires were for romancing and werewolves were for terrifying.

But the werewolf in this movie is the hero. He has hopes, dreams, and he loves just like the rest of us. A heart-breaking little affair with a minister’s daughter, actually. I’d never thought about it that way before. My first real exposure to the werewolf mythology was The Howling, so it was kind of apropos that it was my first exposure to the idea of a werewolf as a hero as well.

This was a big deal because The Howling was also the first movie to ever scare me. As a child, I had recurring nightmares about werewolves that continued long into adulthood.

Early in my marriage, I had a series of recurring nightmares in which my husband was a werewolf. Scenarios ranged from him confessing to me on an anniversary trip to the Ardennes (a forest in France that’s steeped in dark lore) where he then proceeds to change and rip me apart, to him telling me to run and tracking me over miles and miles, and even to him eating our daughter.

I’m pretty sure psychiatry would have a field day with these. Perhaps some latent fear that I thought by being married I’d lose my identity, as in he’d consume me, devour me. And it’s true—for a long time, I was so determined to focus on who I was outside of being a wife and mother that I don’t think I was very good at either. Thankfully, that was a long time ago. Although, sometimes I still punch him in my sleep. (And he takes it gallantly. Even the part where he tells me about it when I wake up and I laugh hysterically because the incredulity on his face is something I live for.)

But back to the beast.

After that first romance with the wolf as a hero, I never looked back. I haven’t written a vampire story in so long now, I don’t know if I could. I still love them. Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula is still one of my favorite movies and Kresley Cole’s Enemy of Old, Lothaire is one of my favorite characters of all time.

I have a new werewolf romance out. It’s the third in a trilogy of novellas about a werewolf zombie virus, gypsies, and the way love can conquer all, even the beast inside. It’s called Claimed By the Wolf.

To celebrate, I’m giving away an Audible code for a free audio book. All you have to do is tell me what book or books made you fall in love with paranormal romance and you’ll be entered in the drawing.

Claimed By the Wolf

Gyspy prince Stefan Zolinski has been raised to hunt down and eliminate werewolves like the one that killed his mother. So he's faced with an impossible choice when the woman he loves becomes one….

Infected by a virus she was working to eradicate, Dr. Bethany Andreas accepts the beast within her—but she can't accept the betrayal of the man she planned to marry. Yet the passion that still burns between them does not lie: Stefan is Bethany's one true mate. And only by completing their bond can they hope to save the world.…

Nook | Kindle

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