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Vampires, Blackthorn and Blood Splatters (aka another day at the office)

Thank you SO much to everyone who shared my Monday excitement with the cover reveal of Blood Shadows. I’m so pleased you thought it was worth the wait. The cover designer really is one of the best in the business and he’s done an outstanding job capturing Blood Shadows let alone the whole theme of Blackthorn. I think it represents urban vampire paranormal romance at its best – but then I am very biased!

Thanks too for all your messages and emails about this new site – I’m thrilled you’re as pleased with it as me. Some of your feedback was very touching, some set me off into giggles – so thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.

As you can see, Bookouture have worked extremely hard in the background assisting with getting this site set up and I think they’ve done a fantastic job both in the selection of the overall design and images, let alone the behind-the-scenes functionality. The latter I’m getting my head around slowly – but remember this is coming from someone who nearly had a breakdown trying to operate Twitter only a year ago, so I’m making progress!

I had lots of involvement in the decision making but there’s nothing like seeing it all come together. The first time I saw this site completed, I may as well have been led into an adventure park. I kept clicking on everything and discovering where things were and what had been added. I absolutely love the sliders. If you go to ‘Books’ and watch the motion slider there, you’ll see the tag lines appear from Blood Shadows. I’m such a big kid – I love all that kind of stuff. Then if you go onto the ‘About Blackthorn’ you’ll see a large version of the crest. Oh, how I love that crest! And has anyone spotted the blood splatter favicon in the address bar? (Though in my lack of technical know-how, I nicknamed it the favabean – you know, as in with a nice Chianti? *Bows to groans*) I love that little feature, but I did say I was a big kid – oh, and a huge fan of Dexter.

Those who were familiar with my old website will know there are other new features too. ‘About Blackthorn’ is where I’ll share background information on the concept behind the series and all the unfamiliar terms I introduce in the books, so hopefully you’ll find it interesting. There’s also a ‘Press’ section now so you’ll know what’s being shared globally about me as an author and the Blackthorn series.

I have new link buttons. There’s a Pinterest one where I’ll be uploading some new images in due course. If there are any boards you’d like to see, do let me know. And I’m finally on Facebook. Soon I’ll be posting regular updates on there, including letting you know when the Blood Shadows trailer will be aired… oh, it’s good!!

For someone who was petrified of social media only a matter of months ago, I’m really beginning to get into this. It’s such an important part of my new job (yes, I can officially say that now), and it’s made all the more fun by you joining in with me. Thanks for being there!

If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything that happens here, then please do subscribe by email and you’ll get notifications every time something new appears. Alternatively, just come and visit when you have a few spare minutes. And please always feel free to email.

I’ll be back with a post on Friday getting right back into the heart of paranormal romance. Do come and visit, especially if you’d like to talk dark and brooding vampires with me…

Let’s Keep The Undead Alive.

It’s a little chilly here. It might be because it’s got later in the day. Maybe it’s because the thicket of tree branches overhead have become denser or because the path has become narrower. Worse still, the subtle decline into the silent shadows ahead is only threatening more darkness to come. Maybe there’s light at the end of it. Maybe not.

But if you’re back to join me on my journey again, know that I’m already clinging to your arm. My eyes are wide and watchful in the dark. I flinch, and sometimes yelp, every time I hear a broken branch. If you do a mock growl to tease me, I’ll slap you in retaliation because I’m that tense. Yes, when it comes to all things supernatural and spooky, I’m a jabbering nervous wreck. But I love the darker side of paranormal and that’s why I write it.

So there’s no better topic for my first official blog post than my favourite supernatural beings: vampires. They’re not the only thing I write about, but it’s what I’m known for. Mine are the romantic type, in a dark and ever-so-slightly disturbing type of way. And let me say, with the clichéd scene-setting out of the way, I love my genre and, because of that, I can’t help but feel defensive when others say this vampire hoo-ha is just a trend. That it’ll fade out. We’ll get over it. We’ll get bored. That this Twilight epidemic will fade to nothing.

Er, no.

So what is it about these vampire guys (and gals)? And why am I so sure they’re not going to be reburied any time soon?

Vampires are embedded in our society’s psyche. In fact, they’re embedded in the psyche of many societies outside our own. Nearly every country on our planet has its own version of the vampire myth. Even before Dracula was penned over a century ago, real tales of vampirism had been rife in Eastern Europe for decades. And when those stories (along with the Serbian term ‘Vampire’) infiltrated our society in the 1800’s, apparently any newspaper containing such tales sold by the bucket load.

