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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

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Tag Archives: Vampire

What Do You Do With Forever On Your Hands? by Victoria L. Szulc

24 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Being Human, Blade, Eternal life, Twilight, Vampire, Victoria L. Szulc, What we do in the Shadows


For her guest post, Victoria is looking at eternal life – the problems that come with it. She comes up with some interesting thoughts, though in all her discussion of stories where ‘vampires living normal lives’, she seems to have forgotten Being Human 🙂

A Wry Look a Living an Undead Life

In my own vamp series, one of my characters asks his hundreds year old friend a similar question. What do you do with too much time on your hands? Vampires, if managing to avoid the standard stake in the heart, incredible sunburn, or beheading, can live incredibly long lives. These situations make good storylines for writers of the undead.Victoria L. Szulc

Holding on to History

Can you imagine how much history a vampire has witnessed, let’s say, since the Dark Ages? Perhaps since 1200? The rise and fall of kingdoms, eras, and nations could be daunting. Is there temptation to get to involved in changing the natural course of evolution? To start or stop wars?

Witnessing the advances in energy, from horse power to steam, electricity, gas, and solar power, which they probably wouldn’t want to use, has to be challenging. Accidentally leaving a window open and having sunlight reflect off a mirror could be a last day on earth for an undead.

What about technology? Transportation for one, having to adapt from riding horses to driving cars, or heaven forbid having to use public transit? How do you not want to eat your fellow passengers? Booking only night flights could be a real challenge.

And communications? Maybe you’d pine for the days of the telegram, where if someone wanted to reach you, they’d have to go a few miles into the largest town to send you a message. Now you dread your phone blowing up from telemarketers. Would smart phones be able to read your fingerprints?

How would one handle the basic needs? How do you feed? How do you eat? In the old days, if you were wealthy, you could sleep in your castle all day, have one of your servants pick out a lovely farm girl or fat peasant for dinner. I suppose in today’s world, you could do it gangsta style and just pick off random people at night. Or be the ultimate undead superhero like Blade, and only take out the bad guys.

Just running a flat with undead roommates could be too much to bear. In the comedy “What We Do in the Shadows”, the vampires have a bit of a scuffle which causes the police to arrive. You can see them sweating it out, quite humorously, as the officers check the apartment for a “funny smell” and noise disturbances.

And just how do the kids of Twilight just keep changing schools? Eternal education has to suck.

thumbnail3Making a Living at Being Undead

Let’s say you’re a phenomenally good looking vampire. Changed at a young age and hotter than hell. It’s certain to bring you lots of opportunities, but also recognition. Perhaps a little too much attention?

In the indie film “Only Lovers Left Alive”, Adam is a hip vampire musician hiding out in the worst neighborhood in Detroit. When his music is released in an underground club without permission, word leaks out where he leaves, and fans start showing up and ringing his bell. You can see his panic as he realizes he might have to move.

So what kind of profession would best suit a vampire? Anything in a medicinal environment with easy access to blood would be ideal. If you worked in a hospice facility, you could be an angel of death and not feel so guilty about sending someone home a little early, especially if they were suffering. You’d probably want to steer clear of saw mills and any woodworking facilities.

Then again, you could be a nightclub owner, just making sure to keep the patrons from becoming too rowdy and getting everyone out before dawn so you could make it home before sunrise.

Which brings us to…

Eternally Yours

Or not? The amount of exes for a vampire could be massive. The world is a smaller place now and the chances of running into an undead former flame are pretty good unless you agreed to divide up the world into territories.

What about permanently partnered? How do you keep those home fires burning without killing each other?

And what about new love? Heaven forbid, you’re a really lovely lady that has been fancied for centuries. There’s a steady stream of blood daddies perhaps, put under fantastic spells while you feed. But won’t they eventually go to their physician and get diagnosed with a mysterious anemia?

Maybe you’d mastered the art of getting a lady out of a corset long ago, using your fangs no less. And you are absolutely thrilled that they are back in style. You are way better in the sack than Lestat and Louie combined. But now you have no clue how to remove one of those new criss-cross halter leather brassieres. Or being asked to wear a condom? You hadn’t gotten anyone in the “family way” since 1220, when you were still human. Is vampire sperm still viable?

Perhaps love isn’t for the undead. Or maybe, like Dracula, you’re able to find that one human that “you’ve crossed oceans of time to find”. Now that’s someone you could really sink your teeth into.

