Naomi Clark Takes Over!

One thing both Ayla Hammond, the heroine of my Urban Wolf series, and I have in common is our love of kick-ass urban fantasy. In both SILVER KISS and DARK HUNT, Ayla’s kick-ass urban fantasy chick of choice is Katrina Pagan, a vampire-slaying werewolf. Katrina is everything you’d expect: tough-talking, independent, hardcore, and merciless in battle. In some ways, she’s a bit of a charicature of the urban fantasy heroine, but that’s what made writing her into these books so much fun. You’ll often see Ayla curled up with a Katrina Pagan book (and being mocked by her girlfriend for it). I like the idea of a real, kick-ass werewolf finding her escapism in reading about a fictional one.

At the end of DARK HUNT, you’ll find some cool bonus material, including an excerpt from the Katrina Pagan book Ayla reads – Desire by Moonlight. It was a lot of fun to write, very different from writing Ayla herself! Katrina takes no prisoners and has a brutal approach to her business, whereas Ayla tends to veer towards compassion and protecting others. Katrina doesn’t care how many bodies she leaves in her wake as long as she gets the job done. Ayla really just wants a nice, romantic holiday. To get the Katrina character how I wanted her, I had to step up a gear and imagine Ayla times ten, possibly on crack. I got to put all the over-the-top, crazy fun stuff Ayla would never say or do into Katrina. Who knows, maybe in a future Urban Wolf novel, Ayla will find herself living like her favourite fictional werewolf, fighting monsters for the government whilst trying to untangle a complicated love life?

Really, the hard part was not writing an entire Katrina novel. I don’t want her overshadowing Ayla, after all, but now I’ve written her, I can see why Ayla loves her! And hopefully everyone who reads DARK HUNT and the bonus material will enjoy Katrina’s adventure too.

Dark Hunt

Ayla Hammond is taking on Paris.

Hoping for a romantic getaway in the City of Lights with her girlfriend, Shannon, she finds a city under the dark thrall of Le Monstre.

Getting caught up in mystery and murder was the last thing Ayla and Shannon expected to find in the City of Love, but as the body count grows and tension rises between Parisian werewolves and humans they find themselves stalked by an unknown terror.

What is Le Monstre and why does it make Ayla’s wolf want to turn tail and run? Can it be stopped before they become its next victims?

Naomi Clark

Naomi Clark lives in Cambridge and is a mild-mannered office worker by day, but a slightly crazed writer by night. She has a perfectly healthy obsession with giant sea creatures and a preference for vodka-based cocktails. When she’s not writing, Naomi is probably either reading or watching 80s cartoon shows, and sometimes she manages to do all three at once. You can follow Naomi at Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/naomi_jay); Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/naomijclark) or on her Blog (http://naomijay.blogspot.com/).

Contest Time

We’re giving away plenty of swag in the DARK HUNT blog tour (http://tiny.cc/drkhunttour). There are daily ebook giveaways and hampers of goodies up for grabs at the grand finale of the tour including ebooks, limited DARK HUNT t-shirts, personal horoscopes and tarot readings by Naomi Clark, as well as postcards from Ayla, Shannon, Vince, Joel and Glory (urban wolf series characters). Leave a comment here (ask me a question; recommend me a book; or just say hello) with your email address to be entered. Enter at each point along the tour for more entries and more chances to win.

We’re also giving away a free copy of SILVER KISS, the first book in the Urban Wolf series, to everyone who comments. Just remember to include your email address to get your Smashwords voucher and find out how Ayla and Shannon ended up in Paris!