I’m here today to talk about my angels.
When I set out to write the series, I knew that I wanted to write about angels
who were still working for a higher power, and that most of them would reside
in Heaven, and some of them have turned and joined Hell. I didn’t want to write
your typical fallen angel stories. I wanted that added complication of them
being still in active service. I feel it adds to a story and gives it a unique
twist that other angel romances lack, and also gives it a dash of the
forbidden, which I love to write in a story.
Because my angels are still working for the
man (or the Devil!), I had to think a lot about how they would work and what
Heaven and Hell would be like.
I considered that in Heaven there would be
angels who did different duties and eventually formed several divisions of
angel, and decided that each of those divisions would be identified by their
appearance. All angels wear armour under normal circumstances. They have a
short breastplate and back plate covering their upper torso, and vambraces that
cover from their wrist to elbow, as well as greaves that protect their shins
and also their boots. Around their hips they wear a loincloth and an armoured
skirt type affair, a little like Roman soldiers. The armour of each division is
a different colour, as are their wings.
In the Her Angel series, there are four
main divisions of angel in Heaven. The angels of death all wear black armour
with gold edging and detailing, and have beautiful black wings. The angels
responsible for intervention and mediating, sort of like what we think of as a
regular angel, all have white armour with gold detailing, and white wings, and
often use white and gold spears as their weapons of choice. The hunter angels,
those responsible for tracking demons and killing them, have tawny wings and
brown armour with dull gold detailing, and prefer swords. And finally, the
guardian angels have blue armour with silver detailing, and silver-blue wings,
and often use spears to fight with too.
Each division has different
responsibilities, although all of them are obvious from their division titles,
with the exception of the guardians. They do more than just guard. The
guardians are split into subdivisions of those who watch over mortals, those
who guard Heaven against intruders and act as wardens in the containment
facility where demons are kept for questioning, and those who escort mortal
souls through Heaven or to Hell on death.
The angels who have turned and pledged
themselves to the Devil, like Veiron in Her Demonic Angel, the latest book in
the series, all have crimson wings and wear black armour with red edging. They
have a second appearance too. When their true demonic appearance comes to the
fore, they have wings like a dragon and have black skin, and grow to around
three feet taller and much wider than they were in their more human form. They
also have red eyes and sharp red teeth.
The angels all have different abilities
too, although they all share certain common skills such as being able to cast a
glamour on themselves to hide their wings and change their appearance to mortal
eyes so we don’t see them as angels, and making themselves invisible to mortal
eyes during flight, or materialising their weapons and armour from thin air, or
making objects appear or disappear in the same fashion. They are all very
powerful and otherworldly beings, although some are far more powerful than
others, and that all depends on how old the angel in question is.
Age doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing
to them as it does to us though. Age to an angel is about the time of their
creation, not about when they were last reborn. There are the original angels,
and those are the most powerful, and then the other leagues of angels who were
created over the centuries after them. Angels can die but they’re reincarnated
back into Heaven in their usual physical appearance, always looking the same
age and same hair colour, eye colour, etc as before. The only thing that can
change about them is their division. Sometimes angels are born into a different
division, so they have different wing colour and a different role from before.
This isn’t normally a problem because an angel forgets everything about their
past life upon rebirth, and learns everything from scratch again, essentially
living a whole new life. There are some exceptions though. Apollyon, from my
story Her Dark Angel and who also appears and plays a major role in Her Fallen
Angel and Her Guardian Angel, and a role in Her Demonic Angel too, is one of
the oldest angels in existence and is forever reborn into the role of angel of
death.
The angels in my Her Angel series are very
complex and live in an equally complex world. They’re eternal, always reborn on
death, and are extremely powerful, although each has a different fighting style
and they can all have a special power on top of their normal ones, such as
healing, and they live in a society split into divisions and are loyal to their
duties and their master. But they’re also men, and are passionate about the
women they fall in love with, fiercely protective and possessive, and will do
anything to ensure the safety of their woman, even if it means turning their
back on their duty forever.
