Guest Post and Giveaway with Felicity Heaton!

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.

You can read an 8 chapter sample of Her Demonic Angel at my website, where it’s available for download in PDF, mobi or epub format: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/hda

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/

Find out how to enter the Her Demonic Angel international giveaway (ends September 23^rd) and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website, where you can also download an 8 chapter sample of the novel: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/ebooks.php?title=Her%20Demonic%20Angel

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:

Amazon.com Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00995OSTQ/

Amazon.co.uk Kindle: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00995OSTQ/

Apple iBookstore US: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781909306301

Apple iBookstore UK: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/isbn9781909306301

Apple iBookstore Australia: http://itunes.apple.com/au/book/isbn9781909306301

Apple iBookstore Canada: http://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/isbn9781909306301

Kobo Books: http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=9781909306301

Author’s Website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/ebooks.php?title=Her%20Demonic%20Angel

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.

Find all the links, a fantastic 8 chapter downloadable sample of the book, and also how to enter the Her Demonic Angel giveaway and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/ebooks.php?title=Her%20Demonic%20Angel

Books in the Her Angel romance series:

Her Dark Angel (Her Angel romance series book 1)

Her Fallen Angel (Her Angel romance series book 2)

Her Warrior Angel (Her Angel romance series book 3)

Her Guardian Angel (Her Angel romance series book 4)

Her Demonic Angel (Her Angel romance series book 5)

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:

Website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

Blog: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/blog/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/felicityheaton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/felicityheaton

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/felicityheaton

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