In retrospect, this blog has been too long in coming. For that, I apologize. I’ve lived with the term vaempire for so long, and explained it so many times, that I take the understanding of it for granted. 

Yet, the first question I’m asked in reference to the novel isn’t “What’s the book about?” or “Where did you get the idea?” or even “How long did it take to write?” 

No, the first question is “What is a vaempire?” 

As one savvy Facebooker posted, “Cool idea… but you spelled vampires wrong.” 

Well, I didn’t spell it wrong, and I didn’t forget to use spellcheck… but, I did make a mistake, nevertheless. 

I never explained what a vaempire was. 

So, here goes… 

Simply put, a vaempire is a mutated vampire. 

That’s right, a run-of-the-mill vampire suddenly experiences involuntary changes that transforms it into a vaempire. 

The upside: a person’s strength and speed increases, making them a bigger, stronger, faster version of his- or herself. Honestly, who doesn’t want that at some point in time? 

The downside: vaempires are warm-blooded beings driven by the need for cold vampire blood. Now, as you can imagine, being filled with the need to feed on the blood of another person is distressing in its own right… but just imagine if that person is one’s significant other, or child, or loved one. 

The changes that make one a vaempire are not by choice. There is no rhyme or reason as to who mutates. There is no way to make it happen. There is no way to avoid it. There is no way to stop it once it starts. 

Now, if you’re wondering why they’re called vaempires…

It was the mutations themselves who decided upon the term væmpire, ostensibly because the e represented the something extra that made them different from vampires. Then the radical groups came, the ones that insisted the e stood for evolution, nature’s way of showing that væmpires were a step above vampires. 

So, are vaempires to be feared? Pitied? Envied? 

Opinions vary, as they so often do. You’ll have to judge for yourself.

Today, I want to share a guest post I once penned for VampChix.

Why I Love Horror

Something inside of me is twisted. I know it. I’ve known it for a long time. Those closest to me do, as well. You see, I love fear—I like being scared. Being terrified is even better. Being rendered utterly speechless (or even wetting myself) because of abject horror would make my day.

Now, I’m not referring to real-life situations, of course. Anyone who finds pleasure in the everyday chaos around us is a special kind of twisted that I can’t even relate to. But in the world of make believe entertainment, my preference is… the scarier the better.

This means I’m consistently disappointed. I can’t remember the last movie that frightened me. The Paranormal Activity movies didn’t. The Saw franchise was gory, but not scary. The endless Hollywood remakes are endlessly frustrating. All too often, I find myself laughing out loud at the parts that are supposed to be scary—and no, it isn’t in defiance of the scene, it’s in response to it. In fact, I’ve even begun to fall prey to ludicrous thoughts at just those moments. For instance, during a climactic scene of The Thing a few weeks ago, I thought that it would be a perfect time to insert the chorus of Tavares’ “It Only Takes A Minute.”

My family members just shake their collective heads when I share these ideas.

But anyway, Hollywood lets me down. I won’t even bother with television beyond stating this point: television shows are not scary. Ever.

Now, I know what the (my) problem is. The powers behind the silver screen and the television screen are not entirely to blame. They simply don’t have what it takes to rise to the occasion because of my expectations.

My parents took me to the drive-in to see Jaws way back in the summer of 1975. I was four. It was not the worst of their parental transgressions—they never made us use seatbelts, we used whole milk in our breakfast cereal, our play time was not properly scheduled or synchronized, and we were sometimes forced to walk to sports practice, among others—but Jaws scared the living daylights out of me. For months, I was terrified. Not terrified of taking a bath or going in the ocean. Terrified of stepping out of bed or going in the closet.

It was exhilarating.

The only thing that stopped me from being a horror movie junkie by the age of six was that there weren’t that many movies on regular television during my waking hours. Then cable television arrived.

1978’s Halloween holds the distinction of being the only movie I ever stopped watching because I was too scared to go on. When Michael Myers was at the bottom of the stairs and Laurie Strode had to venture past him… I couldn’t take any more and left the room. Subsequently, I was so disgusted with myself that I sat through the entire movie the very next time it was on. Alone. At night. I was eight. (And I wonder why I’m twisted.)

There was no stopping me after that. Unfortunately, I became desensitized. I couldn’t recapture the lingering fear of Jaws or the gut-clenching terror of Halloween—with one brilliant exception. 1980’s Friday the 13th. I slept fitfully for weeks after that one.

It was around that time that I turned to books. I’m being figurative, of course. Yes, sometimes I had to turn to reach one, but there were plenty of times when… well, you get the point.

