This week Silver James visits the blog. I met Silver online many years ago when I'd finished reading Moonstruck: Blood Moon. I was hooked and then stalked - er, I mean, followed her everywhere I could. Silver writes contemporary cowboy romance, paranormal romance, and romantic suspense. She has a new release out this week, NIGHT MOVES, a paranormal romantic suspense with a special motorcycle club. Her tagline is Take a Walk on the Wild Side. Today I asked Silver one question about her special brand of werewolves.
BBTF: You have a unique take on werewolves. How did you come up with your version of them?
Silver: I’m guessing you’re talking about the Moonstruck Wolves, rather than Caleb Jones in the Penumbra Papers. LOL Caleb is more a “traditional werewolf.” The Moonstruck boys? Yeah…about them. There are so many shifter books out there and I wanted something that was both familiar but different enough readers would be intrigued. Mac and the original Wolves of the 69th popped into my imagination and in the course of writing BLOOD MOON, their physiology and mythology just sort of evolved—and that has continued to evolve during the course of the series. Even now, I’ll occasionally discover something new. I thought adding the DNA factor, along with the histology of certain groups—Native Americans and Celtic/Eastern European (yes theCeltic world was wide-flung across northern Europe)—would make them just different enough.
The Wolves are tough, sometimes brutal men and I needed to “gentle” them even beyond their Moonstruck behavior toward their mates. These guys are incredible long-lived and they are apex predators. To keep the world from being overrun, I could have them constantly killing each other off or limit their procreation in other ways. As is evidenced in the Nightrider series, while the Wolves might live violent lives, children—ALL children, not just their own—are precious. By making the lupi gene recessive and attached to the Y chromosome, I could also have children of both sexes who carried the gene but couldn’t shift. Add to this that conception and live births are few and far between, I got a hard alpha male who understands the fragility of life and moves to protect the lives of innocents, even while he doesn’t think twice about taking out any threat to his mate and children.
After the first three books, the characters sort of took over the series, as they do sometimes, and explained things to me as we went along. I’m still learning new things, which I hope keeps new books fresh for my readers.
If you’re interested in exploring the Moonstruck world, you can start with MOONSTRUCK: SECRETS and MOONSTRUCK: LIES. These are compilation novels, each containing two of the first four novellas, along with deleted scenes and new chapters. If grittier is your thing, you can jump into the Nightrider world with NIGHT SHIFT (#1) and NIGHT MOVES (#2). NIGHT SHIFT ( and a bonus never-before-published Nightrider short novella, REMEMBER THE NIGHT (#1.5), are included in a specially priced box set with five other romantic suspense authors. You can read both in HOTSHOTS DANGER: PACKING THE HEAT for free if you belong to Kindle Unlimited.
I love the Wolves and how they look at family, Silver. You can find out more about Silver James's books on her website. Be sure to buy a book and tell a friend. Happy reading!