Welcome everyone!! Thank you for stopping by and checking out our post for THE MEPHISTO MARK blog tour.
I absolutely LOVE this series and sooooo happy to be a part of this tour.
Many thanks to Inkslinger PR and of course Trinity Faegan for everything!!
A friend of mine who doesn’t read romance or young adult
asked me what my Mephisto books are about. I told her, and she said, “I’m
surprised you write such grim, depressing stuff, especially considering how
much you love romance novels.” I decided I suck at telling people about the
Mephisto. She didn’t get it at all, even remotely.
Okay, sure, the stories are about guys whose father is the
dark angel of death, the one who ferries souls to Hell. And the brothers are
all doomed to Hell unless they can find and feel real love. But ultimately, the
stories are about hope. The overarching storyline is one of hope – for the
brothers, for the women they find and want to love, for Lucifer and Mephistopheles,
for humanity, and ultimately, for the oldest brother, Eryx, the only soul in
existence who nobody wants – neither God, nor Lucifer. Reviled and hated,
Eryx’s defeat is the reason for the existence of the Mephisto. He’s evil down
to his fingernails, without a shred of compassion or honor or even dignity. He
doesn’t yearn for love and acceptance. He believes power will deliver what he
needs, but he doesn’t realize that what’s missing in his soul is hope.
Hope is something we all need to survive. Those who’ve
attempted suicide and survived frequently say they felt as though all hope was
gone when they decided to end their lives. Hope is why we get up every day.
It’s why we fall in love, why we go to school and have children and vote and
try the new Italian place in town. Hope makes the world keep turning, and
without it, humanity is lost.
When people pledge their souls to Eryx in the Mephisto
stories, they lose hope of happiness, of fulfillment, of peace of mind.
Ironically, in hoping to gain what they think they need to be happy, to feel
worthy, they lose their free will and any hope of contentment. I think of these
stories as a study in humanity and what makes us all more alike than different.
The world over, everyone wants pretty much the same things – respect, dignity,
admiration from our friends and colleagues, love, sustenance, and the ability
to live our lives according to our own internal moral compass. We all hope for
happiness and everything we do is because we hope we’ll find it. Hope really is
what keeps us going. As for Eryx, who has no hope, what keeps him going is a
mystery we’ll uncover in the final book of the Mephisto series.
Orphaned at six and sent to live with abusive relatives in
Bucharest, Mariah learned early in life to box up violent, agonizing memories
and put them in permanent mental storage. Now almost nineteen, she has a paying
job, a tiny apartment, and a plan to attend university. She loves her
independence and is steadily overcoming her past, but when an enigmatic
stranger walks into the pub where she works and the trajectory of her life
changes yet again, she begins to wonder if she’ll run out of mental shelf
space.
The only females unafraid of the Mephisto brothers are the
extremely rare Anabo, born without Original Sin. Over one hundred years ago,
Phoenix was first to find one, but he made a fatal mistake and she was murdered
by his oldest brother and enemy, Eryx. Phoenix soldiered through the next
century wrapped up in grief and guilt, his only outlet planning takedowns of
those who pledged their souls to Eryx. When one of his brothers brings Mariah
to Mephisto Mountain, he’s torn between his instinctive, powerful need to
pursue her, and his certainty that he can never have her.
Drawn into the world of the Mephisto, Mariah sees the pain
and misery Eryx unleashes on humanity, and the boxes in her mind begin to fly
open, one by one. All that keeps her from slipping off the edge is her
unlikely, sexually charged friendship with Phoenix. He’s incredibly screwed up;
she’s completely broken. It would take a miracle for them to find happiness.
Then Eryx brings the war for Hell to a whole new level, forcing Mariah and
Phoenix to make a choice that will bind them together for all eternity, or rip
them apart forever.
Author of the RITA winning Pink Files series, Stephanie
Feagan has had a love affair with romance novels since she was eleven and
discovered there are kissing scenes in Victoria Holt books. She spent a lot of
time in her closet with a flashlight, reading as fast as possible to get to the
end, only to start a new book and begin the whole Leave-Me-Alone-I’m-Reading
cycle all over again. She still stays up until the wee hours to finish books,
now courtesy of a lighted e-reader which she believes is mankind’s greatest
invention ever.
Stephanie also writes Young Adult and New Adult paranormal
romance as Trinity Faegen. A practicing CPA who loves travel, books, new
pencils, old keys, and smart guys, she lives in the oilfields of west Texas
with her engineer husband and a mean cat. She’d love to hear from you. She
answers to Stephanie, Trinity, Hey Lady, and Mom, and can be reached at Stephanie@StephanieFeagan.com or Trinity@TrinityFaegen.com
She’s aware the similarity between her pseudonym, Faegen,
and her real name, Feagan, confuses pretty much everyone, herself included.
Since so many mispronounce Feagan as FEEgan instead of FAYgan, she thought
she’d mix it up when she took a pseudonym and make it easier on people. Now
people say FayEEgen, and spell it wrong. Next time she takes a pen name, she’s
totally going with Smith or Jones.
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Thank you for having me here today, Kathryn! <3
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