Lily Carlyle. A survivor who lost her mother when she was young, made a promise to care for her little sister, and ended up saddled with an alcoholic step-father. A girl forced to live in the real world before she was ready, and willing to do whatever it took—even pick up a gun and fire—in order to protect her sister. A girl who dealt a few drugs, pirated a few DVDs, and did whatever she could to hold the scraps of her life together. A girl who was scared of the dark, but went there anyway, and when it consumed her, she made what she thought was the best—and only choice—she swore to fight for redemption, even if that meant fighting Hell itself.
I really like Lily.
In a lot of ways, the heroine of my new Blood Lily Chronicles series is similar to other heroines I've written, especially Kate Connor, my demon hunting soccer mom from the suburban town of San Diablo. Both Kate and Lily are women who speak their mind (often with a sarcastic turn of phrase). Both are loyal to their families. Most important, both fight demons.
But then the differences start kicking in, and that's what I really wanted to explore in this series. Whereas Kate (a retired demon hunter with a secret arm of the Vatican) grew up in a world with demons and hunters and scary stuff that goes bump in the night, Lily was a normal girl until she went out one day and died, then was brought back to life in the body of another girl, and told that in order to find redemption, she had to fight for the forces of good and make sure that the demonic hordes don't cross over into our world by locking the final gate to Hell.
And whereas Kate's story is laced with the humor that comes inherent in a life with kids and carpools (hey, she's in suburbia now and her first demon encounter is at Wal-Mart), Lily went from the dark life of a street-wise scrapper to the darker discoveries of a girl learning for the first time that the monster that lives in your childhood closet just might be real after all. More than that, though, even as Lily navigates her world, she also has to navigate secrets and lies, deceptions and mis-directions. In other words, even though she's only a few miles from where she grew up, she's a virtual stranger, not only to the world of demons and darkness, but to the family she's been thrust inside.
It was that fish-out-of-water aspect of Lily's story that I really wanted to explore, and that was so much fun to delve into. To stand with a character as she's thrust into a scary new world and has to find not only her way, but figure out who her allies are. It makes for a darker story tone but one that I hope is both engaging and emotionally real.
With Kate, I always knew that I wanted the setting to be California (San Diablo is a fictional town located about where Santa Barbara is, and looks like a mix of Santa Barbara and Laguna Beach, California, and Georgetown, Texas). But with Lily, I wasn't going for the suburban, homeowners' association feel. I wanted something with more history. A place where you could believe that scary things lurked in dark alleys, and where the brick and mortar was infused with ancient magic. At the same time, I wasn't writing a book set in Europe. There were a lot of great places to pick from, but Boston and environs (and my fictional neighborhoods) won out for a number of reasons, from witchcraft to the Zakim Bridge, which presents an image I dearly love, with the cables rising up toward the heavens.
All in all, I had a great time writing Lily—her fears, her allies, her betrayals, and her secrets. I hope you enjoy Lily and her story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Happy reading,
Julie Kenner
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Read more...Coming Soon! View the rest of the Blood Lily Chronicles:
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