But why? Admit it or not, on some level we all have an instinct to be fascinated with the mysterious and the macabre. We’re all a little bit intrigued by the supernatural, not least our lack of ability to explain it.

So what is it about vampires in particular? What is it that has made them such an iconic romantic figure? Whether it’s the social fascination with bad boys or the psychoanalytic view that vampire fantasies are no more than subliminal repressed sexual fantasies, vampires have got an incessant appeal. But let’s be honest, our current vampiric heroes are a long way from archaic tales of hairless beasts with protruding ratty teeth and rank breath (I’m not a lookist, but still…). So when did it change?

We have to start with the late 1800’s and Bram Stoker paving the way with his Gothic masterpiece, Dracula. This 400 year-old vampire went on to become the archetype of vampire characterisation for decades. The cloak, the smart evening dress and the Transylvannian accent (which, by the way, is the only accent I can muster from my Welsh twang) are still implanted in people’s heads today. Dracula was sophisticated, a predator and a total sucker (excuse the pun) for his base urges for sex and blood. To the Victorians, he was horrifying; he represented everything they fought against. But he was still fascinating. And since its release over a century ago, Dracula has not been out of print. Not only did Bram Stoker start a billion-dollar industry, he created a vision of the vampire that was going to stay with us for decades.

(As a brief aside, it wasn’t until the Hammer films of the 1950’s that vampires were first given fangs. In fact, fangs are never mentioned in traditional folklore. But, darn, when those neat little protrusions are constructed well, they’re sexy, right?)

Then in the 1970’s Anne Rice arrived with Interview With The Vampire. Her genius? A book written from the vampire’s perspective. For over fifty years we had not seen inside the vampire’s head. Finally we were getting to know them and, with it, understand them. We discovered vampires had human emotions and with it came a whole new appeal. Yes, Ms Rice’s vampires were still aristocratic and sophisticated, still predators, but they were also young, handsome and erotic (who remembers the uproar from the movie scene with Louis and Lestat’s blood-fest with their lady friends in the drawing room?). They interacted with other vampires; we had vampire dynamics. And through this we saw the vampire as a tragic figure riddled with internal conflict. Their immortality came with a price. They felt loneliness. They felt despair. As a result, we empathised and even sympathised with those that preyed on us. Not only was there something very romantic about them and their plight, we were starting to relate to them.

Then came my era. Ah yes, the 1980’s – a decade that brought further evolution of the vampire legend of old. I was a teenager when I first saw The Lost Boys. No more aristocracy. No more corsets. No more finery. These vampires didn’t sweep around with airs and graces. They were still carefree and dangerous. They were still rebels. But these vampires were current. These vampires were more relatable to teenage youth than any others. They didn’t live in mansions or castles. They hung around fairgrounds and comic book stores. This was Joel Schumacher’s vision and it was very, very sexy. And terrifying. The first time I saw the film, I spent more time looking away than at the screen. But still something was embedded. There was something very cool about these vampires: they were as contemporary as it got. They were dateable. And I was hooked.

Then in the 1990’s came Buffy The Vampire Slayer! I know I shouldn’t step into the realm of slayers because I’m fighting the vampire corner here. But how can we not acknowledge Joss Wheddon when it comes to the evolving vampire in romance? Yes, a slayer was no longer Van Helsing. Or male.  The pretty little blonde was no longer a scream machine, but a feisty, smart and pro-active vamp killer. And along with Buffy came Angel, and a significant new relationship between vampire and slayer emerged. Suddenly there was a forbidden love between two beings whose basic instincts should make them want to kill each other. And for years I watched with fascination as a love story unravelled with Angel fighting his true nature to be a better being for the girl he loved. Aww…

I’ve missed so much out in-between, so many other accolades, but I could talk for hours. Instead, I’ll end with the present day and the phenomenon that is Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight.  I’ll be honest—I’m not a Twilight fan. I’ve not read any of the books. I saw the first film and have vague recollections of the second. It doesn’t help that I was already heavily into the BBC series Being Human, and Edward Cullen vs John Mitchell? Hmmm. But I have no doubt that if Twilight had come out when I was a teenager, I would have been besotted with the whole thing.

