Contagious Reads: PWSK Blog Tour + Giveaways

AMANDA LOIS IS THE WINNER!!!

I'm so excited to have Rhiannon Frater on the Blog today. She's talking about my favorite character from the PWSD Trilogy. Samantha. That's right you heard me right. I love Samantha. She's epicsauce!!!

Samantha, the Other Woman

in the PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES Trilogy

Rhiannon Frater

Imagine this scenario. You’re a young woman living in Austin, Texas, successful in your career, surrounded by a family that loves you, and engaged to a great guy. In fact, this great guy is everything you ever desired in a partner for life. He’s sweet, good-natured, handsome, attentive, and very rich. You’ve got your wedding dress in the closet, your wedding date set, and you have the hope and dream of forever with your intended because he’s a civilized vampire. Life is perfect.

Then a young woman with dyed black hair, tattoos, piercings, scuffed high heels, and an attitude shows up and your fiancé abruptly turns distant. You strongly suspect that the newcomer, a female vampire, is bad news and that your fiancé is in dire danger. What do you do?

This is the scenario my character of Samantha faces in PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES. Not a pretty one is it? But the story is not primarily told from Samantha’s point of view, but from that of the female vampire with an attitude. A newly turned vampire named Amaliya. Amaliya is the central focus of the PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES trilogy. Her impact on those around her, including Samantha, is pretty intense and will lead to a massive climax in the third book, PRETTY WHEN SHE DESTROYS.

Yet Samantha’s predicament is just as important to the story as Amaliya’s. In PRETTY WHEN SHE KILLS Samantha continues to deal with the aftermath of Amaliya landing in her life like a nuclear bomb. I won’t lie. Samantha is definitely one of my favorite characters. She’s passionate, loyal, hilarious, and a juggernaut of Texas gumption. Yet, Samantha receives a lot of hate from readers.

When I read a review for the first book where the reader was incensed at me for making Samantha the bad guy, I was shocked. I even had a few readers confess that they thought Samantha was the villain and kept looking for reasons to not like her. Even her plucky loyalty was seen in a bad light. I had one reader email me and tell that they ended up liking Samantha by the end of the novel, and didn’t understand why I wanted people not to like her.

This really floored me. I couldn’t figure out why Samantha’s slammed for her actions in the first book. Why was she seen as annoying when she was trying to save the man she loved? Why did some people even want her to die? Then slowly it dawned on me. Because Amaliya is the primary protagonist and Samantha is the “other” woman, people automatically dump her into the “villain” category. In so many novels, if there are two women in the book who love the same man, one of them has to be the “bad” one. Since Amaliya is obviously the heroine, that slots Samantha into the villain role. Once Samantha is tagged as the villain, some readers refuse to see her as otherwise. I’ve come to the conclusion that Samantha is the victim of a very popular trope in fiction. The other chick has to be the bad guy.

Yet, if I had written PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES from Samantha’s perspective, I am sure that many of the same readers would have seen Amaliya as the baddie. So, I want to state for the record that Samantha is the secondary female protagonist in the PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES trilogy. Her arc in the series is very important. I also strongly believe that there can be more than one strong female protagonist in a series.

Samantha’s role in PRETTY WHEN SHE KILLS definitely expands while she deals with the aftermath of the events in the first book. She’s still raunchy, funny, and bubbly while dealing with all sorts of horrors. Her fervent loyalty to those she cares about continues to be a fundamental part of her personality.

Yep. That is exactly how I feel about Sam too. Now onto the giveaways.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

To win a signed copy, some signed bookmarks and an awesome vampire necklace check out the giveaway the Bookish Brunette is having. Just Click HERE. They also did an awesome interview.

Get the Audio Book of Pretty When She Dies!!!