My early years were filled with the typical fare for young male readers—Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, and the like, by which I mean the Hardy Boys, the Three Investigators, and Black Stallion books. But in the late summer of 1980, my world was about to change.

While at a cousin’s house for a barbeque, I stumbled across a copy of ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I don’t know why I started reading it when I should’ve been outside playing ball or swimming, but I did. I couldn’t put it down. I spent the whole day inside, eschewing food, activity, and anything else besides the book. I finished it before we went home and haven’t looked back ever since. Stephen King changed my life.

I’m not going to wax philosophical about that, though. You came here to read about vampires, and I thank you for seven hundred words worth of patience while I meandered to the topic.

As best as I can recall, ‘Salem’s Lot was my introduction to the world of vampires. I’m sure I must’ve watched on old movie or two along the way, but nothing that made an impression. King’s vampires weren’t old and stuffy and black and white (although, technically, they were black words on white paper), they were realistic, they seemed possible, and they were awesome.

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must admit that I didn’t find them frightening as much as I found them unsettling. Frankly, they creeped me out. The thought of vampires hiding beneath floorboards or lurking in darkened spaces played tricks with my mind. The fact that vampires could multiply—and didn’t discriminate—turned those tricks into mean, dirty tricks. A ten-year-old’s imagination can run rampant with the idea of an undead horde of women and babies after his blood.

Over the years, I’ve come to the realization that I love frightening things… but I hate creepy things. Being creeped out is so much worse than being frightened. I don’t like bugs. I don’t like reptiles. I don’t like rodents. I don’t like hordes of anything. Well, okay, hordes of screaming fans will be just fine, but anything beyond that is unacceptable.

In the three decades since ‘Salem’s Lot, I’ve read a library’s worth of books. I don’t read for enlightenment or education, I read for pleasure. It’s a hedonistic pursuit that I’m proud of. I firmly believe that if more people read for pleasure, the world would be a better place. I’m all for a fiction-only reading experience. Who needs non-fiction? Self-help books remind us that we’re all messed up. Historical novels point out that things were always screwed up. Biographies highlight the fact that no one wants to read our life stories. Throw ‘em aside and grab a novel.

Over the last fifteen years, I’ve gravitated toward the mystery, fantasy, and sci-fi genres more often than horror. It’s a concession to expectations, as well. Although my heart lies in horror, I grew tired of horror novels that didn’t scare me.

A few years ago, I decided it might be fun to take things one step further and actually write a book. So I did. I wrote a mystery entitled Temporary Insanity in 2007. Little did I know that it wouldn’t be formulaic enough to garner industry attention.

The creative process is amazing in many ways, but perhaps what’s most amazing is the way that creativity begets creativity. While writing that first novel, it wasn’t uncommon for multiple ideas to spring from my mind’s well. As each new idea came, I would stop typing, dutifully jot it into a notebook, and then return (or try to return) to the task at hand. Before long, I had captured dozens of ideas; more than I could develop in a lifetime.

One of those ideas was a story about mutated vampires. It percolated, it festered, and eventually it fought its way past the others to the forefront of my mind. In August 2008 I typed the first words of the story. I didn’t touch it again until January. Between January and September of 2009 I added to the story an average of one day per week. Determined to complete something of substance by year’s end, I buckled down and completed a 45,000 word draft of Part I of the first book in mid-December. Satisfied, I sent it off for a critique.

It did not go well. Let’s just leave it at that because my psyche still bears the scars. The bottom line was this: my love affair with flashbacks and asides needed to end. I didn’t write another word until February of this year. Instead, I learned how to write (or, at least, I hope I did).

I’m proud to say that my novel, Vaempires: Revolution was released this week. My vampire tale is not for the faint of heart. It’s bloody, it’s gory, it’s everything I want a vampire novel to be… and I want my vampires to be even more awesome than the ten-year-old inside remembers. They have to be, because, in my world, vampires aren’t the predator, they are the prey.

That doesn’t mean it’s all blood and guts and action. For even I know that we do not live on excitement alone. There’s plenty of intrigue and romance to satisfy all but the most insatiable appetites.

Here’s the back cover excerpt:

In the future, humans trigger a nuclear winter that lasts for hundreds of years. Water levels rise. The shape of the world changes. When the world recovers, vampires emerge from the darkness. For a millennium, humans and vampires fight for supremacy… until synthetic human blood is created, ushering in a period of peace and prosperity.