Love it or loathe it, Ms Meyer has appealed to a whole new generation of vampire fans. In the vampire evolution, she wrote a vampire for a predominantly teenage audience. And because of her audience, she made the vampire as sympathetic and safe as he could be (which is probably why I struggle with the appeal). He was no longer the guilt-free, decadent, sexual predator – he had a conscience. A conscience that governed his actions more than his base needs. He was a protector, utterly devoted to the one he loved and made her feel secure and special. He was no longer the beast that terrified teenage girls and women of the 1800’s but instead he had become a safer, more justifiable craving. He became the good guy. The vampire became a teenage superhero.

And heroes stay with us.

The way I see it, we have a whole new generation of vampire fans coming through. For some of them, Edward Cullen would have been their first crush. Some will get over it and move on. But take it from a 37 year-old who, once bitten, twenty years on, is still reading about the sexy suckers. I don’t think I’ll ever have a to-be-read pile without a vampire romance in there somewhere or stop rushing to see the latest vampire movie at the cinema. I’m not ashamed to admit I still find them fascinating. They remain wonderful characters to explore. And the closer to the edge, the more tainted, the more tortured, the more intense and, yes, the sexier, the better.

Can the trend keep evolving? Can any of us really pinpoint the vampires’ appeal? Does it matter if we can’t? The fact is, it’s there and I think it’s going to stay with us for a long time to come. I want to keep writing about vampires, I want to keep reading about vampires and their popularity out there tells me I’m not alone.

Now, as I pause for breath, and stop in the darkest, loneliest part of the path, I’m hoping you’re still around. And if you’d like to comment, I’d love to hear from you. Share your favourite vampire movie, TV show or novel. Maybe you remember how you first got into vampires. Who’s your ultimate fanged guilty pleasure? Is it Damon or Stefan who makes your heart race? Spike or Angel? Maybe you’d choose Edward Cullen over John Mitchell any day.

And if I’m left standing here on my own in the dark, I guess I’ll just have to run.

Some of the above facts were gained from the fab BBC documentary ‘Vampires: Why They Bite’. The rest is just opinion. Don’t slay me for it. 

Next time I’ll be back with some insider information on Blood Roses and Beguiling The Enemy and letting you know what I’m planning to do with them. I’ve got a feeling the really scary stuff is yet to come. 

The tale so far…

I wrote my first paranormal romance when I was 17. That was almost 21 years ago. Back then, the shelves weren’t stacked with genre, and especially not for young adults like I was. There was no Twilight. The Vampire Diaries weren’t available in my local bookshops in the U.K. I didn’t have a computer back then, let alone access to Amazon. So instead I wrote my own.

And that’s how this PNR journey started. I haven’t stopped writing since. I won’t fill you in on all the detail now, but it’s been a long road to self-discovery. I’ll be succinct by saying it’s taken me a long time to identify my voice and genre. I came across the umbrella term ‘speculative fiction’ years ago and knew I was in the right building, but it still took me a while to uncover which department I was going to work in.

So let me pull you almost up to date with the key event at the end of 2010 because that was when it all changed for me. I tentatively entered the opening chapters to a vampire novel into the Mills and Boon New Voices writing competition. And I had success. It was the only paranormal romance to get into the Top 10 and then go on to the final. This was momentous to me, not only because I wasn’t used to putting my work ‘out there’ but because, finally, I’d resolved that I’d discovered my voice. More than that, people liked it. Making the final again in New Voices 2011 confirmed I knew exactly what I wanted to write. (If you’d like to know more about what led up to entering New Voices, check out my Bio where there’s a link to my interview with the lovely CC MacKenzie.)

And that leads me to the here and now. Welcome to my blog! If I could hug you to say hello, I would. You’re most likely here because you came across me through New Voices. On that basis, it’s probably because you’ve fallen for Caleb (Blood Roses) or Kane (Beguiling The Enemy). Maybe both. Maybe you just like the way I write.

If you’d like to follow me on my journey as I leap into trying to get published, I’d love your company. I’ll blog any successes and the inevitable failures as I struggle through. Hopefully that sounds interesting enough.

I’m not one of those people who’s uncomfortable with silences so I’ll be on here once a month, maybe twice. In the meantime, I hope you stay a little while for now and enjoy your visit. My first official post will be on my favourite topic – yep, vampires. I’ll let you know how I got into them and loads of other stuff. And if you know who started the rumour that the vampire popularity trend is dying off, please invite them along…

Hugs xxx