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Blackthorn: A Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale?

Once upon a time, in a dark, dark wood…hold on…strike that….

Once upon a time, in a dark, dark district, deep in the rotten and impoverished core of a human-ruled locale…

I often get asked what inspired Blackthorn – how the idea first came to me, or which author in the genre made me want to dip into PNR. By now most of my readers who visit this site or have read any of my interviews will know it was one night of getting lost that inspired my first thoughts about the series. And I have confessed that I hadn’t actually read any PNR at that time, not least because it didn’t exist long, long ago, in the distant land of Wales, in the year of 1996.

But…

I had watched The Little Vampire TV series as a child. I did watch The Lost Boys in my late teens. I’ve always held that those two were the inspiration to my urban approach to vampire tales. Then, of course, I read Anne Rice. My fascination with all things mythological stems back years even before all of that though – probably as far back as having read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Amidst all that, I developed a fascination for the Gothic genre.

Yet I cannot deny, though I’ve never gone into any depth about it until now, that fairy tales have most definitely played a part in forging the fabric of what Blackthorn has become. For a long time, I didn’t even realise it. After all, what is the essence of Blood Roses if not Beauty and the Beast? Except this beast really bites – and Beauty has a sting all of her own, of course!

There’s been some fabulous and fun fiction, TV shows and films out these last few years during a wave of fairy tale revival. This time it’s been with new spins on old favourites or, more specifically, intended for an adult audience.

It appears that fairy tales are as enduring as the legends surrounding our most beloved supernatural characters – vampires, werewolves and witches, amongst others. Witches, in particular, are reoccurring “favourites” in both fairy tales and paranormal romance. Unlike so many representations of witches today though, I remember when they were damn scary. I think the film, The Blair Witch Project did an incredible job of bringing the legend right back to how it used to be. I remember it took me months to build up to watch it. I knew, even before it started, it was going to terrify me. I knew I was going to be transported right back to when I was a child, when the witches of fairy tales truly were the thing of nightmares. The serryn-kind of witches that terrify vampires in Blackthorn.

Whether we like it or not, we’re born with an inherent fascination with the macabre. It’s in our basic survival instincts to be aware of the threats out there – we want to learn, we want to understand and we want to be able to protect ourselves. As children, fairy tales feed that part of us. They’re exciting, dangerous, scary, anxiety-provoking and utterly compelling as a result.

Forget Disney’s interpretations, fairy tales, real fairytales, aren’t nice. In fact, they’re downright disturbing – not least when you peel the layers away. It’s probably why they’ve held a captive audience for so many centuries and why they’re still bought today. Dark, violent, cruel, sexist, full of selfishness and greed, kidnappings, blackmail, loneliness, where only the beautiful survive or whereby unless you’ve got feet unnaturally small for your height to the point you wouldn’t be able to stand up, you don’t deserve to find your prince. (I’ve got small feet for my height, by the way, so that’s not a personally-motivated dig. ;-))

Fairy tales don’t shy away from things. There’s childhood abuse, predatory adults, a beast threatening to slaughter a young girl’s father unless she’s delivered to him against her will (of course, she still fell in love with him – the shock, the shame, the slight against woman-kind!!), attempted murder, a brave prince losing his eyes trying to cut through a Blackthorn hedge (allegedly) to save his one true love, children shoving an old woman in an oven to burn her alive after thieving from her house – but only after being willfully abandoned by their parents to starve to death. And, of course, let’s not forget what terrible press stepparents get in these stories. Yes, fairy tales are just magical and highly-appropriate reading material for young and delicate minds.

Only maybe they are. Maybe that’s why they’ve endured like they have. Fairy tales are not there to soft-pedal reality. They are there, in some cases, to push readers to the edge of their fears, to give a sense of right and wrong, to show both light and dark in parallel, to explore the consequences of behaviour but, most of all, fairy tales show that all can be okay in the end.

Very few fairy tales end without some kind of justice, of good overthrowing evil (however debatable and sometimes stereotypical that evil is), of characters changing and developing as happens in all great stories. Most of all, they’re brilliant because they don’t hold back on character flaws. They don’t hold back on the bad stuff. They say sometimes life is bad, that bad things happen, that it can be struggle and that, sometimes, things happen for no reason at all. Anger, fear, hatred, cruelty, prejudice, oppression, injustice – they’re part of the fabric of society. BUT people survive, friendships are formed, families are reunited, characters see the errors of their ways and those that don’t are punished whilst the good go on to live happy lives. Good can triumph over evil. Monsters can be defeated. Love, ultimately, finds a way.

