Where Are the Pets in Paranormal? Meet Trish McCallan and win FORGED IN FIRE

Today, I'd like to welcome author Trish McCallan to the blog. Trish has a new, hot series inspired by some of our favorite immortal warriors (you know--the ones with nhames like Rhage and Zhadist). The first, Forged in Fire, was released last month--and Trish is giving an ebook away to one commenter today. Read on for details!

Take it away, Trish!

A Big THANK YOU!! To Suzanne for hosting me today.

I had this blog all figured out last night.

I was going to talk about sexy warrior brotherhoods and the bonds between alpha heroes. I was going to delve into the emotional make-up between the warriors of various series. Like the vampire warriors of JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, or Lara Adrian’s Midnight Breed. Or the shifter brotherhoods of Lora Leigh and Marjorie Moore. Or the special forces brotherhoods of Suzanne Brockman, Stephanie Tyler and Christy Reece. 

And then I was going to segue into my own debut paranormal romantic suspense, Forged in Fire, and how those same bonds of warrior brotherhood played across the series. Yep, that was my plan.

Until I made an off-the-cuff comment to a friend yesterday, which started my mind on a whole new train of thought. And the more I thought about this off-the-cuff comment, the more profoundly disturbing it became.

This is what happened. My friend was complaining that she couldn’t think of anything to guest blog about. So in the interest of helping out I started firing off topics and without even thinking about it, I lobbed this—“Or you could do a blog exploring why there aren’t any pets in paranormal romances.”

Whoa, back up a minute. Yeah, come to think of it, where have all the animals gone???

The pets I mean. The dogs. The cats. The odd monkey or horse or goat. What happened to everyone’s pets?  The only series I could think of off the top of my head that has pets is Ward’s BDB. But everyone knows that Boo and George aren’t your average everyday animals. No way. There is something suspicious about those two. Think about how fast Boo welcomed Wrath into Beth’s apartment, and how George charmed Wrath so completely and so quickly. I have golden retrievers--yeah, they can be charming. But Wrath was the biggest, baddest vampire in the house and George had him twisted around his tail feathering in under a second? I don’t think so. There is more to Boo and George than meets the eye. They’re probably the Scribe Virgin in disguise, or some transformed fallen angels. But whatever they are, no question they are more than your ordinary dog or cat.

But even then, even with George and Boo—what about the rest of the paranormal books out there? What happened to those pets? And it isn’t just books. Think of the popular televisions shows like Vampire Diaries, or Moonlight. And what about popular movies like Twilight.

Where have all the pets gone?

Since I have a disturbing mind, I began mulling this question over. And a couple of immediate possibilities leapt to mind.  Both of them rather. . .okay, the only word for it is disturbing. (so sue me, I like that word) We know that shifters become both animalistic and territorial when they morph into their inner wolf, tiger or werenot. They also often become ravenously hungry and give in to the impulse to hunt and eat…..yeah, just saying. I mean it would make sense why you don’t see many dogs or cats around shifter residences.

And then there are all those “Good” vampires—the ones like Stephan from Vampire Diaries or Edward from Twilight who are constantly struggling against their inner demon and survive by sipping squirrel or deer blood. Maybe they snacked a bit too close to home and drained FiFi or Rover by accident.

Right now I am almost done with Cynthia Eden’s Never Cry Wolf, and there is nary a pet in sight. There wasn’t in the last dark paranormal romance I read either. 

What about the rest of you? Any of you read a paranormal romance lately where the hero or heroine had a pet? One that didn’t suddenly up and disappear? 

Drop me a comment for a chance to win a free eBook of Forged in Fire—my debut paranormal romantic suspense—which, come to think of it, doesn’t have any pets in it either . . . .

Thanks, Trish! I loved this column--I'm such a dog lover. I'll throw a couple into the mix: In the Dresden File series by Jim Butcher, Harry Dresden has a cat, Mister, and later gets a magical dog. And in Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series, Mercy has a cat but I can't remember his name offhand. My series heroine, DJ, adopts a Katrina dog named Gandalf in the first book, and also ends up with a cantankerous Siamese named Sebastian.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before....Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm....As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.

As always, four entries possible: +1 for comment, +1 for blog follow, +1 for Twitter follow @Suzanne_Johnson, and +1 for a tweet or retweet. Woof!