(Day 31) Guest Post: JK Beck

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This is the final day of the Battle of the Sexies!  I never expected it to end so soon :(  Alas, all good things must come to an end (jeesh, do I sound like a fortune cookie, or what).  Today's guest poster actually has her debut novel that comes out... today!  Please give a warm welcome to paranormal author JK Beck!  HAPPY RELEASE DAY!


And also, to end The Battle of the Sexies with a BANG!, there will be a second giveaway.  Kresley Cole fans & soon-to-be fans will want to go to the giveaway post.
 

J. K. Beck spent more than ten years as a litigator in Southern California and Central Texas, using her rare free time to indulge in her passion for writing. Now she uses her legal background as inspiration for her paranormal romantic suspense series, The Shadow Keepers, set in and around a secret judicial system hidden within and mirroring our own.

California born, J. K. now lives and writes in Texas, where she hangs out with her husband and daughters and drinks far too much coffee.

But wait! There’s more!

J.K. Beck is the new pen name for bestselling author Julie Kenner. We always knew Julie was a little bit schizo…"

Bio courtesy of JK's website.

Connect with JK:

Website | Blog | Twitter | Goodreads

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I'm so psyched to be participating in the Battle of the Sexes, especially since my new series, the Shadow Keepers (When Blood Calls releases TODAY--squeal!!!!) has some seriously alpha males in it, and they fall hard for strong, self-sufficient women.  For me, that's the perfect match, because they're each a foil for the other, and the sparks never stop flying.

So much of the writing process is organic that it can be hard to step back and analyze how you got to what ended up on the page--how an alpha male character is created and a strong heroine placed on the page.  For me, a lot of it comes across in revisions--especially for the men.  I have a tendency to write my guys in a first draft with a lot of talking--and a lot of self-awareness.  Um, nope.  To me, alpha's play it close to the vest, so that chatty first draft is me-the-author getting to know their character.  But then in revision, I go in and cull all that chaff away, because having gotten to know my alpha, I also know that he'd never talk so much.  And he'd certainly never sit back and be psycho-analyze boy.  Alpha men act.  They're fiercely loyal and very self-assured, and that doesn't engender a lot of navel-gazing.  It's fun to write, but challenging, but when you read a well-drawn alpha, you can tell as much about him by what he doesn't say as what he does.  

With an alpha male, a strong woman can be a double-edged sword.  A strong heroine knows her own mind--she has a life beyond the hero, and she's got her eyes set on her goal, whether it be running her business or skewering demons on magic swords.  She can be a bit alpha in her own right, but that's what makes it so much fun when she hooks up with an alpha male, because as their personalities grate against each other, sparks fly, too.  Our hero might think it would be easier to fall for a weaker woman, but the truth is that it wouldn't be nearly as much fun.  He's met his match in a strong heroine, and she's met hers.  And those sparks can burn into a truly hot passion.  

I won't say that the women are easier to write than the men, but for the most part the heroines are more self-aware than their male counterparts, so the red pen doesn't have to come out as much.  The challenge is to make them strong without being bitchy.  To make them self-sufficient without seeming stand-offish. To make them be someone you want to hang out with and root for.

I hope I've managed that with the Shadow Keepers!  The heroes in the first three books, Luke, Rand and Nick, are paired with some exceptional women in Sara, Lissa and Petra.  I love them all and hope that you do too!

 

You can read more about them at my website, www.jkbeck.com or www.theshadowkeepers.com -- you'll find contests, excerpts and more!  And please check out my book trailer at  http://jkbeck.com/the-shadow-keepers/fun-stuff/jkvideo/

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JK is offering one lucky winner a galley of book 2 in her Shadow Keepers series: When Pleasure Rules

Seven innocents have been brutally murdered on the streets of Los Angeles, yet the Shadow Alliance has no suspects and no leads. And as more bodies are discovered, the age-old feud between the vampires and werewolves threatens to explode and turn the city into a living nightmare.
 
With her back to the wall, Lissa Monroe—a strong-willed, ravishingly beautiful succubus who entices men to surrender their souls—agrees to go undercover for the Alliance. Her mission: infiltrate the mind of werewolf leader Vincent Rand, a ferociously alluring enemy who has a powerful hold over her. Lissa has never lost control of her deepest desires, but Rand is an impenetrable paradox, a principled soldier who fears nothing—except perhaps the darkness of his own past. As the city of Angels teeters on the brink of apocalypse, these two adversaries must join together to have even the slimmest chance of surviving a more lethal enemy hidden in plain sight.

Giveaway Guidelines:

1. Open to everyone!
2. Fill out the form.
3. Giveaway ends 9/4.  Be sure to check back after that and see if you've won!  I will not be emailing winners after they are announced on the blog.  Winners will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is picked.

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