Meet Author Bernita Harris.

I was standing there naked when a dead man sauntered into my bathroom.

That was the first frightening thing. I knew he was dead. I'd seen him buried beneath the cold clay of the old cemetery. His gravestone was due to be delivered within the week.


He sauntered. He didn't shamble.


That was the second frightening thing, because I always thought such creatures did. Stumble and stagger, that is.


I emitted an "Eeep"--like a paralized parakeet--and skittered backward until the shelves holding soaps and pretty bottles bit into my bare behind.


"Nathan!" I gasped. I shouldn't have. His name stopped the slow, blind swing of the sleek blond head and gave the viscous brown eyes focus. On me.


He curled back his sulky lips and leered.


That was the third frightening thing... 

Please help me welcome author Bernita Harris. Her paranormal romance, Dark and Disorderly is out with Carina Press today, Monday June 28th.

I'm a Canadian who hates winter and loves spring. I was widowed last year and I live in an old house in the Thousand Islands with a German shepherd, a "mostly" corgi and about ten thousand books. Our four splendid children visit as often as they can.


Besides writing, I like to read, garden (flowers and herbs) and visit flea markets. I have probably the biggest collection of really bad yard sale art in the known world. I can't help it. The paintings are so lonely for a wall!



Of all the various jobs I've held ( short-order cook, library assistant, less-than-serious actress, school teacher...) the time and research I spent as a forensic consultant in occult related material probably influences my writing most of all.


Many writers say they have to write; they have to write to silence the voices in their heads. I can't claim that. Rather, I'm like the shy, grubby little girl in kindergarten who clutches at your skirt, saying "See my pichure? I drewed it myself!" I write because I want to share the stories and the vivid people of my imagination. I have to share. Writing is often a lonely business and only half-done until that writing is read by the most important people of all: real readers to share the journey and the adventure. I hope you will enjoy Lillie's adventures.



Mary Stewart introduced me to the thrills of romantic suspense. Andre Norton to fantasy. Charles de Lint proved that the mythic and the mundane could be combined; and Laurel K. Hamilton showed me how it was done.


But I don't write about vamps and weres, I write about ghosts and wraiths and other paramormal creatures like bean sidhes (banshees) and Dumbarton the Doom Dog( "Dummy," for short.) I write about Death Messengers and the Unforgiven and what happens when the paranormal becomes normal; and about a beleagured exorcist who just wants to do her job--but also strives for justice for the dead.


Lillie St. Claire is a Talent, one of the rare few who can permanently dispatch the spirits of the dead that walk the earth. Her skills are in demand in a haunted country, where a plague of ghosts is becoming a civic nuisance.



Those skills bring her into conflict with frightened citizens who view Talents as near-demons. Her husband has come to see her as a Freak; so when Nathan dies after a car crash, she is relieved to be free of his increasingly vicious presence. Lillie expects to be haunted by Nathan’s ghost, but not to become Suspect #1 for her husband’s murder and reanimation.


But what’s most surprising of all is the growing attraction between her and psi-crime detective John Thresher. He thinks that Lillie killed Nathan—and Nathan must agree, because his zombie is seeking revenge. Now she and Thresher must work together to solve her husband’s murder—before his corpse kills her…


But if you expect explicit sex in D&D, you won't find it, though not for lack of trying on Johnny Thresher's part. I'm sorry, but Lillie has only known John Thresher a week and she's the the cautious, old-fashioned sort, among other good and solid reasons.


“You warned me you were a danger, Leannan, and I think this is what you meant,” he said, and fitted his wicked mouth to my open one. His wicked tongue. Instant lust. I wanted to wrap my legs around him, lock my ankles and pull him tighter. Public place with people passing by be damned, indeed.
I despised myself for that impulse. I despised him for my impulse.
So I bit him.
 
Dark and Disorderly,The Adventures of Lillie St. Claire, a paranormal romance/ suspense is available from Carina Press, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and most places where ebooks are found. You can sample the first chapter here, http://carinapress.com/blog/2010/06/launch-book-excerpts.  Also, Dark and Disorderly is one of five titles chosen for an audio format by Audible.com, available sometime in July. A sequel, Dark and Dangerous, is a work in progress.



Other Lillie St. Claire adventures have been published in Weirdly: A Collection of Strange Stories, vol 1-3, by Wild Child Publishing.


Bernita Harris
The Adventures of Lillie St. Claire
DARK AND DISORDERLY - Carina Press, June 28
An Innocent A-Blog: http://www.bernitaharris.blogspot.com/
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=10001043378246&ref=profile


Thanks for taking the time to stop by and tell us about Lillie St. Claire and your newest release, Dark and Disorderly. It's been a pleasure, Bernita.


Dawn