Some of us are still big kids at heart, aren’t we? Isn’t that why we love the escapism that stories give us? To go places we’ll never experience or might be too scared to venture alone? Don’t some of us, as adults, want to revisit the witch’s kitchen, to walk through that dark wood, to feel the wolf snapping at our heels, to believe that heroes and heroines still exist and, most importantly, that there’s always hope? Don’t some of us, basically, still like a little bit of magic in our lives? And not least when things, when reality, gets dark?

Hence Blackthorn – not for the faint-hearted, but then it was never meant to be.

So here’s a very special thank you for all the wonderful messages and emails I’ve received that inspired this post. To the readers who have brought me smiles and to the edge of tears letting me know how valuable the escapism of Blackthorn has been to you. Knowing it’s a little sprinkle of fairy dust in your own lives is the biggest payback of this series ever. You make sharing Blackthorn with you so worthwhile. So, in turn, thank you for sharing your stories with me.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

xxx

P.S. If you’re intrigued by my reference to the “Blackthorn” hedge – there will be a post on that before too long!

A New Era for Blackthorn

Some of you will know that, last month, a few days before my first draft of Blood Deep was due in, my trusty old laptop passed away. My laptop had been my Blackthorn buddy for almost fourteen years and all of the first four Blackthorn books were written on it.

Blackthorn didn’t start on my laptop, of course. When I first started writing the series, I was armed only with a pen and paper and my electric typewriter because, back in 1996, I had no such thing as a computer. Four years later, my laptop became my Blackthorn haven.

The poor thing certainly worked hard all its life, sometimes for ten or twelve hours a day until, eventually, it couldn’t hold more than 8% battery at a time. In the last few months, it had to be permanently plugged in – and when your writing buddy is of the nibbling variety, it can be quite a feat managing Blackthorn and a loose cable!

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Tilly – my rescue bunny/A mistreated bunny rehabilitated/When the Blackthorn angst gets too much!

Of all the times to leave me though, my laptop certainly picked the most opportune. Happening around my 40th birthday, I had the perfect excuse to indulge. So here’s where the rest of the Blackthorn series will be written – on my brand new laptop! It arrived last week but, with my second draft of Blood Deep due in on Monday, yesterday was the first time I got a chance to play with it.

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The keys are backlit! Perfect for night-time tapping away!! (A dark PNR author has to consider these things.)

And talking about the rest of the Blackthorn series… the REALLY exciting news is that Bookouture is showing interest in signing more!! We’re currently in conversations about it so please keep your fingers crossed that all goes well. I can’t think of any better publisher to see the series through to the end.

So thank you to everyone who is helping make this happen by rating and reviewing my books, leaving all your comments and messages of support here and all the amazing stuff that happens on Facebook to help spread the word (reaching over 4,000 people last week alone!). Basically, thank you for making it loud and clear that you want more Blackthorn. Not only is my publisher listening, you’re helping tempt new readers into the series every day. I am so VERY grateful for your support.

I’ll have more news on Blood Deep shortly but, for now, for those who are assuming it’s the final book (and contains the end battle), I can’t stress enough that it’s not. It’s all about the final couple – and many more pieces of the Blackthorn puzzle falling into place. Then, as I put it to my publisher, the honeymoon period is over (cue a scary-sounding “mwah-ha-ha”). I’ll have more news for you in a while about what to expect next – as well as that eagerly awaited Blood Deep release date, and so much more!

xxxx

Jask’s Secret is Revealed!

A little while ago, I was really flattered to be invited to be a part of Moonrise Book Blog’s anniversary event. This awesome blog is super-supportive of Blackthorn, not least giving all three books terrific reviews and 5 stars each. So when they asked me to be a part of their event, it was an easy yes.

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As part of a fantastic giveaway, they have several fabulous authors each picking one of their characters to interview with a set of questions provided by Moonrise. When I saw that one of the questions was: ‘Tell us a secret about you that no-one else knows’, Jask immediately sprung to mind. After all, he’s the least likely of all my heroes to be holding something back…isn’t he?