Victoria L. Szulc is a multi-media sci-fi/steampunk artist/writer who regularly displays her work at 1900 Park Creative Space in the historic Victorian neighborhood of Lafayette Square in St. Louis, MO. Her first Steampunk art installation was there in June 2014. She spearheaded and curated the first Steampunk Broken Hearts Ball Masquerade and Art Show in St. Louis and directed the first Steampunk Fashion Show at the Big River Steampunk Festival Masquerade in Hannibal, MO in 2017. Victoria’s third steampunk novel, “A Long Reign” was in competition for the 2017 Amazon UK Storytellers contest and was an Amazon/kindle bestseller, reaching number 7 in Time Travel and number 9 in Steampunk on the Amazon bestsellers lists. Volume 11 of the Vampire’s Little Black Book Series is set for release March 31, 2018. Victoria is currently working on the third part of the Society Trilogy, “Lafayette to London”. This new book and related visual works are scheduled for release in June 2018.

[Vampire Month] Victoria L. Szulc interview

18 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Blade, C.S Lewis, Dracula, Lestat, Selene, St Louis, Steampunk, Underworld, Vampire, Victoria L. Szulc


Victoria L. SzulcSo, as we move into the third week of March, we get to our third Vampire month victim. This week we have Victoria L. Szulc, author of The First Ten Bites. After her interview today, she will tell us all about her hints and tips for how to live forever…

  • What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

 

I remember telling a lot of stories, when I was about five or six years old, about a girl (who later became a princess) and her animals to my best neighborhood friends. I had a pretty wild imagination. I starting cartooning them, all over my school folders, scraps of paper, and whatever else I could find.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

In my twenties, I started writing professionally as part of advertising, marketing, and creative jobs. I was already an artist and writing became another tool in my arsenal of creativity. By the time I reached forty, I realized I had a lot of stories to share that weren’t covered in my visual art.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

The greatest strength, without a doubt is imagination. I have some crazy storylines and plot twists that I just rejoice over. I love hearing readers’ reactions to them. Weakness? I swear I have ADD creativity. Sometimes I’m working on a project and the wrong muse comes calling, like the need to draw, or other stories in the planning stages. I almost hate when I’ve got a storyline ready for a character and realize that it belongs in a totally different story.

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, USA which is almost dead center of the U.S. I write a lot of Steampunk as well, and during the Victorian/American Guilded Age, St. Louis was the third largest city in the country. Fortunately, unlike a lot of American cities, many of those historic homes, parks, and areas remain here. I’m definitely inspired by the architecture and my hometown history.

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

I’d have to say, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis. I started reading the series when I about ten years old. I was captivated by these children and their adventures. Oh and Turkish Delight. I always wondered what the heck it was and wanted to try it.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I was working for a Halloween/costume shop part-time to make extra money. Steampunk was just beginning to take hold as a genre and I used to chat with one of my coworkers about characters I was developing. I thought about bringing in a vampire. An undead who, despite living a long time, was struggling with human realities. “What do you do when you have forever on your hands?” William, the vampire, eventually became his own series of short stories.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

 

I think the idea of living forever, having great strength, and power is very appealing. Sometimes in a negative light. So much so that people that “suck away” anything from you, emotionally, physically, are called “vampires” in modern slang.

On a positive side, it’s very erotic. The idea of being with a lover for eternity. There’s a ton of psychological sexual nuances. Being “punctured”, feeding off someone, the ability to change forms to please and attract someone else. That’s a lot of fodder for fantasy and stories!

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

Good question and hard to answer. I know that Blade is more of a comic than literary character, but he is bad ass. Then again, you have Dracula, the oldest and the one who started it all.

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

I’m going to separate male and female if that’s okay? Lestat (Ann Rice) has just been incredible. Fragile but classically handsome. I think it’s his human qualities that make him sexy. And again, not from literature, but Selene from the Underworld series is incredibly beautiful and deadly. Strong and smart is very sexy to me.

