Guest Post & Giveaway: Heroes & Villains by Harper Kingsley

This is the third stop on the Heroes & Villains blog tour. I'm Harper Kingsley and I've always loved to write.

 I've written and published several full-length novels. I also have a few that I've tucked away far from the eyes of Men. Because I'm embarrassed by them. Because, like the One Ring, anyone that looks upon the manuscripts will fall for Galadriel and despair.

At the same time, I keep them safe in their prison because I made them and I can't help loving them. I fully plan to go back through someday and perform some serious edits and rewrites. There's stuff about those stories that I still love -- otherwise I would have just thrown them away -- but there's no way any other eyes but mine can see them in their current state. Still, I flip through them every few years just to see what's up and it's like meeting an old friend.

It's like finding your old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanfic. You love it because hey, they like pizza and they're ninjas and Splinter is their awesome rat sensei. Plus, the story is proof that even at eight years old you knew ninjas rocked and superheroes fighting bad guys was what the world needed. Even if they were giant turtles swinging dangerous weapons.

To me, writing Heroes & Villains was a big step. It marks a real turning point in the quality of my writing. I only have to unlock the vault and visit those manuscripts to see where I started. Heroes & Villains makes me proud of where I'm going and hopeful about where I'm going to end up.

Heroes & Villains is my yellow belt. Something clicked in my brain and the writing began to flow smoother than ever before. A superhero becomes a supervillain in love with a superhero. It's like the Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail. One Ring.

Vereint -- whether as Starburst or Darkstar or just himself -- represents the Ring to the people around him. Maybe it's an unconscious use of his metability or just his destiny, because nearly everyone wants to lay claim to him in some capacity. But he is, at heart, a loner. Never seeming lonely, before he meets Warrick he is usually alone. Afterward, he begins to fill out more as a three-dimensional character.

His shedding of the role of hero marks a turning point in his life. He embraces the idea of being the villain and he enjoys every minute of it. From taunting the superheroes to becoming an object of lust and idolization, he has fun playing the bad guy. Right up until things tip over to the strange and frightening.

The rise of the Darksters forces him to realize that being a supervillain doesn't necessarily mean being a bad guy. He is a criminal, but senseless anarchy is not a direction he wants to go.

He is like a ninja turtle fighting for truth, justice, and the last slice of pizza. Except he's an old school manga turtle and his sword is extra sharp and there is no parents' council to clean up all the violence.

Because at the end of the day he's not Starburst or Darkstar. He's not a deity to be worshipped or an idol to be emulated.

He's Vereint Georges, and he's human.

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I'm giving out an ebook copy of Heroes & Villains at the end of this blog tour. You can earn five entries by following the tour and answering the question after each post.

I'll be using Random.org to pick a winner the morning of August 19th.

Answer the question in the comments: Who is your favorite superhero and what is their power? (Any fandom is fine.)

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Heroes & Villains at Less Than Three Press.

 All Vereint ever wanted was to be a superhero, fight alongside the other great heroes of the city and beat down the villains that plague them. There's just one problem: he sucks at it, at least according to the other heroes and the majority of the city. Instead of the greatness and glory of which he dreamed, Vereint spends his days alone, exhausted, and depressed. When the mockery and derision finally go too far, Vereint decides he's reached his limit. If he's never going to be good enough to succeed as the hero Starburst, maybe it's time to try the role of villain instead … 

 You can find Harper Kingsley at her blog, on Twitter, and at Goodreads.