Love. Sex. Death.

Posted on by April 21, 2011

Love. Sex. Death.

That’s why you visited my blog today, right?

Well, okay. Maybe it is for the Blog Tour de Force free book, and the prize AND Kindle drawings.

I don’t blame you. Great! We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, let’s talk about love, sex, and death. They’re what you look for in every novel you read. Doesn’t matter which genre.

“…the need to belong, the hungers of the body, and the search for individual worth; Community, Carnality, Identity. Ultimately, that triad is what all stories are about.” ~ Orson Scott Card

Hungry4You It’s what you’ll find in A. M. Harte’s book, Hungry for You. Through short stories about zombies, you’ll follow characters in search of community, carnality, and identity. Some are living. Some are undead. But set your preconceived notions aside. I promise you, these aren’t your father’s zombies.

 
AdairPaperWomanCoverEbook96dpi Now, I know that zombie fiction isn’t everyone’s cuppa tea, so there’s love, sex, and death aplenty in my historical suspense series starting with Paper Woman, winner of the Patrick D. Smith Literature award. Spies and assassins, ships of sail and storms at sea, swashbucklers and bandits, and a brilliant, brutal, sociopath challenge my main character. I promise you, this isn’t your father’s Revolutionary War.

Okay, you want a free book, a prize, and a Kindle, right?

1.  Win an ebook copy of Paper Woman! (No eReader required.) First, read “The Making of a Fictional Villain, Part 1.” Then return to this post and use the comment form to tell me the following:

  • One characteristic of a good villain
  • Who’s your favorite fictional villain, and why (Love. Sex. Death.)

Make sure you give me an accurate email address. I’ll email you instructions for your Paper Woman download.

2.  Win the Historic Haversack goodie bag! (U.S. deliveries only.) My sponsors’ reviews prove that Paper Woman has the Right Stuff:

So pick your favorite sponsor review, and comment there with the phrase, “Love, sex, and death. Paper Woman has it all!” Then, come back here and comment what review you selected. I’ll enter you in the drawing for the Historic Haversack. Watch my blog for an announcement of the winner.

(Need more convincing? The Pen & Muse posted a review of Paper Woman and an interview of me, plus Red Adept Reviews posted a non-sponsor review for Paper Woman.)

3.  Win the Kindle! Every relevant comment counts as an entry toward the Kindle drawing. The more you and I talk on my blog, the more entries you have. Love. Sex. Death. Let’s talk!

4.  Want more chances to win the Kindle? Of course you do! So let’s stay in touch. Each of the following secures you an additional entry toward the Kindle grand prize drawing. Make sure you comment where you followed and Liked.

I need comments from you folks today. The busier the conversation buzz on my blog today, the greater my chances at winning Blog Tour de Force’s author prize: creation of a video book trailer for my series.

Thanks for stopping by. You’re a winner!

Update: The Paper Woman giveaway has ended. The drawing for the Historic Haversack and the drawing for the Kindle from my blog are closed.

Suzanne Adair

*****

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Comments

Love. Sex. Death. — 247 Comments

  1. Aaron Echolls from the show Veronica Mars. Famous heart-throb movie star, millionaire, beautiful family, fine upstanding citizen, and a psycho killer. Great fun to watch Harry Hamlin play that role.

  3. Control. That’s true. And charm. And of course, something a little sexy. I do agree that those make the villain.
    I’ve thought a lot about my favorite villains. One of my more recent favorites is Bellatrix LeStrange. Mad, yes. Vicious and cruel, yes. But a completely perfect villain.
    One of my other favorites through time has been MacBeth. Which I realize may be a slightly odd choice. But his desire for control of a kingdom says enough, I think.

  4. What about some of the villains on the series “Justified?” I am fond of Maggs and Boyd. They just have a different sense of what is and is not moral. The hero kills more people than anyone else and it is ususally ‘justified.

  5. Jan, nice to see another Guppy here. Thanks for stopping by, and for all the friending/liking.
    You’re another person who casts a vote for Hannibal Lecter being a memorable villain. He’s manipulative and charming, and — whether we like it or not — he’s relatable. That’s a heroic quality.

  6. Plus, Suzanne,
    Our blog exchange went so well I’d like to trade some more. Would you like to host Lincoln as a Writer or what I wrote about Doris Kearns Goodwin>

  7. Kerri, didn’t Harry Hamlin play Perseus in “Clash of the Titans?” If this is the same guy, what fun! I can SO see him playing a psycho.