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Earlier in the week, I let my Facebook followers know this interview was coming and asked them to try and guess what Jask’s deep, dark secret is. Some readers even re-read Blood Torn this week to see if they could find clues! Now that’s dedication! 🙂 I’ve received suggestions ranging from Jask being related to Kane, that he’s half vampire, he’s secretly married, he knows Rone’s twin is actually still alive and even that he’s ensured, after the trauma of losing his family, that he can never have children again. As is typical of the lovely Team Blackthorn, there were also some funny suggestions thrown into the mix to keep me giggling along the way. But one person, Candice, got dangerously close with her guess. Nicely worked out, Candice!

So, if you’d like to see what Jask has been concealing from everyone, even his best buddy, Corbin, it’s live on Moonrise Book Blog now. I don’t think you’ll be surprised as to why he wanted to keep this little gem hidden from one person in particular…

Thanks so much again, Moonrise Book Blog, for inviting me to be a part of your special event – it’s been great fun!

And good luck to everyone who enters the giveaway!

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An Exclusive Blackthorn Interview

A little while ago, I mentioned on Facebook that an awesome interview had landed on my desk. Charles Phipps – an all-round fantasy and sci-fi fan – discovered my series through his wife, Kat (awesome lady), and has since become a huge Blackthorn fan. Not only did he read my books, but he reviewed them too.

The minute I read his reviews for Blackthorn (all 5 stars, yay!), I was taken aback both by just how much he had picked up on as well as his unique reflections. I’ll be honest and say we don’t agree on everything (be warned – he’s not a Kane fan! *gasp of horror*), but isn’t that the great thing about books? Having now read a lot of his reviews, I totally respect how much time, effort and thought he puts into each one. Charles knows his stuff and, yes, I’m in awe of how much he knows.

An avid fan of worldbuilding (he is a fantasy writer himself, debuting with Permuted Press in 2015), Charles was keen to know more about Blackthorn’s creation. Knowing he’d come up with some nitty-gritty (and maybe tricky) questions, I simply couldn’t resist signing up to this one.

This has to be the most detailed interview I’ve ever given about creating Blackthorn and the process I went through – as well as a couple of hints of what to expect in Blood Deep (as always, no spoilers!). You can read the interview HERE.

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And if you’d like to read Charles’ fabulously insightful reviews of each Blackthorn book so far, you can click on the links below:

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Blood Roses

Blood Torn

Thank you SO much for hosting me on your blog, Charles – and for your patience in waiting for me to get Blood Deep drafted first!

And talking of Blood Deep

My revisions came back last week and it’s all looking good (phew)!! I’ll be making it the best it can be now under my editor’s guidance before sending it back in preparation for line edits. The even-better news is we’re another step closer to me being able to disclose the release date to you. I can’t wait! 😀

Announcing the Giveaway Winners!

Just over two weeks ago, I launched a competition for readers to cast the film version of my Blackthorn series. The prizes are a signed paperback copy of Blood Torn and/or the first three chapters of Blood Deep – also signed by me.

You could post your suggestions here, publicly on Facebook or via private message. For every character suggestion you made (one entry per character), you gained an entry number. I put all suggestions into a grid in no particular order and, using a random online generator, the numbers were selected.

The first number selected wins a signed paperback copy of Blood Torn and the second number selected wins the first 3 chapters of Blood Deep.

I’m so glad I chose to do this randomly again because I don’t know how on earth I would have chosen them otherwise.

Here we go…

The winner of the signed paperback copy of Blood Torn is… Nghiem Phuong Thi!

The winner of the first three chapters of Blood Deep (signed) is… Jen Daniels! 

You can watch the live selection process over on my Facebook page.

Huge congratulations, Nghiem Phuong and Jen!! Please send me a private message either via my contact page here or on Facebook and I’ll let you know what happens next. 🙂

And I’m really sorry if you missed out this time. 🙁

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who joined in the fun and entered. If you’d like to see all the entries (except a few I’m still trying to track down – sorry if yours isn’t there yet…), they’re now live on their very own Pinterest board. You can look at it even if you don’t have a Pinterest account. The choices are fantastic!! Some names are repeated a few times to reflect how many readers chose them. It seems Ian Somerhalder was a very popular choice to play Kane!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Haunted Mansions, Authors, Comics and Penguins – A Birthday to Remember

I’ve only taken just over a week off and it feels as though I’ve been away from here for way too long. Apologies to everyone who has been in touch over the past week and haven’t heard back from me yet – normal service is resuming very soon!

