The Sexy Seven Supernaturals by Luki Belle

  

The Sexy Seven Supernaturals

by Luki Belle 

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GENRE:   Fiction - Short Stories, Fantasy, Paranormal, Erotica 

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BLURB: 

Seven haunting tales of women, young female adults, and an adolescent girl whose lives change irreversibly because of entities who come into the lives of these female protagonists, mysteriously, invited by yearnings and distresses that exist in these women and girls -

1) The Photo and the Letter: Larissa, a heartbroken young woman, finds a captivating photo of an elderly friend and becomes compelled to discover more about the bitterly written letter addressed to the elderly woman, who had a fascinating past.

2) Strength of Feathers: Vanessa, an orphan, who struggled her entire life to survive and achieve professional success, decides one night to overcome her fear of heights and her reluctance to be spontaneous when she meets an enigmatic, wealthy woman who has ulterior motives.3) The Aunt: Anika, a teenage girl, and niece of a notable and authoritative commander of her nation’s army, finds herself in a precarious situation when at a bloody crossroads of her nation’s history, she falls for a young, ambitious, and ruthless military man from a long-rival country, who is about to take over rulership of Anika’s government and her uncle’s army.

4) Ravenous: Sabrina, a young adult, daughter of a coal miner, is forced to leave her hometown with her father and siblings. Her family is taken in by a kind doctor who has mixed intentions for helping the homeless father and his three children.

5) The Bride’s Matchmaker: Mylakena, a young rural woman, comes to live in a dynamic, metropolitan city with her uncle when she falls for two handsome, rich, and athletic young city men and realizes that her innocent infatuation has severe consequences.

6) The Picture Ghost: Elsa, a young adult daughter of a farmer, starts attending college far away from her hometown. Her poor grades lead her to a professor whose art collection draws Elsa uncomfortably close to an enigmatic stranger from the past.

7) The Old Willow Tree: Helen, a highly successful businesswoman, retires in a foreign country where, while searching for a permanent home with a garden, she falls in love with a stunning willow tree on a property that she desperately wants to buy. 

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EXCERPT 

1) The Photo and the Letter 

“My dear, you have broken my heart in so many pieces that I feel like I live now without one, yet, feeling the pain of it being torn to shreds. It is that pain with which I must now live for the rest of my life. How could you betray me? When I gave my everything to you and loved you like my own flesh and blood! My soul and harmony, I found nectar in your essence and to think that you would do such a cruel deed to me makes me want to tear my flesh so that I strip myself of pain forever, the pain of watching you in bed with my very own brother! I damn you! I damn you for the rest of your life! And I curse my brother for betraying me with you! Know this now my dearest, beloved wife, I will leave you both to your damnation of cheating against me! You will never see me again until the day I will return when I die, to take what belongs to me from you! Frederick” 

2) Strength of Feathers 

“You also own this place?” Vanessa asked nervously while sitting down across from Eliza instead of beside her as she was asked to do by the lady.

 Eliza smiled “Okay let’s get it out of the way once and for all! I own this entire building and everything in it, though not everyone but all the businesses. There! Can we talk plainly now?”

 “We could unless there is more to show me about how rich you are!” Vanessa snapped and gulped down the entire champagne putting down the glass with a hint of temper.

 “Is there something wrong my dear?” Eliza said while gently touching Vanessa’s hand.

 Vanessa exhaled in a frustrated way “Look Lady Eliza...I...I...” the champagne was rushing to her head on her empty stomach “...I am not going to sleep with you okay! I...I...”

 But before she could finish Eliza began laughing hysterically in a shrill voice letting her head jerk back from the amusement. 

3) The Aunt 

As a child, Krem had heard rumours about his aunt, through gossip between his mother and her sisters. They talked about Zaylinar having been raised by a sisterhood in the northwestern desert that bordered Xenia and that his aunt was sent away because she was rebellious in nature as a child. She was returned to her family only when she had been sufficiently tamed. Then, her father, the Head Counsel of the Republic at the time, offered his daughter to the Minister’s son Ruhr. Both fathers had quickly blessed and sealed the engagement. Growing up, Krem had become emotionally attached to stories of his mysterious aunt whom he did not see until he was an adolescent. On the day when Zaylinar came to meet the young boy, the stories became very much alive in the teenager’s mind. The lad felt his very first pangs of love and physical desire for his aunt. Feelings that magnified over time, without subduing. Yet the enigmatic woman shunned her nephew’s affections telling him that he could never be like Ruhr and that the only way she would ever have him would be if he proved himself to her.