  8. Ashley, ah, the sexy villain. That adds more dimension. We’re tormenting the other characters with Orson Scott Card’s full triad: love, sex, and death.
    Did you not think that Lady MacBeth was a greater villain than her husband?

  9. Suzanne, it’s great to see a fellow Guppie doing so well on the tour! I love your book cover and back cover copy. Good luck with the rest of the tour.
    Ann Charles

  10. Warren, thanks for popping back in. Alas, I haven’t seen “Justified,” and we no longer get cable, but wow, that sounds interesting. If I understand you correctly, the premise is exploring the gray area of what justifies killing other humans?

  11. Hi Suzanne! One characteristic of a good villian is the charm they use to manipulate. I would have to say that my faviorite villian is Annie Wilkes played by Kathy Bates in Stephen King’s Misery. I felt sorry for her at times and then at other times she was quite manipulative.

  14. Hi Kellie. Wasn’t Kathy Bates great in “Misery?” Manipulative, as you said, and at other times she made you feel empathy for her. The honor there is shared between King and Bates. Another actor might not have pulled off King’s characterization so well. If you can make your villain sympathetic, you have a much more three-dimensional bad guy.

  15. Justified in on FX. It’s based on Elmore Leonard’s writing. The hero is described by his boss as ‘a lousy [US} marshall but a great lawman.” He’s the son of a legendary outlaw and his father seems to have returned to his old ways. There’s no easy scorecard to who’s good and who’s bad. It’s really well written.

  16. Another show I used to swear by, in stead of at, was The Unit, created by David Mamet, who also consulted with the writers. Who was a hero and who was a villain depended on which episode you were talking about and what constitutes heroism versus villainous behavior.

  17. Warren, I so seldom watch TV, but both of these shows sound cool. As I’ve stated several times today in my comments, I find gray areas and gray characters far more interesting than black-and-white.

  20. Hello from another Guppy! I enjoyed your thoughts about fictional villains, especially your mention of Khan. That brought to mind the hours I enjoyed watching Deep Space Nine, and how many of them were made enjoyable by the appearance of the villain Gul Dukat. One of his chief characteristics, which I think is important for any villain, is that he was clearly the hero in his own version of the story. It definitely wasn’t the version that we viewers were watching! But his role always reminded me of writing advice (that I would credit if I could) that said that the author has to keep in mind that very few villains, if any, think of themselves as The Bad Guy. They have their own important reasons for acting as they do. And of course I think a good example is one of my favorites, the Deaf Man from Ed McBain’s 87th precinct mysteries. He always has a goal, and the hoops he has the cops jumping through are not set up just for fun, but to serve his purpose (usually by distracting & misdirecting the police). I look forward to making the acquaintance of your villain – and the rest of the cast!

  22. Maybe you saw the new version of Sherlock Holmes on, I think, Masterpiece Theatre, Moriarty was the mirror image of Holmes. I hope they produce more shows.

  26. I think the basis for all “good villains”, aside from the obvious, is their ability to control and manipulate people. For that reason, Lord Valdemort of the Harry Potter series is my “favorite” villain.
    BornajhawkATaolDOTcom

  31. Whoo hoo, Kate, you’re another “Niner!” I’m pleased to meet you!
    Gul Dukat is widely regarded as the Trek franchise’s greatest villain for many, many reasons. You’ve stated an important one. He clearly believes he’s the hero of his own story, and he doesn’t see himself as a villain. He’s also vulnerable in a way that Q, the Borg, and even Khan were not. Dukat’s vulnerability is frightening because it makes us relate to him. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Much of this will go in Part 2 of my villains post.
    Thanks for commenting on the Motherlode blog!

  32. Warren, I missed that version of Sherlock Holmes. But Moriarty is an excellent villain that no one has mentioned yet today, so I’ll give him a shout-out. He and Holmes almost have a yin-yang duality going on.