For those not in the know, it was my 40th birthday last Wednesday so, after nineteen relentless (though incredibly fun) months since the launch of Blackthorn, I decided to take a break for a short while. Organised by my amazing husband, it’s been a week full of surprises.

It kicked off with a visit to my home country of Wales, where we spent the afternoon in the small market town of Hay-on-Wye. Famous for its second-hand and antiquarian bookshops, it’s also home to the Hay Literature Festival which brings in over 80,000 writers, publishers and book fans every year. A place full of quirky cobbled backstreets, unique arts and crafts and over thirty bookshops, it’s the perfect place to visit if, like me, you have a thing for ceiling-high walls of books and the smell of old paper.

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Back in England, we then went on to Shrewsbury to stay in a stunning 18th Century manor house. Having spent over ten years living in an eighteenth century cottage in rural Devon, you’d think I’d been used to a room fully equipped with angular beams and low ceilings. The first night nearly ended in disaster though when, not only did I come down with a horrendous cold half-way through dinner, a middle-of-the night-sleepy-eyed return from the bathroom had me nearly knocking myself out cold when I walked straight into the bed-post. The thunk was so powerful it even managed to wake Tim (believe me, it’s a feat!).

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Managing to survive my clumsiness though, we headed into the town the following day where Tim, to my excitement, told me he’d booked a table at a local comic book store. Oh yes, let me lust after Batmobile replicas and Star Wars figurines over Gucci handbags any day. I walked into the shop, not knowing which direction to run in first, when I glanced to my right only to see a pair of hands clutching an original copy of my first book…

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I’ve had plenty of heart-stopping moments in my life, and this was right up there. Because what does an author do in that situation? Do they look the person in the eye and say, “Hi, that’s my book you’re holding”? Or do they walk on by like it didn’t happen? I stood. I gawped. My instinct was to run. I reached back to grab my husband’s hand to try and subtly point out someone in that store at that exact moment had my book. Instead, Tim put his arm around me (I think to stop me falling backwards) as I simultaneously looked up only to hear him say, “I know you’re going to kill me for this, but meet Tracey.”

For those who don’t know, Tracey Rogers is one of the original Blackthorn superfans. I’ve never met her, we’ve only ever spoken via social media, but this lady means the absolute world to me. She has supported (though she refers to it as “stalked”) me ever since the close of New Voices in 2011 – the online writing competition through which I was discovered by my publisher. She is one of Blackthorn’s three original unsung heroes who remained particularly close by after the competition closed. When Blood Roses (which finalled in 2010, Blood Shadows in 2011), was eventually rejected by Nocturne after an agonising 18-month wait, she was one three ladies who gave me the courage not to return Blackthorn to my bottom drawer but try another publisher. The other two were the wonderful Amity Grays (all the way over in Idaho, U.S – we’ll meet one day, Nit!) and CC Mackenzie (pen name).

Sobs and hugs later (whilst apologising for my tears, my cold-induced sniffles and my inability to string a decent sentence together), it was catch-up time – and Ms Tracey Rogers is absolutely as lovely and funny and warm as she is online. Amongst chat and giggles, we were soon excitedly browsing superhero memorabilia when Tracey stumbled on the find of the day. Yep, definitely one for The Vampire Diaries fans!

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Tracey and me, right next to the Salvatore brothers – well, kind of.

After an amazing few hours and reluctantly saying goodbye to Tracey, Tim and I moved on to Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, where we stayed in a Neo-Gothic mansion on the outskirts of the town. Claimed to be the most haunted hotel in Britain, horror-film buffs might like to know it was the setting for Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) – and I could immediately see why. Unfortunately there were no ghostly sightings during our stay though. Boo. 🙁

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With Tim having organised lunch out the next day, we were ambling down the streets of Stratford with me still chuntering away about having met Tracey when I heard, “Lindsay! Lindsay J. Pryor!” shouted from somewhere ahead. I stared at the woman, wondering how on earth she knew who I was. It took a moment to sink in, not least because she looks so different to her online photo. But her unmistakable Scottish accent and the only one shameless enough to shout out, “Lindsay J. Pryor – best-selling author!” down the street, gave her away. Still reeling with the shock of meeting Tracey, I was then staring at Christine (CC) Mackenzie. This lady is single-handedly responsible for dragging me onto social media, giving me loads of advice in the background to the point I nicknamed her my writerly-mum and, with her utterly unwavering belief in Blackthorn, has been there to bolster me up whenever things have got tough. Needless to say, what started off as a planned couple of hours over dinner turned into a nine-hour chat marathon (a Scottish and Welsh woman face-to-face = warp speed conversation).

