Paranormal Romance Blog

Author Jenna Kernan blogged last month about her first Skinwalker romance MOON SHADOW from Silhouette Nocturne Bites. Now Jenna is back to tell us about her next story–the full-length novel DREAM STALKER available in print and eBook from Silhouette Nocturne–and the haunting dreams that inspired it….

by Jenna Kernan, author of DREAM STALKER

It frightened me….

…The idea of a nightmare being real, crossing through the veil from my subconscious and chasing me into my waking reality. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. Then I added to that, the possibility that no one would believe me and that my own doctors might think me mad. All delusional people think their delusions are real. Don’t they? But what if they really are? Who would help me then?

All this scariness gave me my heroine’s dilemma for by debut paranormal—DREAM STALKER, a December release from Silhouette Nocturne.

The first three pages of this story came to me one morning in a dream. I woke, reached for a pad and started scribbling. What you will read is very little changed from what recalled. So, I knew my heroine is being chased by something that she and everyone else thought was a dream, but that is so much more.

What I didn’t know was what was after her and why it wanted her. Those questions took me most of the book to figure out, so I won’t spoil them here.

She learns that nightmares are real when her ghostly stalker attacks her. She is rescued by my hero, Sebastian, a shapeshifting Grizzly bear.

Now Native lore is full of shapeshifters, but they don’t call them that. Skinwalkers is the term I saw over and again for these dark and dangerous supernatural creatures that shift from one form to another.

Since my heroine was injured it seemed natural to choose an animal that the Lakota attribute with healing powers. This is why it is a grizzly bear-shifter who rescues Michaela.

Here is a little excerpt from their first meet, after he has rescued my heroine.

Excerpt from DREAM STALKER by Jenna Kernan:

Her eyes snapped open. “What are you?”

He withdrew his hand. With it went the comfort she had gained from his touch. He clenched his fists, flexing the bulky muscles of his chest. The rock hard wall of muscle served as silent reminder of his physical superiority, and she forced herself not to cower as he stood menacingly over her like a raised dagger. She lifted her chin with an air of defiance that did not reach her quaking innards. He stalked away.

Michaela glanced about the unfamiliar surroundings more afraid of being alone than facing this brooding man. “Don’t go.”

He paused, his back to her and his posture rigid. Standing there in the forest’s dappled light, he looked completely uncivilized. Gradually, he turned until she could see his face in profile.

“You don’t know what you ask.”

He strode back to her like some wild beast, turning her hope to alarm. Her breath caught at the sight of his grace and primal beauty. He stood without presumption and with an aura of supremacy that captivated her. She had never seen a man like this. He crouched beside her with a dangerous confidence that unsettled her. Then he glanced about the deserted clearing perhaps searching for signs of the nightmare that haunted her. His nostrils flared as he scented the air as if he could detect things invisible to her.

From this distance, she could see that his deep brown irises were ringed with gold. As she watched, his pupil’s dilated adding to her gut impression that he was not what he seemed. He was dangerous, but was he more dangerous than her ghostly attacker?

“Can you protect me from it?”

He did not deny her peril as the doctors had done, nor did he diminish her fears. Instead, he fixed her with a commanding stare.

“Perhaps.”

There is more information on DREAM STALKER up on my website, if you care to visit at www.jennakernan.com.

One last thing I wanted to mention. My heroine’s inability to escape from nightmares comes, in part, from my own childhood experiences. When I was young and had a high fever, I had terrible nightmares. They frightened me as much as they frightened my mother, because she was often unable to wake me. I don’t get fevers like that anymore, but, as you can see, I’m still haunted by these dreams and DREAM STALKER is the result.

Have you had a bad dream, repeating dream, a solution given in dreams or some other sleep experience you’d like to share?

Jenna

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