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

I have vampire who is a trained assassin in the undead world, Anna. She knows vampire history and is fully educated on living in the modern world. She has a reputation, but is brilliant at disguising herself. She could be a housewife, a CEO, or a club kid. I think she could be the last man (woman) standing.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

“I Died Here”, v.11 from my “Vampire’s Little Black Book” short series is about William, my main character, and how he finally handles an old enemy, Stephen. But in this conflict, he is both in love with a human woman, Caroline, and Anna, a vampire assassin he’d sired long ago. Everyone is caught in the crossfire, as Stephen is bent on revenge in any form he can get against Will. Will is torn between his new love and Anna, who has since moved on to a human lover of her own. There’s underlying themes of death, resurrection, and how we handle or don’t come to terms with life events. The first ten shorts of this series were about Will’s naughty and turbulent past and how he’s tried to change. These were compiled into “The First Ten Bites”. Without giving too much away, the next ten stories continue to explore that past but focus on Will’s rediscovered anger after losing so much. I haven’t set the release date, but it should be before the end of March. It’s been fun to write about Will again. It’s been almost three years since I’ve had a chance to put out new vampire material.

Social Media Links:

Blog: https://mysteampunkproject.wordpress.com

Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/victorial.szulc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MySteampunkProject

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/thecountesssp

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steampunkcountess/

Tumblr: https://thesteampunkcountess.tumblr.com

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheHauteHen

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC98VXA1LQVGE-_rqLV6XLdQ?view_as=subscriber

[Vampire Month] The Epic World of Cedron by Richard Writhen

16 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Cedron, Epic Worlds, Richard Writhen, Vampire, Vampire Month, worldbuilding


For Richard’s second post for Vampire Month, he has given permission for us to reprint this blog from Our Epic World where he discusses his world building…

DevonDrake

18175732_10155261580879138_1775785634_o“Two petty mercenaries are falsely accused of switching sides in a feud between two rich and powerful magnates; an ex-miner on the run from a murder charge becomes a reaver and embroiled in a romance; an industrial lieutenant is recruited to help capture a serial killer and an entire city is in danger of being ensorcelled by an ancient monk.”

What makes your world special or different?

Nothing, really. Most fantasy worlds are amalgams of stuff from IRL, popular culture, other fantasy worlds. The approach and execution are what may be different … how certain aspects are handled, their prominence, etcetera.

How does your main character fit into this world?

I don’t have any single protagonist. I use the Stephen King / H.P. Lovecraft / Joe Abercrombie style of integration where the characters all think that they are the “main” character of the story, much like IRL. It improves the…

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[Vampire Month] Richard Writhen interview

13 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Angel of the Grave, Blade, Dracula, Fantasy, Gothdark, Grimdark, Hiss of the Blade, Lina Romay, Lost Boys, Lovecraft, Richard Writhen, Twilight saga, Underworld, Vampire, Vampire Month, Vampirella


 

Richard Writhen selfieOur second Vampire month victim is Richard Writhen, the author of three novellas on Amazon KDP: A Kicked Cur, A Host of Ills and The Hiss Of The Blade. His fourth novella, Angel of the Grave, is currently being written.  Richard comes to us all the way from New England and will be talking to us about his world building in his blog post later this week.

1)     What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I had read a lot of early Stephen King and Clive Barker, Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, The Lord of the Rings, as well as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, in the late eighties and when I was about twelve I tried writing a few cute little stories and comics which are thankfully lost in the abysses of time or whatever. I also had two letters published in the Gladstone / EC Comics reprints of the early nineties.

 

2)      When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

In truly characteristic fashion, I had always toyed with the idea yet procrastinated, but a confluence of events made me become serious after I turned thirty-six. I had been working as a copy-editor for about four years, I was reading the King James Version of the Bible, and I came across an ad looking for blog contributions. And I was like, sure let’s give it a go. A couple months later I felt that I wanted to segue into fiction, so I pitched the idea of a serial to the website’s owner and he was interested. The work later became my first novella and I’ve been serious about writing ever since.

 

3)      What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My greatest strength as of now is the internal continuity. I have some pretty detailed notes, though as I get older it may become harder to keep it straight; however, they have specific assistants and editors for that nowadays if I ever find success. My greatest weakness is world building / exposition, but that’s the thorn in the side of every writer, really. It can only be overcome through constant practice, as far as I know; writing more books. It’s very difficult to avoid the info dumps and have unobtrusive exposition, one of the most difficult writing skills. The greatest authors make it either fun somehow or almost invisible, seamless; simply part of the prose that the reader almost sub-consciously absorbs.