And when I thought I couldn’t take any more excitement, the seriously-super-lovely Fiona Chapman also arrived in on the surprise. I started stalking aspiring author Fiona via Twitter a few months ago and, again, finding out we had a huge amount in common, we struck up a friendship very quickly. Fiona tweets, RTs, shares, comments, reviews and everything else in her enduring support for Blackthorn, so meeting her was a dream come true. Thank you, ladies, for making my birthday so special. I’ll never forget it.

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 Fiona, me and Christine.

Last night, my husband concluded my week of surprises with a black-tie charity fundraiser at the Living Coasts in Torquay, South Devon. If you know anything about me, you’ll know I’m a massive animal lover and a really keen supporter of animal welfare and conservation. With penguins having been my late Dad’s favourite animal (it would have been his birthday too this month), we spent the night at a Penguin Ball to raise money for vital conservation work both at Living Coasts and their related projects abroad. I had a chance to get up close with the Macaroni Penguins (fortunately not endangered) to kick-start a fantastic and totally worthwhile night. As you can tell though, this handsome little chap’s buddy had better things to do with his time than chat to me – like stare at a blank wall.

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“Then I caught a fish THIS big…” Okay, it’s an old joke but I write dark not funny…

Tim – thank you SO much for all your hard work and background planning to make this a week to remember. Thank you Christine, Fiona and Tracey for being there to share it with me. Thanks to everyone who sent me lovely birthday messages. And to round it off, Blood Shadows hit No. 1 in Amazon’s US Gothic Romance charts again. Yay!!

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Don’t forget, Wednesday sees the close of my giveaway to be in with a chance of winning a signed paperback copy of Blood Torn and/or the first three chapters of Blood Deep (signed by me). Huge thanks to everyone who has already joined in the fun – the cast is looking soooo good!

If you’d still like to enter (via here or Facebook), all you have to do is let me know who you would cast in Blackthorn the movie. I’ll announce the winner/s on Friday!

Blood Deep News and a Giveaway

I’ve finished writing Blood Deep! Well, in first draft anyway. As of yesterday, it’s in the hands of my publisher and editor whilst I await their verdict in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’m left with post-exam/post-interview nerves. Let’s hope they like it!

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That’s the exciting news. As a small aside, the sad news is that on Friday, days before my deadline, my beloved laptop finally gave up on me. It feels like the end of an era, not least because I’ve spent fourteen years writing Blackthorn on it. It’s now going to rest snugly in my attic with my old electric typewriter where Blackthorn begun its first outing all those years ago. Sigh.

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But back to Blood Deep

So what happens next?

Before you get too excited, for those not in the know, this is just the first stage of the process. Once the story gets the nod of approval, the structural edits soon follow. After the structural edits come the line edits. After the line edits come the copy edits. A whole team will be working away in the background week after week until Blood Deep is exactly how I want it. The good news, however, is that although there’s still a wait, it might not be too much longer before my publisher let’s me announce the release date. Stay close for that one!

HUGE thanks, Team Blackthorn!

Since the release of Blood Torn back at the end of February, Blackthorn’s readership has increased day by day. Luckily for the series, many of you are wonderfully vocal with it – and this is something that certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by my publisher. I cannot thank you enough for all the amazing messages you’ve been sending my way, let alone the fantastic reviews you’ve been leaving on places such as Amazon and Goodreads. Every single review matters and makes a massive difference in helping towards more Blackthorn books being signed. So THANK YOU so much for taking time out to share your support for both me and Blackthorn.

It’s payback time with a giveaway!

So to say thank you to all my awesomely-lovely Blackthorn supporters and because it’s my 40th birthday next week, I can’t resist a giveaway. I’ve been promising this for a little while but wanted to hold on until Blood Deep was in.