And the world changes yet again. Vampires begin morphing into væmpires, warm-blooded creatures with an insatiable hunger for cold vampire blood. There is no rhyme or reason as to who morphs—male or female, old or young, from one end of the world to another—no vampire is safe. And no human is safe, either, because these væmpires aren’t interested in coexistence. They want three things: the eradication of humanity, the enslavement of vampires, and their ascension as the dominant species on the planet.

It is the morning of Princess Cassandra’s sixteenth birthday. With the world’s attention focused on the heir to the vampire throne, væmpires revolt. In their initial attack, they kill the vampire and human leaders and take over the capital. As Cassandra, her boyfriend, Daniel, and the rest of the world fight for survival, væmpires unleash their secret weapons.

The links at the bottom of this post will take you to the various sites where you can find out more. You can even read sample chapters or buy the book.

I truly thank you for your time and I wish you happy reading! Also, I’d like to express my gratitude to Michele and everyone at VampChix for allowing me to serve as guest blogger.

As a final note (and a final indulgence), the last book to frighten me was Stephen King’s It. Not the whole book, but the part where Eddie Corcoran is pursued by the creature. Frightening stuff. Kinda creepy, too. It is my all-time favorite book and the King of horror is my all-time favorite author.

You can read the original post here.

As always, I'm grateful to Michele Hauf and everyone at VampChix for inviting me to be part of the site. Here are links so you can connect with them:  

Website
Facebook
Twitter

New Release Announcement:

Frostwalker, By Brandon R. Luffman

A Survival Horror Novel

There's something in the woods behind Jake Marsden's house - and someone wants him to find it. A strange dream shatters his sleep, night after night, and a compulsion to find the dark presence in the forest wars with his logical and ordered nature. What's a geek to do?

When his small hometown of Wynn, North Carolina falls under an ancient curse, Jake will find himself in a battle against creatures worse than any he's faced in a game. Playing for keeps, it will be geek versus god in the fight to stop an evil force bent on destroying everything he holds dear.

The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth - If They Live Long Enough.

Read excerpts posted on Brandon's blog:
Excerpt #1 - Dreams Of Smoke
Excerpt #2 - The Pit
Excerpt #3 - Opening Scene: Jake Walks The Field
Excerpt #4 - Deputy Fallon Gets Busy

Read the first third of the book for free at the Smashwords link below!

Grab Your Copy Today!

Paperback - $7.99:

CreateSpace
Amazon

Ebook/Kindle - $3.99:

Smashwords
Amazon
iTunes
Versent
Diesel

More Retailers To Come!

About Brandon R. Luffman

Born in Statesboro, Georgia in 1976, Brandon Luffman was raised in rural North Carolina from the time he was old enough to walk. In the sixth grade he discovered The Chronicles Of Narnia. Soon after that, he was on to Stephen King and Arthur C. Clarke. At the same time, he was making his first forays into writing fiction. After creating a series of short fantasy pieces for a class assignment that were received with praise, he was hooked on writing fiction for the entertainment of others. Now Brandon writes supernatural horror as well as fantasy, science fiction, and other genres. His short fiction is available online in various formats. Brandon still lives on the family farm in northwestern North Carolina with his wife and family. Taking inspiration from his homeland, he brings southern sensibilities and a modern flair to these classic genre themes. His first novel, Frostwalker, was released in May of 2013.

Find Brandon Online

Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Smashwords

Today, I want to share a guest post I penned for Workaday Reads last March. 

Mobi-Dick

Most people are at least passingly familiar with Herman Melville's seafaring tale, Moby-Dick, but very few—a handful, perhaps—are familiar with the tale of mobi-dick.

Nevertheless, much like the beloved classic, mobi-dick isn't a tale about the title character as much as it is a tale about one man's obsession with the title character.

Our story starts where all good stories do: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, where a young(er) man trapped in a boring existence on a desolate planet dreams of the stars (and flirts with lawsuits, apparently).

But seriously, the tale of mobi-dick begins in the not-too-distant past, in a small town just north of New York City. Within that small town lived a man who hungered for more.

To the outside observer, this man had it all: a beautiful, loving wife, a caring family, a successful corporate career, and, of course, his health... but it wasn't enough. Something was missing.

Something elusive.

You see, there was a tale he couldn't get out of his head—a story, started years earlier as a college assignment, with roots embedded deep in his psyche like barbed fishhooks. Most of the time he ignored this tale, but it never went away. Instead, it floated just out of reach, a constant reminder of what might have been.