 

4)      Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I am from Newport, RI, USA. I also lived in NYC for several years. Everywhere I go influences how I depict fictional locations, be it Providence, RI, Long Island, NY, even places where I spent a lot of time in my youth such as Seekonk, MA affect my sense of place and I try to convey that in my fantasy settings. Street names, names on historical buildings … as a matter of fact, I got many names for the first two books in the Celestial Ways Saga from local gravestones, I would just change a few letters.

 

5)      Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

My greatest? The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. H.P. Lovecraft’s masterpiece, unpublished in his lifetime and left to turn yellow in a drawer somewhere. His depiction of magic is exactly what I’m trying to convey. Its sense of history and antiquity and the manner in which it gives the city of Providence, RI its own personality. That’s another one of my goals with the novellas, to assign a real sense of place to the dark fantasy settings.

 

6)      What drove you to write about Vampires?

I’ve always been a fan of vampire lore. I was quite taken with the Interview with the Vampire Movie, I saw it when I was in college. My first love was Lost Boys, though. I wanted to see it original run but I was still well underage, so when I finally caught it a few years later on HBO or whatever, I was floored. I also like Underworld saga, Let The Right One In, Twilight Saga, Vampire Academy Series, Blade Trilogy and more.

 

7)      What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

My theory for the past several years has been that the werewolf legends represent man’s struggle with his own animality, and the vampire legends represent mankind’s self-victimization, i.e. man victimizing his fellow man. A lot of what is successful as art and / or entertainment has subconscious roots in age-old social and psychological rhetorical or unanswered questions about the human condition. That’s why it’s never-ending …

 

8)      In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Well, Lestat and Dracula are two of the most powerful vampires of fiction. I’d be hard pressed to figure out which one of them is stronger. David from Lost Boys is pretty awesome; Eli from Let the Right One In as well. A lot of the vampires from Blade trilogy are also very epic.

 

9)      What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Sexiness? Fashion sense? Prolly Vampirella for both. After her, maybe the trio of female vampires in Francis Ford Coppolla’s Dracula. And of course, I must mention Lina Romay in Female Vampire by Jess Franco, may she rest in peace.

 

10)   How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

My vampire angle is as yet undeveloped. There’s a nation of vampires, Drackhon, that has fought wars in the past with the denizens of Khlarion, on the continent of Holrud. The vampires’ society and all of that will be revealed further in books to come. So my strongest vampire as of now is probably Debarah, one of the protagonists of A Kicked Cur. He has grotesque physical strength, almost like Edward Cullen from Twilight Saga, so I think he would certainly survive a fight with the likes of Dracula and Lestat, but overcoming them …? IDK about all that.

 

11)   Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

My latest work is my third novella. It’s called The Hiss of the Blade, and it’s a bleak treatise on the manner in which those in my gothdark world called Cedron first live and then die by the sword. Mercenaries, fled slaves, agriculture and mining magnates, every man is out for himself and much like our real world, the center can’t hold and people wind up dying … or worse.

[Vampire Month] Alicia Wright interview.

05 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Interview, Vampire Month

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Alicia L. Wright, Dracula, Enchanted Forest, Fairy tales, Fairytales, Patricia C. Wrede, Vampire, Vampire Month, Vampires don't belong in fairytales


Alicia Wright Vampire authorSo, the first victim of the Vampire interrogator in 2018 (by dint of the fact she got her responses back to me within 48 hours of getting the invite) is Alicia Wright, author of the Vampires Don’t Belong in Fairytales series.

Later this week, she will talk about some of her research into fairy tales – the Fairytale kisses that never happened – but first she has to endure the torture of the infamous interview questions…

1)      What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

My earliest memory about writing is writing a story in primary school. I wrote 2 sides of A4 about myself having an adventure with my many, many imaginary friends.

2)      When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I’d always wanted to be an author, ever since I was about 8 years old. I had it in my head that one day I would write a book and try to get it published. I finally sat down to do that when I was 19, and it was because I’d just quit after my first semester at university. I just wasn’t ready for university at the time. So I thought ‘What now?’ and it seemed like the right time to get on with it.  I didn’t finish a manuscript until November 2007, when I was taking a forced gap year from my second time at university and I discovered NaNoWriMo.

3)      What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

I had great trouble with my manuscripts until that first full manuscript in 2007, when I tried writing comic fantasy for the first time.  Until then, whenever I read back my manuscripts, they just weren’t good enough, they didn’t sparkle, there was something missing. Humour was that missing element that let me find my writing niche. Comedy has always been my thing, the majority of the things I read and watch have always been comedy-based.

