Confession: I love antlers. I love claws and teeth. Growls that can be mistaken
for either love growls or the kind that say, โIโm going to eat you.โ I love
these elements all the more when they inhabit human-
ish characters
engaged in extreme acts of violence while falling in love. In fact, I think it's
the supernatural elements of the characters that make the danger and chemistry
between characters work so well.
Danger is hot. Antlers are kind of amazing. And falling in love is an extreme
act. Isnโt it true that the first blushes of love can feel so very violent?
(Remember what it felt like to screw up your courage and call up that boy for
the first time?).
Danger can lead to love. Danger is a form of chaos that breaks down the barriers
people build to shield their hearts from one another. It razes the reasons we
build up to keep us from acting on our desires. Think about
THE HUNGER GAMESโ Peeta and
Katniss. It takes a deadly game where their doom is all but assured to bring
Peeta to act on his attraction to Katniss. It takes near death experiences to
get Katniss to admit to herself she likes him, too.
This is also true for Lucy Fox and Jared Price in the
True Born Trilogy.
Jared becomes a serious love interest for Lucy
because her world is all
but destroyedโfreeing her from the restrictions of her class and the narrow
minds of her society.
But I think the supernatural elements of danger raises the stakes for love. I
think we readers like the added mystery of fantasy elements because these
heighten the sense of the unpredictable and dangerous. I think this is part of
the fascination Lucy has for Jared: who is this True Born? What is he really
capable of?
In the end, isnโt that what love is? Itโs about taking the ultimate leap from
the known into the mysteries of the magicianโs box. Like magic, like the
supernatural, to fall in love is to be initiated into a hidden realm. My guess
is that this form of danger too tantalizing for Lucyโor for the readerโto stay
away from.
L.E. Sterling had an early obsession with sci-fi, fantasy and romance to
which she remained faithful even through an M.A. in Creative Writing and a PhD
in English Literature โ where she completed a thesis on magical representation.
She is the author of two previous novels, the cult hit Y/A novel The Originals
(under pen name L.E. Vollick), dubbed โthe Catcher in the Rye of a new
generationโ by one reviewer, and the urban fantasy Plutoโs Gate. Originally
hailing from Parry Sound, Ontario, L.E. spent most of her summers roaming across
Canada in a van with her father, a hippie musician, her brothers and an
occasional stray mutt โ inspiring her writing career. She currently lives in
Toronto, Ontario.
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