Friday Feature, Guest Post & Giveaway: Single White Incubus by E. J. Russell

Jason (No Not That Jason)

I keep a list of all the names I’ve used for the main and major secondary characters in each of my books, along with the series they appear in, so I don’t re-use significant names, or have two important characters in the same series with names that begin with the same letter. However, I don’t keep track of the names I throw at walk-ons—“utility” characters who are just there to fulfill a function and then disappear offstage.

The reason I don’t need to keep track is that they’re usually the same.

Jason.

In Single White Incubus, Jason is a limo driver in Portland. In Tested in Fire, he’s an artist’s model in Sarasota. In “Monster Till Midnight,” an upcoming Halloween short story, he’s an insensitive, practical joke-playing ex in an unnamed city.

Clearly, Jason gets around.

I use Jason as a fill-in “utility” name because I’ll never use it for one of my main characters. This isn’t because Jason isn’t a perfectly nice name. In fact, it’s such a nice name that it was everywhere for a while. Jason was one of the most popular names for people born in the decade after me—so I didn’t have any Jasons as contemporaries in school, but they were the kids my friends babysat, or the children of my parents’ younger acquaintances.

As a result, I think of Jasons as being omnipresent—you never know where you’ll run into one. Jasons pop up in the periphery of my books because they popped up in the periphery my life.

The Social Security Administration runs a website that shows the 200 most popular male and female names by decade. I use it quite a bit, especially for older characters. You can check it out here:

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/

The difference between the #1 name and #10 in any given year can be quite startling. For instance, the #1 male name in the 1950s—James—was bestowed on 843,489 unsuspecting baby boys. The #11 name in that same decade—Steven—had only 333,520 hits. Still significant, but less than half of the most popular name.

I think names may show up in geographical pockets, too—Jasons abounded in in Orange County in the half-generation after mine, but they might not have cut such a wide swath in Birmingham or Houston or Honolulu.

As another example, my town apparently hosted a coven of Steves and Terrys. In my eighth grade math class, which probably had about thirty students, there were five boys named Steve. There were also four girls—and one boy—named Terry (with various spellings: Teri, Terri, Terry).

By contrast, I was the only Ellen in my schools for my entire K-12 career, with the exception of

my freshman year in high school, when there was a senior Ellen as well.

The plethora of Steves, Terrys, and Jasons always reminded me of one of the stories in Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches and Other Stories—“Too Many Daves.” It’s a very brief story, but it stuck in my mind as a child.

In this story, Mrs. McCave is the mother of twenty-three sons, all of whom she names Dave—and thereafter lives to regret it. Here’s a link to a YouTube rendition of the story, if you’re interested (it’s quite short, less than two minutes):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpNndX7yo8g

Setting aside the fact that Mrs. McCave had twenty-three sons in the first place—her grocery bill when they were teenagers must have rivaled the GDP—and that they all look exactly alike and are roughly the same size, I was always charmed by the alternative names that she wishes she’d given her kids. You’ll note that there’s not a Steve, Jason, or Terry in the lot.

And now that I’ve read/listened to it again, I’ll have a hard time resisting naming my next utility character Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate.

At least he’d be memorable—although I doubt he’d ever show up on Social Security’s Most Popular list.

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Title: Single White Incubus by E. J. Russell
Supernatural Selection Series Book One
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Genre: Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Comedy, Gay, Romance
Length: 321 pages/Word Count: 82,000

Summary:

Does a bear shift in the woods?

Well, partially. That was what got grizzly shifter Ted Farnsworth into trouble. He wasn’t trying to break the Secrecy Pact. He just wants people to see the real him. So he signs up with the mate-matching service Supernatural Selection — which guarantees marriage to a perfect partner. Not only will Ted never be lonely again, but once his new beaver shifter husband arrives, they’ll build Ted’s dream wilderness retreat together. Win-win.

Quentin Bertrand-Harrington, scion of an incubus dynasty, has abstained from sex since nearly killing his last lover. When his family declares it’s time for him to marry, Quentin decides the only way not to murder his partner is to pick someone who’s already dead. Supernatural Selection finds him the ideal vampire, and Quentin signs the marriage agreement sight unseen.

But a mix-up at Supernatural Selection contracts Quentin with Ted. What’s Ted supposed to do with an art historian who knows more about salad forks than screwdrivers? And how can Quentin resist Ted’s mouthwatering life force? Yet as they work together to untangle their inconvenient union, they begin to wonder if their unexpected match might be perfect after all.

Add to Goodreads.
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Purchase Link: Riptide Publishing

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About Supernatural Selection

Are you a shifter who’s lost faith in fated mates? A vampire seeking a Second Life companion? Or perhaps you’re a demon yearning to claim a soul (mate)?

Congratulations! Your search is over!

Welcome to Supernatural Selection, where our foolproof spells guarantee your perfect match.

Until they don’t.

Check out Supernatural Selection today.

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Author Bio

E.J. Russell—certified geek, mother of three, recovering actor—holds a BA and an MFA in theater, so naturally she’s spent the last three decades as a financial manager, database designer, and business intelligence consultant (as one does). She’s recently abandoned data wrangling, however, and spends her days wrestling words.

E.J. is married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, C.H. loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).

E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.

Author Links: Website * Newsletter * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads * Amazon * BookBub

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Giveaway

To celebrate the release of Single White Incubus one lucky person will win a $25 Riptide Publishing gift card and an ecopy of Cutie and the Beast, the first title in the Fae Out of Water series! Leave a comment with your contact info to enter the contest. Entries close at midnight, Eastern time, on October 27, 2018. Contest is NOT restricted to U.S. entries. Thanks for following the tour, and don’t forget to leave your contact info!