I hope this post has given you a little
insight into the Her Angel series and how the books differ from other angel
romances.
The first book in the series, Her Dark
Angel, is FREE for a limited time only at selected Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books
and Apple iBookstore sites. You can find all the links for the FREE book,
including a sample, at the following page: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/herdarkangel/
Here’s more about Her Demonic Angel,
including an excerpt from this long angel romance novel.
Her Demonic Angel
Felicity Heaton
A demonic angel with a heart of ice, Veiron walks a dark path with vengeance on
his mind. Nothing will sway him from his mission to destroy his master... until
he risks his life to enter Hell once more to save a mortal female. The fiery
beauty makes him burn with hungers he must battle and needs he cannot deny,
tempting him to surrender body and soul to her.
Erin is convinced her refusal to do the
Devil’s bidding will see her die in a terrifying realm straight out of her
nightmares. The last thing she expects is the lethally sensual warrior who
breaks into her cell and awakens the darkest desires of her heart and a fierce
longing to know the heat of his caress.
Pulled into an incredible world where war
is set to ignite and darkness is on the rise, Erin races with Veiron to escape
the Devil’s legions in a journey fraught with danger and filled with passion
that flares white-hot.
When Erin is faced with a life-shattering
realisation and an extraordinary destiny, will their love give them the
strength to battle both Heaven and Hell or will they be parted forever?
Her Demonic Angel is available from:
Her
Demonic Angel – Excerpt
The door opened behind her and Erin didn’t
make the mistake of whirling to face the visitor this time.
She turned slowly, expecting to find either
the Devil or one of his cronies come to torment her.
It was neither.
A bloodstained and beaten man wearing tight
black jeans that emphasised the thickness of his thighs and a black t-shirt
that stretched across the impressive hard cut breadth of his chest stood in the
doorway.
He was holding a very big sword.
Erin swallowed.
Had he come to kill her?
She glanced back at the abyss below her
feet. What would be a better and less painful death? Falling to this
scarlet-haired man’s sword or plummeting into the volcanic river?
“Erin, I presume?” His deep voice wrapped
around her and Erin couldn’t miss the concern that laced the weariness and
irritation in it.
Erin looked back at him.
He slid the broadsword down his back and
scrubbed his hand across several days’ worth of dark growth on his handsome
face.
One good-looking man had fooled her already
and it wasn’t going to happen again. This man was every bit as lethal, brutal
and vicious as the Devil. It was there in his eyes and the way he held himself,
legs spread in a warrior’s stance, ready for a fight.
He looked as though he had already been
through several battles recently. Now that she looked closer, she spotted tears
in his t-shirt that revealed startlingly enticing glimpses of hard packed
muscles.
Erin dragged her gaze down to her own feet.
She must have lost it in the past few days.
She had finally plunged into crazy, her mind frazzled by her captivity and
being in Hell. She had to be insane to be ogling the man who had clearly come
to kill her.
“Why don’t you just do it and get this over
with?” she said, feeling a spark of defiance ignite in her chest. If she was
going to die, she might as well go down fighting.
“Excuse me?” He frowned at her, a quizzical
look filling his dark eyes. “Get what over with?”
“Killing me.”
His dark red eyebrows pinched together. “If
you’re not Erin, I might.”
It was her turn to frown. “You don’t want
to kill me?”
“Are you Erin?”
She nodded.
“Then I don’t want to kill you.” He stepped
into her cell and she noted that he didn’t bother to stay close to the door. If
she were entering a cell on a mission to save someone, she would certainly keep
one foot in the door in case a bad guy came along and shut them both in. Did he
have another means of escape if that happened? He raked dark eyes over her and
she shivered under the heat of his gaze. “You are not what I was expecting.”
“Ditto,” she said and shrugged when he
looked into her eyes, confusion lighting his again. “I was expecting the Devil
to come back.”