The challenge is simple and hopefully fun! Could you cast ‘Blackthorn The Movie’? Did you have someone in mind when you read the books? Do you know who would make the perfect Kane? The best Leila? Have you already decided on the ideal man to play Jask Tao and head up Blackthorn’s most notorious pack?

All you have to do to enter this giveaway is write your suggestions below this post or on my Facebook page stating who YOU would cast in the title roles. Because casting is so subjective though, I’m not going to judge the winners. Instead I’m going to pick names randomly from a hat. You get an entry for every suggestion you make so the more characters you choose, the better chance you stand!

The prizes

There are TWO prizes up for grabs – again, the winner of each prize will be chosen randomly. The same person may even win both!

Are you looking at the picture of that manuscript above, wondering what’s written beyond that first chapter? I’m going to give one reader the chance to read the first three chapters of Blood Deep before anyone else (other than my publisher and editor!). It won’t be an e-copy though – I’ll send you a one-off print version signed by me.

Also up for grabs is a signed paperback copy of my last release, Blood Torn.

It doesn’t matter where you are, I’ll post both prizes anywhere – so don’t let location put you off.

The giveaway opens now and closes on Wednesday June 25th (midnight UK time). I’ll announce the winners on Friday 27th June here on my blog.

I’ll also be posting all your suggestions onto a Pinterest board dedicated to YOUR shared vision of the Blackthorn cast. I’ll share the completed board with you once the competition closes.

I’m going to be taking a short break between now and then but please do keep posting your entries! Good luck! 🙂

Meet Blood Deep’s Eden and Jessie – My Vision

A frequent question authors get asked is who inspired their characters, not least in terms of their appearance. I’ve always had to answer with the honest answer of “no-one”. Instead of seeing someone and then creating a character based on that inspiration, the creation of my characters and their appearances sparked simultaneously.

This, of course, was never an issue when they stayed in my head and no one else needed to see them. But, since being published, it’s not just interviewers who ask that question – of course my publisher now needs to see my vision too, not least for those all-important book covers.

I’ve made no secret of the fact I’ve had a real struggle trying to find the right images for each of my characters. Having lived with them for almost eighteen years now, they’re as clear to me as anyone I know. I’ve trawled through hundreds of images these past eighteen months trying to find the right people to match my vision. All I’ll say is thank goodness for Pinterest!

Well, it’s that time again. 😀 With the first draft of Blood Deep due with Bookouture next week, it won’t be too long before the editing process is underway and the covers start being discussed. So, after a couple of months of keeping it secret, I’ve now launched my Blood Deep board over on Pinterest. There will be lots more to come on it in due course but, for now, I have a few sample Eden and Jessie shots to share. The ones below, I think, are the most defining. I hope you like them!







And talking of finding appropriate people to play my characters…

A few weeks ago I asked if anyone would like to have a bit of fun sharing who you would cast to play my characters in the film version of Blackthorn – all as part of a giveaway. I have more news of that next week!

Creating Blackthorn’s Couples: Jask and Phia

*WARNING!! This post contains HUGE spoilers for Blood Torn.*

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One of the fun aspects of writing Blood Torn was creating a whole other side to Blackthorn. Up until then the series had been dominated by the vampire world versus the human authorities, with other species only fleetingly mentioned. Amongst those cameo roles was Jask Tao in Blood Shadows, when Kane made a brief visit to the lycan compound to collect an escaped Caitlin and, later, when Jask is waiting for her outside the courtroom. To keep the focus on Kane and Caitlin’s story, I revealed little about Jask and his pack at the time, let alone how he fitted into the overall Blackthorn picture.

Lycans and serryns

In the background though, I had already designed the lycan world in detail – who Jask was, how he operated, let alone why I created the pack the way I had (you can read all about that herehere and here). As with all the mythology I’ve developed for Blackthorn, I’d spent quite some time looking into adapting established ‘beliefs’ to suit the world I was creating. As a part of this, I developed the concept of lycanthropy as an allergy, the management of it having become increasingly challenging for the lycans under the regulations due to the systems put in place.

Jask’s character evolved out of developing that mythology. I had to work out what kind of personality would successfully manage a minority pack in Blackthorn under that new system. I knew I needed someone mature, self-controlled, strategic, intelligent and wise. I needed someone strong enough both physically and mentally to rule a pack, let alone with an edge of authority that not only demanded respect but equally with a fairness, dedication and selflessness to earn that respect. And, of course, my lycan leader had to be someone with insight into the dynamics of the world he’s in in order to best protect that pack – including executing sufficent humility to seemingly play ball with all the various groups, not least the human authorities.