My weakness is action scenes. I always seem to hurry over them and they’re too short. I cope by re-reading them and seeing what I can do to improve them, and my beta readers tend to point out to me if my action scenes are too short.
4)      Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I live in Newton-le-Willows now (10 years after starting a book about a girl who moves to Newton-le-Willows…) but I grew up in Lowton.  Most of my inspiration comes from my travels over the years. I’ve been to Iceland, Japan, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Greece and Poland, usually for study or volunteer work, and other countries and cultures always leave an impression on me, as do the people I’ve met there. You meet the most extraordinary people abroad, and that certainly shows in my writing, such as my quarter-Japanese Icelandic snow woman. I never actually base characters on anyone I know as that would make them awkward to write for me, but I might use a tiny piece of their background as inspiration. I also like to take photos of scenery so I can use them as inspiration for descriptions and comic backgrounds.

5)      Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

Patricia C Wrede Enchanted ForestThere is no single book, but my earliest influence was Patricia C. Wrede’s The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. I picked up Dragonsbane when I was 11 and it was this book that taught me a woman could be a king. It was this book that pointed out to me how silly fairy tales are and how much fun it is to poke fun at them. A few years later, I discovered the Discworld series and from when I was 14 until there were no more Discworld novels I always got the new one for my birthday. I think anyone who reads my work can tell it has also been a big influence on my writing.

 

6)      What drove you to write about Vampires?

I do believe, and this is going to sound weird, that I write vampire fiction because I don’t like most of it. I love vampires as a subject, but even though I am happy to read about other people’s interpretations and I always find them interesting, I’m incredibly picky about what I find satisfying.  If they are just monsters or if they are too brooding or dark I find it hard to get too invested, but if they’re too silly – I know that’s rich coming from me – I find that too far the other way. Not that I object, I am always very clear that everyone is entitled to their own vision of folklore and that if we all write using the same template then stories will stagnate.
I did not intend for Miss Prince to be about vampires as such. Johann was meant to be a minor character and then he – and his entire family – went on to hijack not only that story but the entire series! Part of what took me in that direction was actually that Twilight was at the height of its popularity and much as I am not a fan, as I said above, Stephanie Meyer has and had every right to write vampires however she wanted. I saw it as a sort of parallel of the boxes we all try to put ourselves and each other in, how society wants those in a box to act a certain way, and woe betide you if you don’t. I don’t think that’s right, in fiction or real life. No-one belongs in a box.

7)      What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

I think it’s because they are such a human sort of monster. There are so many directions you can take that. Are they a gleeful predator, who views humans as talking sheep? Are they the reluctant monster, consumed by their sins? Bit of both?  Something else entirely, a cloud cuckoolander, a grim overlord? A soulless, shuffling corpse doesn’t make for great character development, but that has its merits too.

And then there’s the blood thing. We’re pretty fascinated by blood and unlike getting your brain eaten, you can survive losing some blood. You can also link it to sex if you want to. And people do. Because if you CAN link something to sex people will. So there’s all sorts of other avenues to explore than ‘is the scary thing going to kill me’. Again, I think it’s to do with the sheer variety of directions you can go.

8)      In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

I have to say, it’s got to be Dracula, hasn’t it? Of all the classical literature vampires, he has the most powers and he’s the most iconic and he’s been the template for vampires since 1897.

9)      What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Best Vampire in General AND Best Alternate Form awards must go to Carmilla. She gets up at noon, drinks hot chocolate, sleeps with anti-vampire charms under her pillow and her animal form is a panther. Come on, people. Vampires don't belong in Fairyland Alicia L. Wright

10)   How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Oh dear, that’s quite a complicated question. Many of my vampires and my other characters would struggle with Dracula, but anyone with strong magical skills like Contessa or Tyrian could just turn him into a squirrel or something. My ONE vampire hunter would manage if he had a decent plan and back up.
Carmilla isn’t as much of a threat, and she would inspire pity and an offer of aid rather than aggression. She’d be up to her ears in vampire medicine, psychological help and possibly even a donor or two, although she’d have to be put under house arrest for her crimes.