  33. A good villain has to either be one that has a redeeming feature (to make you want to like him) or be so sociopathically evil that you read/watch just to see him destroyed.
    My favorite villain growing up, though, would have to be Wily Coyote — who was nothing if not persistent (but not very bright or lucky).
    kolists a\t gmail dt com

  34. I’m back – and late. But we’ve been catching up with shows stockpiled on our DVR, including the new Fox series “The Chicago Code.” The show has a complex villain, Alderman Ronin Gibbons, a long-time smooth-talking Chicago politician, who shakes down merchants and is the target of a secret probe by a police superintendent. But the latest episode we saw shows him doing nice things for his constituents, even saving lives. You wonder if his motives are “pure,” but you can’t argue with, in this particular case, the result – a life saved. Fascinating!

  35. Hi Laura, thanks for all that friending and liking. And you won’t get any arguments from me about Voldemort being a nasty. When you have enough control over a minion to get them to cut their own hand off for you, now that’s some bad-ass villainry.

  36. Books on the Knob, have you ever encountered a fictional villain who had a redeeming feature, even while being so evil that you wanted to see him/her offed?
    Wiley Coyote was very persistent! That’s a heroic quality, so didn’t you feel sorry for him after awhile? Poor guy was propping up the left side of that bell-shaped curve for intelligence.

  37. Welcome back, Rhonda. As you can see, we’re still jammin’ here on my blog. I don’t know about you, but I’m of a mind to confer upon all politicians the honorary status of “villain.” Politics is one of those fields like medicine and law that’s a magnet for sociopaths.

  39. Okay, this dates me, but my favorite TV villain was anyone who tried to interfere with Jonny Quest. Yes, that funky late 60s cartoon adventure.
    Come to think of it, I’d have to say I didn’t *love* the villains he confronted, but I loved to *hate* them. How dare they pick on a child–even a precocious kid like Jonny.
    That still describes my feelings about villains in any work of fiction. I can’t name a particular favorite–but if the writer has created a villain I enjoy despising, then that’s cool. The thing is, the villains I hate the most are also villains I feel somewhat sorry for. They’re often very close to the protagonist, and but for a few steps in a different direction could have been the “good guy” or “good gal.” Making the choice to be the bad one is what gets to me.
    Suzanne, thanks for posting this question–a lot of fun! And good luck on your blogging tour!

  40. Hello! This was a tough decision. I liked all of the blogs, but since I have to choose one, I chose My Reading Room as my favorite. I could relate to the reviewer in that I do not know that much about the Revolution either, other than what I learned in school. The review sparked my interest and I can’t wait to read Paper Woman!

  42. Hello again!
    Facebook – check
    Twitter – check
    Google Friends Connect – check
    Goodreads – check

  43. Ooh – more costumes and politics … Jeremy Irons makes a creepily growly evil Rodrigo Borgia, aka “The Holy Father,” on the new Showtime series “The Borgias.” He’s as bad as Atia as about using his children for political gain. His son the priest/cardinal is in charge of his “black ops.” He uses his marriageable teenage daughter Lucrezia as a political pawn (and we all know how that turned out.)
    I think it’s easier for us to see the evils of our time played out in costume dramas. After all, that stuff happened in “the past,” so we can whistle our way to the refrigerator after the end credits roll without feeling like voyeurs.

  44. Those are some great insights on what makes a good villain, Beth. To paraphrase Yoda, if you start down the wrong path, it’s too easy to keep going down that path. (Hmm, not once today did anyone mention Darth Vader as a memorable villain.)
    And if you love to despise villains, you’ll enjoy Lt. Fairfax in my series.

  45. Hoping you’ve had a FAB day Suzanne! not too many villains on the scene to deal with? and enough comment chatter for the win? will be keeping an eye on you and your writing….

  46. Hi again Kellie. I hope that Paper Woman puts you at ease in the world of the Revolutionary War, and you enjoy the story and the history. And thanks for all the friending and liking!

  48. Rhonda, you’re my last post.
    After all, that stuff happened in “the past,” so we can whistle our way to the refrigerator after the end credits roll without feeling like voyeurs.
    Are we in denial or what?

  49. A villain has to be three dimensional. They can’t just be one of the paper villains that you find in Disney. They have to have motives, and they have to be the hero of their story.
    One of my favorite villains is Azshara from the Warcraft books and games, and from that world I also really like Illidan. They’re both so complex and fun. I always like the hot, manipulative female villain. Cersei from A Song of Ice and Fire is a little too hotheaded for me though; Melissandre is a much cooler villain.
    I know you only asked for one, but I couldn’t resist. I’m really looking forward to reading your book. It looks very interesting. I hope you win.
    lordreblik(at)gmail(dot)com