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Comparing and contrasting the three career women’s characteristics and the circumstances that led to their fate in three of the stories - Larissa in The Photo and the Letter, Vanessa in The Strength of Feathers, and Helen in The Old Willow Tree. 

Response: All three women are equally ambitious and successful in their careers, and each have passive yearnings that create an undercurrent of distress in each of them that then leads to their eventual fate.

Larissa longs for everlasting love, Vanessa wishes for financial freedom without any strings attached, Helen longs for a beautiful house of her own with a willow tree on the property.

Interestingly neither of these women realize their underlying motivation and they mistake their surface-level conscious yearnings for something that it is not.

Larissa actually seeks passion and thrill with the steadfastness of a partner which she unconsciously enjoys through her elderly friend Sasha.

Vanessa actually seeks to have the courage to be spontaneous enough to explore unknown realms which she unconsciously clings to in the bold and adventurous attributes of her boss Charles and coworker Samantha, and in her past relationships with both women and men.

Helen actually seeks a constant challenge that will give her an opportunity to acquire something through cunning and manipulation, the tougher the situation to obtain that thing, the more interesting the prospect becomes for her.

The conscious and unconscious yearnings in Larissa lead to the distress of abandonment which Larissa experiences when she loses both Joshua and Sasha. Abandonment invites the paranormal experiences into Larissa’s life which then ties her to the ultimate fate at the end of the story, The Photo and the Letter.

The conscious and unconscious yearnings in Vanessa created a continual undercurrent of distress that is the feeling of helplessness. She is an orphan and had to struggle throughout her life, especially when she was moved from one foster home to another as a child. The upscale and exotic new corporate building where Vanessa’s company moved to at the beginning of the story stirs in Vanessa the silent courage to overcome her helplessness; the untethered exotic birds in the corporate building’s lobby and the grand architecture of the building quickly trigger a silent support structure in her without her realizing it. She at once feels figuratively untethered to her present life circumstances while being surrounded by a bold and solid environment and foundation. This leads her to take that spontaneous step during her first day at the office building when her unconscious desire to overcome helplessness invites the supernatural entity into her life which then determines her ultimate fate in the story The Strength of Feathers.

Interestingly for Helen she had several opportunities to avoid her tragic fate, unlike the above two women. Helen’s conscious and unconscious yearnings led her to feel purposeless even though she chose to go into retirement after having much professional success and after years of hard work and hectic schedules. She was cautioned twice by people about not pursuing her obsession to acquire a property with a beautiful willow tree. Helen invited the supernatural entity into her life willingly. Even moments before she was bound to her destiny she was warned. Yet she did not heed any of those words and feelings of caution, in the story The Old Willow Tree.

It will therefore be obvious to the reader that Helen could have prevented her fate but what about Larissa and Vanessa? Could they have prevented theirs? The reader will be left to wonder how so. Another thing, while Helen and Vanessa’s destinies are irreversible, Larissa’s may not be, I ask the reader to pay close attention to really ask what Larissa’s condition may truly be :) Enjoy the analysis! 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

Luki Belle works in the media industry. Storytelling was a fixture from childhood when she would listen to stories told by her grandparents, parents, sisters, and cousins, who would read to her from diverse cultural fiction books. Scary and ghost stories in particular, captured Luki as a child and led to her fascination with the concept of feeling haunted or being haunted by something or someone, whether desirably or uninvited. In the Sexy Seven Supernaturals, Luki explores the amalgamation between the psychological and the paranormal, enabled by the human mind through its power to imagine, visualize, and yearn. The female characters in this book each have strong or subtle conscious desires created or triggered by subconscious or unconscious distresses, leading each of them to unexpected fates.

Websites

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Amazon.com: The Sexy Seven Supernaturals: Paranormal & Dark Short Stories for Adults: 9781662939358: Belle, Luki: Books

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