11)   Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

The latest one is Vampires Don’t Belong in Fairyland. It’s about Fairyland collapsing into civil war, which I promise is funnier than it sounds. Fairyland is split into three Realms, with three countries, all with their own set of royals, but they all consider themselves one country and family. But you know what families are like. Kids squabble over the silliest things, usually toys, only with royals the toy they’re fighting over is the entire country and the resulting tantrum and girly slap fight is replaced by everyone hiring assassins.
So out of all the Fairyland royals we have only two left standing – Queen Regent Lir and King Tyrian. Tyrian has a problem other than his cousin is trying to nick his crown and possibly kill him, and that is the fact that he’s a king. In fairytales, whenever kings try to do anything remotely adventurous they tend to die, so there’s no chance he can save the country by himself. He’s going to need help, and the traditional thing to do is to find a prince to do the adventuring for you. We might just have one knocking about…

Bio:

Alicia L. Wright is a YA comic fantasy author from Lancashire in the North West of England.

She studied both art and graphic design in high school and college, where she was told to stop drawing dragons and fairies. She didn’t listen. She also went to university, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

She writes books about fairies, vampires and other nerd things, playing with tropes and drawing a webcomic – poorly.

Amazon  Facebook  Goodreads  deviantART Twitter

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] From the dust…

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

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Alicia L. Wright, Comic fantasy, Vampire, Vampire Month


And so it begins… Another year, another Vampire month and another great set of authors to entertain you with their thoughts.gothic vampire blood

We are kicking off this year with Alicia L. Wright, an artist and writer of comic fiction about Vampires and Fairies. She starts to entertain us on Monday with her interview questions then her blog later in the week.

She is followed by three other wonderful writers who will each face the Vampire month interrogation and give us their thoughts on a topic of their choice.

Stay tuned and watch out for garlic, sunlight and crucifixes!

 

 

 

[Vampire Month] The sun rises

31 Friday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Ann Rice, Gods of the Deep, Photography, Rachel Caine, Transitions, Vampire


Gods of the DeepWell, it has been a more erratic Vampire month than usual this year, scheduling hiccups and my time being eaten up by that vampire that is work. However, despite all that we managed to pull it off and release a limited Vampire month line up on time. I hope you enjoyed this year’s offerings and come back next year to see what we have in store for you then.

As a photographer I have obviously been exploring vampires quite a bit recently and I intend to keep up that interest. There is also the possibility that I might be thinking about looking at Vampires in fiction. If I get a good idea for a story involving vampires I may delve into it and see what comes out. I do feel that Helen, my hero from Transitions and Transformations, is overdue an encounter with a blood sucking fiend of the night. After all, she has bested the ghost of a Roman soldier and been almost seduced by a shapeshifting Fey so how will she cope with a charming older being? Or maybe Everyn from Gods of the Deep might meet one… I will be sure to keep you all informed of any developments.

In the meantime, if you know someone who should be featured in Vampire month, feel free to let me know. We welcome any and all applicants. Just be aware, Ann Rice and Rachel Caine get first dibs…

See you all next year!

 

 

 

The Blood is the life! by Catherine Green

14 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Catherine Green, Dracula: Dead and Loving it, Redcliffe Vampires, Sparkling Vampires, The Blood is the Life, Vampire, Vampire of Blackpool


Today Catherine Green talks to us about unusual dietary needs in the Haemophagic community. Take it away Catherine…

The Blood is the Life! 

The Blood is he

Not really blood… honest…

Many of you will recognise this famous quote from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. When I read it or hear it, I very often think of the hilarious spoof movie, Dracula: Dead and Loving It. I can’t help it, I like the lighter side of the supernatural world. But that is a topic for another day. Today I want to talk about Blood. The blood is what drives a vampire to do what they do. They are motivated by the need to drink blood. They do not want or desire anything else. Blood is, for a vampire, the centre of their world.

 

When I think about bleeding, or I see something gory in a picture or on television, I am very often repulsed by it. And yet, for some unknown reason, I have always been fascinated by vampires. I know that vampires are supposed to be bad. I certainly do not subscribe to the recent Hollywood craze for sparkling vampires (you know the movies I refer to!). My Redcliffe vampires most certainly do not sparkle. They feed, a lot. They do not always kill, but the thought is always there. Jack Mason could very easily take the life of the woman he loves. Jessica has allowed him to feed on her several times, and the last one, in my upcoming novel Eye of the Tiger (A VoB Book Launch Crewe 2016Redcliffe Novel), almost went very horrifically wrong.