“The snide little fucker actually paid you
a visit in person?”
Erin frowned at how casually he badmouthed
the Devil, as though he wasn’t afraid of him. She stared at the man, taking in
his impressive height and build. He was taller than the Devil and much broader
too, thick sinewy muscles visible beneath his tight clothing. His biceps were
huge, so large she would struggle to wrap both of her hands around one arm. Her
fingertips and thumbs wouldn’t touch if she tried. Matching black and red
tribal tattoos curled around those biceps, a tantalising peek of a larger
design that disappeared under the sleeves of his t-shirt.
Erin found herself wanting to strip his top
off to see the rest of it.
She really had lost her mind.
“Are you alright?” He frowned again.
“Just a little brain damage,” she said,
trying to make light of everything.
He crossed the black floor and stopped
before her, towering close to a foot over her, his immense body overshadowing
hers and making her feel tiny. He slid one large hand along the line of her
jaw, tilted her head back, and stared down into her eyes.
Erin swallowed. It should be illegal for a
man to be so handsome yet so lethal-looking. He screamed danger but she wasn’t
quaking under his touch because of it. It was a whole other feeling that had
her trembling.
“You don’t look crazy,” he whispered and
she added his sultry low voice to the list of reasons someone should stamp him
with the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘forbidden’. “Now... all opposed to being
rescued, raise your hands, otherwise, I’d like to get the fuck out of here.”
Erin didn’t argue, not even when he clamped
one strong large hand around her slender wrist and drew the broadsword strapped
to his back with the other. She stared at the open door, battling a flood of
emotions that threatened to sweep her under. Freedom. This man was here to save
her. It was too sweet and glorious to believe. It had to be a cruel trick,
another form of torture to break her.
She didn’t have much time to take in what
was really happening when he pulled her over the threshold and into a long black
corridor that ran between the cells. Before she could even glance back at the
cell that had been her home for God only knew how many days, he was dragging
her along the hallway.
“Can you run?” He glanced over his broad
shoulders at her and didn’t give her a chance to respond before he started at a
pace.
Erin tried to keep up. The prospect of
actually surviving and escaping Hell flooded her with adrenaline that had her
bare feet moving but she couldn’t match his long strides. A bright flash
blinded her but it didn’t slow her companion. He kept running. They passed a
large open room and she turned her head in time to see several dead bodies
strewn across a floor slick with blood. More flashes lit the darkness and with
each one, a body disappeared.
They looked like humans. Had the man killed
them to reach her? What was that light and why were they disappearing?
She started to ask but her gaze settled on
the hard angles of his profile and the stern set of his jaw and she thought
better of it. This man was her ticket out of Hell and she wasn’t about to piss
him off, not when she had the impression that he was quite content with
killing.
Erin pounded along the black-walled
corridor beside him, her legs beginning to tire and each step jarring her bones
and sending pain shooting across the soles of her feet. She lost her footing on
one of the sets of steps that led downwards and almost fell. The man’s hand on
her wrist stopped her. He pulled her up by her arm as though she was nothing
but a ragdoll in his hands, suspending her off the ground for a second before
setting her down again.
“You are weak,” he said and she bristled at
the double meaning in his words. He wasn’t just saying she was weak from her
captivity, but that he thought she was weak period.
Erin snatched her wrist free of his grasp
and rubbed it. She turned her nose up and stormed ahead of him, feeling crazy
for taking the lead when she didn’t know where she was going and she didn’t
have a weapon, or the knowledge of how to wield one. She couldn’t let him think
she was weak though.
He followed behind her, a dark shadow
barely a few feet from her, his footsteps almost silent.
They reached a split in the corridor and
Erin paused. Neither of the avenues she could take looked inviting. Both were
pitch-black and voices came from one. Or was it the other? Everything echoed in
the corridors and it was hard to distinguish which would lead her to a grisly
death and which would lead her to freedom.