But, like with Blackthorn’s other heroes, there also needed to be a dark side to Jask to warrant his survival in Blackthorn – an innate sense of the hunter and, in some respects, the feral. I needed someone who made the pack stronger by being its leader as well as being strengthened because of the pack’s faithful support, but I also needed someone who was equally capable of going it alone – and surviving against the odds. Jask became that type of hero and subsequently an integral player in Blackthorn’s future, especially because he has one of the most powerful potential armies under his effective rule.

My serryn mythology was already established by the time I wrote Blood Torn, having explored it in its fledgling form through Leila in Blood Roses. But in Blood Torn, I had the opportunity to start to show more of a serryn’s evolvement through Phia – not least because she had none of her big sister’s reluctance in embracing her new ability. Phia’s developing serenity is, without doubt, more destructive to her personality than it was to Leila’s, particularly because of Phia’ emotional vulnerabilities and not having her big sister’s self-control (despite Caleb’s fervent efforts to the contrary). It goes without saying that if Phia had turned up to save Alisha instead of Leila, Blood Roses may have been the shortest Blackthorn book ever!

However, you may be interested to know that when I first started mapping out Blackthorn, I didn’t plan on Leila losing her serrynity to her nemesis – nor it jumping down the line, along with her fate, to her sister. I’m so pleased it did though because it shifted Phia (and Jask) from being a secondary character to becoming integral in Blackthorn’s tapestry.

But romance was never the plan

For the future of the story, I knew Jask and Phia had to meet. I knew it was Jask who would find Phia in the ruins. I knew Phia had to forge a link with the lycans. The last thing I expected was for these two to fall for each other.

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My initial intention when designing Blackthorn was that, although Jask was going to be a hero in the story, he was never going to be a romantic hero. When I first created his character, he had given up any prospect of finding love again. Having written a few scenes between him and Ellen whilst exploring his character, I couldn’t imagine him with anyone else. Instead, I’d resolved he’d focus on devoting all his time to his pack and, with me already knowing they would come under attack from the authorities, he was going to have enough to contend with without the entanglement of romance too. Besides, he might have needed Phia’s help but, for the outcome I wanted, he didn’t need to fall in love with her. Like with most of my characters though, Jask had his own ideas.

Sophia. Sophie. Phia. From the moment she burst onto the page in Blood Roses as an unruly child with a pretend UV torch on her head, a wooden stake in her hand and trying to feed garlic to her little sister, I knew I had my hands full. Furthermore, painted as an adult as the thoughtless missing sister causing Leila a headache and later revealed to be on prejudice-induced, anti-vampire vigilante mission in Blackthorn, Phia was most definitely never going to be one of Blackthorn’s romantic heroines. Aggressive, stroppy, stubborn, immature, argumentative, even arrogant at times, Sophia is frequently quick to act and slow to think. With a plethora of issues that would create a fortress-type barrier to any potential love interest, I knew it would take a saint to bother to peel through her layers. And well, to be honest, I didn’t think I had time for that in the strict internal timescale I had set for the story.

More so, I knew all her flaws were going to be exacerbated by having her up against Jask. Even-tempered, rational and reasonable, let alone with the weight of trying to save his pack on his shoulders, the last thing Jask should have been putting up with was Phia’s often deplorable (and irritating) attitude problem when, instead, he deserved so much better.

But whilst giving them more time on the page together than I’d originally planned, I switched from constantly face-palming with Phia to seeing a whole other side of her – and a whole other side to Jask too.

I started to see Phia as painfully lost in her own frustration and fears, erratically and misguidedly running around trying to make things better in all the wrong ways. Above all else, her deep sense of insecurity born out of her own self-hatred started to emerge. Behind the mask of arrogance was a vulnerable and fragile character who acted badly to evoke the same reaction in others because, basically, she didn’t believe she deserved any better. She certainly didn’t think she deserved Jask, someone who she had come to both respect and admire.