 

Blood is a drug for a vampire. They thrive on it. They see the world more clearly when they feed. Blood and sex are very closely intertwined. It is that knife-edge between pleasure and pain, the fact that a person could so easily let it all go and indulge their deep, dark fantasies. Vampires act on this fantasy, this desire, when they feed on a human. And sometimes, if they get carried away, the human dies. That is a fact of life, and death. Blood is the link between the living and the dead. We humans seem to have a mixed response when we talk about blood. We know that we need it if we are to survive. Yet we shy away from it. We do not want to look at it, or talk about it, or deal with it. We take it for granted. Vampires do not. They appreciate that the blood is the life…

 

Did you enjoy this article? Join my tribe today, and I will send you a fabulous FREE book to get you started… (be warned, my vampires do not sparkle, and my wolves will bite!)

Author of British paranormal romance series The Redcliffe Novels, Catherine Green was raised on books from a young age, and has happy memories of Saturday mornings spent in her small local library, devouring the contents of the shelves. Catherine has always been fascinated by the supernatural world, and it feels natural for her to write about vampires, werewolves, witches and other mystical creatures in her contemporary stories.

If you sign up to Catherine’s newsletter, she will send you a free copy of her Redcliffe short story, It’s Complicated, to introduce you to her fictional supernatural seaside town in Cornwall, England.

More recently, Catherine released her contemporary English Gothic novel, The Vampire of Blackpool. These novels will show you the darker, sexier side of our favourite British seaside resorts!

You can find Catherine in the following places:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpookyMrsGreen

Author blog: http://www.catherinegreenauthor.blogspot.co.uk/

Twitter page: https://twitter.com/SpookyMrsGreen

The Pagan Housewife Blog: http://spookymrsgreen.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spookymrsgreen/ 

[Vampire Month] Catherine Green Interview

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Vampire Month

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Blackpool, Catherine Green, paranormal romance, Sandbach author signing event, Vampire, Vampire Month


This year’s Vampire month is opened by Catherine Green, who I met last year at the Sandbach signing event and shared a panel with. Coincidentally (or not), our other participant this year was also on the same panel.Spooky Mrs Catherine Green

She is the author of the Redcliffe Novels and more recently the contemporary English Gothic novel, the Vampire of Blackpool. Both of which certainly qualify her for inclusion here.

Here is Catherine’s interview. Her blog post will follow before the end of the week…

  • What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

 

My earliest memory of writing would be when I used to copy the text from my favourite story books into notebooks. I remember lying on my bed, happily scribbling away as I practised my handwriting and dreamed about being a real author like my heroes! I probably copied The Famous Five and Mallory Towers by Enid Blyton, although I can’t remember exactly.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

 

I decided to take the leap into the professional writing world at around the time I got my first novel published back in 2011. I got all caught up in the excitement and thrill of finally being a published author, and I naively thought that my fortune was made. I needed time to write, so I quit the day job. But I forgot the fact that I had a young baby to care for at the same time!

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

 

My greatest strength as a writer is my resilience. I never give up. Even though I have had many knockbacks and my fair share of publisher and agent rejections, I keep on going. I suppose you could say that determination is my greatest weakness as well, because I refuse to give up on my dream, and I will focus all of my attention on it when my children allow.

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

 

Oh yes! All of my novels and short stories are inspired by places that I have both lived in and visited. I currently live in mid Cheshire, and while I have not yet published a novel set in my local area, I am working on a collection of vampire hunter novels that are set in and around Middlewich, Winsford, Knutsford and up into Manchester.

The Redcliffe novels are set in Cornwall, and my fictional town of Redcliffe was inspired by visits to the real tourist town of Looe and the fishing village Polperro. I spent many happy days wandering around the area on various visits when our friends owned a hotel in Looe, and the inspiration stayed with me all these years later.

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

 

Which book? Oh, that’s a tough question! I have been largely influenced by the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series of novels by Laurell K Hamilton. They showed me that what lurked in my imagination could actually be received by a reading audience, if I dared to write it down.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

 

I honestly don’t know! All my life I have been fascinated by the supernatural world. I would devour any and all story books with a paranormal theme as I grew up, and always jumped to attention when somebody spoke about ghosts and monsters. Vampires have a certain charm about them. They are both incredibly attractive, and incredibly dangerous. And yet, they look just like the rest of us, mostly…

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

The Vampire of Blackpool english gothic noveI think because it always seems relevant to the collective fears and desires of the culture. For example, back when Bram Stoker’s Dracula was first published, we had a world that was evolving and developing at a fast rate, and the older generation were frightened of the change. Today we are more relaxed about vampires, we can use them in jokes, and yet still they represent a fear of something unknown, something dangerous, something attractive.