She chose the right.
The man grabbed her around the waist from
behind, twisted her in his arm, and slung her over his shoulder.
Erin struggled and his arm tightened
against her back, causing his thick shoulder to press into her stomach. Her
organs protested, sharp pain lancing each one.
“You’ll fall off. I need to move fast and
you’re slowing me down.”
Well, that was just rude. Erin punched his
backside. God, it was like a rock. She almost purred. Could this man get any
smexier?
“You can’t carry me and fight your way out
of here.”
He laughed, the warm timbre of it echoing
around the dark walls. “Believe me, Sweetheart, I can fight with both hands
tied behind my back. You’re no hindrance at all.”
He jogged down the left corridor with her,
each step jolting her on his shoulder until she felt close to losing what
little remained of the last thing she ate. Erin grabbed his leather belt,
hooked her thumbs into the waist of his jeans and pushed herself up enough that
it didn’t hurt as much as he ran.
This was just embarrassing now.
It was bad enough having her rescuer
belittle her.
Having him carry her fireman-style to
freedom was making her wish he had left her in her cell.
Warm fresh air assaulted her, as fresh as
Hell got anyway, and she looked up to see the huge black walls of the prison
fortress bouncing away from her.
“You can put me down now,” she said but he
didn’t hear her. Either that or he was ignoring her. She was tempted to punch
him on the backside again but gave up and let him have his way.
The jagged towers of the prison slowly
wobbled into the distance and were lost from view behind the spires of black
rock that lined the path her hero had chosen. Vents in their sides and tops
belched hot acrid smoke that stole her breath. She pulled his black t-shirt up,
exposing a lean delicious back, and covered her mouth with it. How the hell
could he run in this?
Erin wanted to be sick.
She counted the bounces in his step to keep
her focus off the horrendous smell of rotten eggs invading her lungs and the
increasing number of bleached bones that lined the path as though someone had
kicked the bodies out of the way and just let them rot there. Or perhaps some
smaller creature had picked the bones clean. There were grooves in some of
them, as though sharp teeth and claws had scraped them. Erin hoped it had happened
after death and that the screams still ringing in her ears weren’t the death
cries of people being eaten alive.
The man managed over three hundred steps
before he finally stopped and set her down with surprising care in a wide
clearing.
“Are you alright?” He held her at arm’s
length, looking her over.
Her blood heated when his dark eyes
lingered on her breasts and then the tiny shorts she wore.
“Do you always dress like this?” He raised
an eyebrow.
Erin folded her arms across her chest,
covering her breasts. The black pebbles of the path cut into the bare soles of
her feet. “I was in bed when they took me.”
He ran his gaze over her again and a touch
of crimson ringed his dark irises.
Erin took a step backwards.
That had to be a reflection of their fiery
surroundings. It had to be.
Mr Tall, Dark and Deadly couldn’t be
something straight out of Hell.
Her
Demonic Angel is available now from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Apple
iBookstores and direct from the author. It will soon be available for Barnes
and Noble Nook too.
Books in the Her Angel romance series:
About Felicity Heaton:
Felicity Heaton writes passionate
paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In her books she
creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion
and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly
vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot
demons!
If you're a fan of paranormal romance
authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine
Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and
wicked, Felicity Heaton’s best selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like
strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series she
writes as F E Heaton or any of her stand alone vampire romance books she writes
as Felicity Heaton. Or if you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful,
passionate and erotic then try Felicity Heaton’s new Vampire Erotic Theatre
series.
In 2011, five of her six paranormal romance
books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews, Forbidden Blood was
nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews, and many of
her releases received five star reviews from numerous websites.
If you want to know more about Felicity, or
want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
Giveaway:
One eBook copy of Her Fallen Angel will be given to a lucky commenter! (International!) Leave your email address to qualify! Random.org will pick the winner!
Happy Reading!
Kristina