And, rather than Jask’s loss of Ellen being the barrier between him and Phia that I first envisaged, it became an opportunity to reveal an even more admirable side to him. With refined survival instincts making him wary of quick judgements, Jask’s tragic past also created in him a deep empathy that enables him to read beneath surface behaviours. Understanding everything there is to know about self-hatred, Jask revealed a compassionate generosity of spirit, let alone a patience and tolerance with Phia that I think makes the best of both him and of her. He sees her strength, her independence, her feistiness and her bravery. Most of all, he sees how fiercely loyal she is to those she loves. When she is calm and focused, Phia McKay makes one hell of an ally because, in a battle, she’d be the first to step in-between the one she loves and the enemy – and that’s a pack-like trait Jask inevitably deeply admires.

Their futures

Unlike with Blood Roses where, for so many reasons, I had to conclude it with a sense of uncertainty about whether Leila and Caleb’s emerging love is strong enough to see them through, Blood Torn, I hope, gives that real sense of a hero and heroine’s bond being strong enough to surpass anything. But things are never straight forward for my couples. As is indicative of Blackthorn, there is a flipside of renewed complications out of what should have remained a forbidden love.

I concluded Blood Torn amidst an imminent threat. Sirius Throme, head of the Global Council is once again using Jask’s pack as pawns in his mission to get his hands on Kane. In a strategic move you’ll learn more of in Blood Deep, he’s had Jask’s young delivered to the cons – something Jask is yet to uncover. If he does, his reaction could reveal a whole other side to Jask that Phia is yet to see.

After all, Jask, at the moment, is successfully managing his dark side, but it still simmers beneath the surface – and at no greater time than when his allergy peaks. He may be one of the rare lycans able to control his change, but he was never given the opportunity to perfect it with the regulations having interrupted his progress. But even without his instincts to contend with, self-controlled though he is, his interrogation scene with the vampire in Blood Torn shows that he has no qualms in doing whatever it takes for those he loves. When it comes to lethal, Jask is more than capable of holding his own against, or alongside, Kane and Caleb. He’s just not been put in that situation in Blackthorn yet.

As made clear at the end of Blood Roses, Caleb is already on the hunt for Phia: next in line to be his sacrifice if he is to claim his Tryan status and save the third species from oppression. He’s yet to find her, he’s yet to know she now has Jask and his entire pack behind her, but with Caleb’s impressive networks in Blackthorn, it’s only a matter of time. Jask will have even more to contend with if he’s seen as the barrier to the third species’ salvation – something that could test his loyalty to Phia if, subsequently, he’s not only at risk from vampiric retaliation but also from his own kind.

As for Phia, she may have made huge progress as far as her sense of direction and self-esteem are going, but she’s still a serryn and serryns are renowned for becoming overwhelmed by their own selfish desires. Already impulsive by nature, Phia’s greatest challenge is in controlling her serrynity sufficiently to use it as a weapon as opposed to self-indulgence. That need certainly won’t be helped if her natural nemesis evolves into a threat to anyone she loves.

Let’s just hope Kane’s visit to Caleb goes well!

That’s it for my couple insight posts for now. I will, of course, do the same for Jessie and Eden – but, no spoilers, I’ll do it after you’ve read Blood Deep.

I’ll be back next time though with a short post to show you my vision of what Eden and Jessie look like – and it’ll be kick-starting a give-away too!

Win Blackthorn e-Books via Jask on GraveTells

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Anyone who has been following Blackthorn for a while will know there are some awesome bloggers out there supporting the series. One site that has given Blackthorn LOADS of support is the fabulous GraveTells. Not only have they given the series glowing reviews in the past, last year they even ventured into Blackthorn for themselves to quiz Caleb and Jake (obviously they got back out again in one piece – phew!).

Now, in his first interview ever, it’s Jask’s turn in the hotseat – only, this time, I’m doing the quizzing. Inspired by conversations with my lovely Blackthorn fans, I put forward a series of questions to the infamous lycan leader to see what he had to say for himself.

So, if you’d like to know what provokes Blackthorn’s leading lycan into banishing members of his pack, why he fell for Phia, whether he believes he can protect his pack during the tough times ahead, and what he really thinks of Kane, you can read his interview here….

As a bonus, if you leave a comment, you can be in with a chance of winning a Blackthorn e-book of your choice (Blood Shadows, Blood Roses or Blood Torn). Or if you’ve got a burning question of your own, Jask is still open for interrogation – feel free to ask him anything! I know how creative Team Blackthorn can be. 🙂 

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