Gods and Monsters, Demons and Billionaires

Most of us might not consider this – especially if we’re in the camp that is sick to death of billionaire stories, but billionaires have been with us in their more archetypal forms since the time of telling stories in the cave around the fire.

The truth is that power and control, in all their guises have a facet of raw, primal lust, and few things are more darkly and secretly fascinating than the idea of being forced to give up control and finding that we like it. Being possessed, being under someone else’s thrall, being taken to the realms of ecstasy, whether it’s on Mount Olympus, in Dracula’s dungeon lair or in a penthouse apartment, is a part of that dark fantasy that makes up, not only the mythological seductions, but every vampire story, ever monster story, and yes … every billionaire romance.

 

Why is that? What makes that dark fantasy such a powerful one. Well, I have a theory, and I’ve been toying with it ever since I wrote In The Flesh. Certainly it’s no less relevant in the second of the Medusa’s Consortium novels, my new release, Blindsided, and it won’t be in the third, Buried Pleasures, either. Buried Pleasures, BTW, will be coming out in January. I think that no matter how appalled we are, no matter how stubborn and independent we are, we want to know what it’s like to be with and to be taken by a force so much greater than us that we have no control. What’s it like to be bitten and seduced by a vampire? What’s it like to make love to a monster? What’s it like to be seduced by a god? What’s it like to be the object of lust for a billionaire? And ultimately what price are we willing to pay for entrance into Club Billionaire, Club Olympus, Club Undead? Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, those gods, those monsters, those demons and billionaires — they are most definitely NOT all male.

 

It’s more than lust. It’s more than love. In fact it’s all a little mercenary really. We want, we long for, a chance to take into ourselves all that we’re not. We want to know their secrets. We want those divine, powerful, filthy rich, forbidden lovers to reveal to us their inner workings just as much as they want to possess us. The ultimate question then becomes can we pay the price and survive to tell the tale? Can we achieve our HEA and find some sense of balance in a world to which we are the interloper? Oooh! It’s always so much fun to find out. And what I am discovering as I delve deeper and deeper into Magda’s world and that of her Consortium, is that the answer is far more complicated. Sometimes the Happy Ever After looks more like “what the f*ck is this then?” Sometimes the true adventure only begins when just when you think the HEA is in sight. Sometimes there are far greater things at stake.

 

Here’s a brief overview of the Medusa’s Consortium series. I think you can see why when the monsters show up, relationships might get a bit … complicated.

 

Medusa’s Consortium:

 

Contrary to popular belief, Medusa is alive and well. Ever since she escaped Greece and the Olympians, Medusa/AKA Magda Gardener has been secretly kicking ass and taking names.

 

Scheming to keep one step ahead of the Olympians and the havoc they wreak, Magda is a rescuer of monsters and demons and a thief of all things sacred to the gods who betrayed her. She is irreverent, powerful, rich and has her own agenda in which the lines between right and wrong are not always clearly drawn. For those she helps, those she draws to herself, life will never be the same. Like the Godfather, those who owe Magda Gardener never know when she’ll call in the debt, nor what will be required of them when she does. But the price for those who cross her, for those who hurt
the ones under her protection, is worse than death.

 

As her Consortium of powerful misfits grows into a cohesive family, as plotting from Olympus threatens the modern world, it Magda finds it more and more difficult to keep herself apart from the lives of those she has drawn to her. Perhaps the Gorgon doesn’t have a heart of stone after all.