Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tuesday Guest Post: Sonya Clark


Roxie Mathis is the Mojo Queen

There are certain things readers of urban fantasy have come to expect because of their prevalence in the genre. Kick-ass, leather pants, and tramp stamps are common descriptors for urban fantasy heroines. When I started writing Mojo Queen I knew I wanted something a little different for main character Roxanne Mathis.

Roxie is a paranormal investigator. She’s also a hoodoo root worker who can see auras and spectral entities. Her life isn’t about beating up bad guys, it’s about using natural magic to defend against supernatural problems. She’s got a casual wardrobe of jeans and cargo pants, tee shirts and boots. She wears glasses, what with being near-sighted. If she had the extra money to spare she’d choose to blow it on blues records rather than a tattoo. Unlike the reluctant heroines of some stories, Roxie has no real desire for that fabled “normal life”. She feels at home in a supernatural world most would find terrifying. Here’s a passage from Goofer Dust Blues, one of the Mojo short stories available on the Free Reads page of my blog.

A gust of wind disturbed my hair, giving me a little spook. It tripped that switch in the back of my brain or deep down in my gut or wherever it was, the switch that flipped when the spook was just right and shivered across the ends of my nerves. The thing is, I like the dark. I like the spook. I feel at home there, walking alongside the things that go bump in the night. Not for nothing is my best friend a vampire.
Someone brave enough, or crazy enough, to be friends with a vampire must not be afraid of anything. Roxie does get scared though, and she has a healthy respect for all those creatures and spirits that live in the dark and sometimes cause mischief and mayhem. She gets scared, but she does her job anyway. She doesn’t make a big deal out of it but she believes in helping people. Most folks can’t handle the supernatural world so they don’t know what to do when they come face to face with it. Remembering what it was like as a kid and first dealing with her auric vision and finding herself surrounded by ghosts, Roxie wants to help people who are out of their depth in the dark. Even if it means sometimes she finds herself in over her head. She might have to bluff her way through a situation, or she might have to jump blind and hope she sticks the landing. With her knowledge of hoodoo, her magical abilities, and yes her vampire best friend, she hasn’t found a thing yet she didn’t have the mojo to vanquish. Who needs leather pants when you are the Mojo Queen?

Learn more about the author at http://www.sonyaclark.net/
 

3 comments:

Sonya said...

Thanks for hosting me Pam!

PamelaTurner said...

You're welcome! :-)

V.R. Leavitt said...

Sounds like a great heroine. Refreshing change from the usual. :-)