Mark Henry

Guest Post by Mark Henry

Romance is the Devil’s Playground

So much of my first paranormal romance novel, Parts & Wreck, is vehemently anti-demon that I lose sight of the fact that I frickin’ love those evil buggers! In fact, some of my favorite parts are simply demons behaving badly.

I come from a family that was pretty open to me experiencing all genres from a very young age, so it wasn’t unheard of for my mother and I to roll up to a Saturday matinee and plop down our change for two tickets to The Omen or The Exorcist. I was, after all, a big reader by then and understood the difference between fact and fiction. I developed an appreciation for extremes: horror, elation, seizure-inducing belly laughter, any emotion that made people’s head spin. Which brings me back to the central premise of Parts & Wreck, demonic possession.

My version of possession is a little different in that it works almost exclusively as a result of our organ donor programs. A possessed person dies and the demon hibernates in the organs awaiting dispersement, like a cold, fleshy dirty bomb. My hero and heroine are tasked with repossessing these organs, a job which requires a gallows humor or else they’d go crazy(er).

I love a little comedy with my horror and so I bring you three options for getting up to speed with the snarky demons. They’re probably all on Netflix, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.

DEMONS is an Italian horror movie shot somewhere in Germany with a dubbed cast of eighties stereotypes. This movie is an hilarious gem, with a new wave soundtrack straight off of American Bandstand and some truly ridiculous plot devices. It expands on the idea of possession in an exponential way that influenced my ideas in Parts & Wreck, the demons spread like a virus, zombie-like. Watch it. Seriously.

While Juno seemed to be well-loved, due in no small part to Diablo Cody’s quick-witted dialogue, when her foray into demonic horror, JENNIFER’S BODY, came out it was quickly panned and for no good reason. It’s smart, gross, sexy and the dark snarkiness kept me rolling in the aisles.

When Angela throws a party, everyone wants to come, if by everyone you mean a whole bunch of people who don’t even know her. In NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, Angela is a fantastic demon possession, she’s vulgar and wickedly clever with her torments. She takes glee in the horror. There’s a character in PARTS & WRECK that owes a lot to her sinister wackiness.

Which brings us to IDLE HANDS. Possibly the most closely related to my premise that I can think of outside of an X-Files episode involving a transplanted tattoo, HANDS draws on the possibility of isolate bodily possession, the protagonist’s hands are literally the devil’s playground and do some pretty terrible things in the name of comedy. I watched this one recently and while it’s silly, it’s still pretty original in a sea of demonic copycats.

So there you have it. Some demonic inspiration for your Wednesday. Remember to pick up PARTS & WRECK for all your romantic demon excisions. Wade and Luce are a hilariously messed up hero and heroine and there might be male stripping…also sex. Did I mention the sex. There’s sex.

Parts and Wreck
Mark Henry



Entangled Covet


Genre: Paranormal Romance



Release Date: 11/25



Book Description:Possessed by desire… pursued by demons


Wade Crowson, a brutish and brooding playboy and veteran vivisectionist for the Parts Department, runs into more than he bargained for in new partner, Lucid Montgomery, a quirky beauty with a bizarre secret and a string of psychiatric diagnoses she tries hard to keep hidden.

Loving Luce will stamp a demonic target on her back and thrust Wade into a frenzied whirlwind of hilarious misunderstandings and, quite possibly, a stripping gig for emptynesters. Can they withstand the savagery of an exorcism (with or without the split pea soup) and come out alive and …in love?

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About the Author:

Mark Henry traded a career as a counselor to scar minds with his fiction. In stories clogged with sentient zombies, impotent sex demons, transsexual werewolves and ghostly goth girls, he irreverently processes traumatic issues brought on by premature exposure to horror movies, an unwholesome fetish for polyester and/or witnessing adult cocktail parties in the swingin' 70s. A developmental history further muddied by surviving earthquakes, typhoons, and two volcanic eruptions. He somehow continues to live and breathe in the oft maligned, yet not nearly as soggy as you’d think, Pacific Northwest, with his wife and four furry monsters that think they’re children and have a complete disregard for carpet.

Website: http://markhenry.us/

Blog: http://burlesqueofthedamned.blogspot.com/

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Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/848968

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