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

 

I think Lestat would always win, from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. He is a survivor.

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

 

Hmm, maybe Eric from the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris? I rather enjoyed reading those!

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

 

Oh, my vampires would win every time, no contest! Jack Mason has the support of his identical twin brother, the werewolf alpha, Danny Mason. Their combined supernatural power is a force to be reckoned with. And there is my secret love affair with Marcus Scott. He is a bit like Lestat in that he is a survivor, and he can talk himself out of (or into) almost any tricky situation.

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 

My latest novel is slightly different to what I published before. It pretty much does what it says in the name: The Vampire of Blackpool. It is a contemporary Gothic story about a female vampire who is pursued by a lone male vampire hunter. She is old, powerful, and bored, so she relishes the opportunity for a fight. But then she doesn’t reckon on the charms of a young, female witch that moves into the area and accidentally seduces her… not quite a love story, but very passionate.

British Paranormal romance by catherine green

[Review] Blood Secrets by Elizabeth Morgan

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

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Blood Secrets, Cranberry Blood, Elizabeth Morgan, GRR Martin, Loup, Vampire, Werewolf


Followers of this blog will be familiar with Elizabeth’s work already as she was interviewed for Vampire month and has been in attendance with me on a number of signing events, most recently the Manchester Author Signing in August. At that event she was launching her latest book – Blood Secrets, the long awaited sequel to Cranberry Blood and the next in the Blood series of Vampire novels.Blood secrets by Elizabeth Morgan

Blood Secrets takes up the story more or less straight after the end of Cranberry Blood. Heather Ryan, our vampire slayer infected with vampire blood, is on the outskirts of Venice in Italy, on the trail of the ancient vampire her family has been trying to kill for centuries. But first she has to deal with local supernatural politics as she attempts to convince the local werewolf pack to allow her and the members of the UK pack she has an alliance with to enter Venice in search of both the vampires who live there and the kidnapped pack members who were snatched at the end of Cranberry Blood.

There follows an intense thrill ride of a plot where Heather and her love interest Werewolf, Brendan, explore Venice looking for vampires and the captured members of the pack.

This is a far heftier tome than Cranberry Blood, verging on 100,000 words and covering a lot more scope. It also brings in two new Point of View characters in addition to Heather and Brendan.  One is Eve, the daughter of the UK Pack leader, who is a Loup – a woman born to a werewolf but who does not have the shapechanging abilities. The other is Galen, the immortalised teenager, who is the Bloodling (or childe) of the Vampire Heather is chasing. In less skilled hands, this approach may have come across as clumsy or amateurish (and it does seem to be a popular style following GRR Martin’s use of it in A Song of Ice and Fire) but Morgan manages to make each voice different and every scene is relevant as seen through the eyes of the PoV character. The Brendan/Heather scenes are pretty much as written in Cranberry Blood – entertainingly alternating their views on each other and their relationship while the action happens around them. The Eve scenes allow us to see her fate in the Vampire run research facility she ends up in and the Galen scenes offer a fascinating insight into the mind of the enemy and the complicated stratagems in play from their side.

The story also pulls no punches. As the title suggests, there are a lot of secrets revealed in this instalment and Heather has her worldview shattered on a number of occasions. Her faith in her family is sorely tested and her relationship with the werewolves changes massively through the events in this book.

If there is a flaw it is that the end goes on a little too long. Stuff happens which to me feels it may have been better suited to the opening chapters of the third and final instalment. Closing the curtain a few scenes earlier may have been more effective in inciting interest in book three. However, this is only a minor issue and the events of the final few scenes are still relevant and interesting. The big reveals in this book do lead me to wonder if there is anything left secret at all in this series. Are there more reveals in book three? If so, what on earth could be left to find out that hasn’t already been spilled here?

In all, a very solid and entertaining second book in a trilogy that expands on the world building, develops the characters and leads us nicely into what promises to be an epic finale in book three.

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