One dark and stormy night, the man succumbed to the pressure and dug out the dusty old story (actually, he opened the Word document, but that type of splitting hairs has no business here, thank you very much). Reading through it rekindled the creative fire, so the man vowed to complete the novel by year’s end.

With the support of his loving wife, he devoted all his free time to the task. He wrote through nights, weekends, and holidays. He missed vacations. He was always type, type, typing away, like an animal pacing back and forth in a cage, but it was worth it. The book began to grow and take shape. Amorphous ideas coalesced into reality. The words piled up, but the man didn’t stop as the word count grew from 80,000 to 100,000 and ultimately to 150,000 words.

The book was done before the year was out; the labor of love that was the offspring of obsession. The man’s wife was overjoyed. His family and friends were pleased. His coworkers were relieved.

But the man was unhappy. It wasn't enough. He longed to share his creation with the world-at-large, as any loving parent does. After all, what's the point in creating something if your genius isn't going to be celebrated?

So the man embarked on a journey in search of publication. How hard could it be? It always happened instantly in the movies. In fact, the very first agent he pitched requested the novel.

He floated along; satisfied that it had been so easy, as three months went by with no word from the agent.

Then six months.

Nine months later, he finally received word—a rejection in the form of a form letter. The elusive dream laughed from a distance.

Undeterred, the man went on a rampage, sending out hundreds of queries over the following months. Many agents declined, but a few—a very, very few—requested more.

At the request of one agent, the man changed the beginning of the novel. He altered the end for another. He sent 50,000 words out to sea for yet another.

But the ultimate prize still eluded him. The elusive dream mocked him. Potential agents lost interest, left the profession, moved on to another employer. More than a year later, an editor finally shed light on the problem: the novel wasn’t formulaic enough.

The man had never even realized there was a formula. Armed with new coordinates, the man jumped into action… but the story had changed so much that it was no longer recognizable as his.

He was adrift, lost at sea and at the mercy of the elusive dream.

Still, creativity begets creativity (and obsession is unrelenting). Blackened, scarred, and bleeding, the man decided to push the original novel aside and pursue a different path. In a fever, he wrote a new novel; 80,000 words in nineteen days.

He sent it to the helpful editor.

It was close, but not quite ready for prime time.

Two revisions later, though, it was.

The man’s satisfaction was short-lived, however, as reality crashed in. The landscape of the publishing industry had changed while he labored; it was changing by the day.

The helpful editor suggested the man try sailing across the vast, mostly uncharted, waters of self-publishing.

So he did.

The last I saw of the man he was swimming in those turbulent waters, making split-second decisions with little to no time to consider their consequences.

Read or write?
Tweet or blog?
Interview or giveaway?
Pitch bloggers or advertise?

In other words, still chasing that elusive mobi-dick…

You might ask where the story ends. Is it a triumph or a tragedy?

I guess time will tell.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed mobi-dick (for those unfamiliar with mobi… it is the ebook file format used by Amazon.com).

You can read the original post here. 

As always, I'm grateful to Sarah for inviting me to be part of her site. Here are links so you can connect with her:  

Website
Facebook
Twitter

Today, I want to share a guest post I penned one year ago today for VampChix/Bite Club.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

I’m so excited to be today’s guest blogger at VampChix & Bite Club! It’s an amazing site in its own right, but it’s also the site where I achieved two personal milestones. Back in November, just a few days after the release of Vaempires: Revolution, Michele gave me the honor of offering my first ever guest blog… now, six months later, she invited me to offer the concluding blog of my first ever Blog Tour.

Those aren’t the only times I’ve been here, but they are the most significant. I can’t thank Michele—and all of you—enough for the continued interaction and support.

On the subject of milestones: my younger brother turns forty today. I’ve waited eighteen long months for him to accompany me in the over-40 club, so please help me wish him a virtual “Happy Birthday.” 

For my part, I’m still reeling from the emotional and psychological shock of turning forty. I knew it was coming, of course, so it wasn’t a matter of being intellectually unprepared—I simply hadn’t fully recovered from turning thirty a short decade earlier.

I don’t feel forty. I mean, yeah, my body feels it—a little more each day, if I’m going to bare my soul here—but my mind doesn’t. I still like video games and comic books and playing sports. I still go to amusement parks. I still jump in puddles with my nephew.

I’m still a child at heart. I feel it. Sometimes, I act it—although infrequently and only in private, lol. It isn’t necessarily endearing, either, but it is what it is (and other trite statements). When I speak with my contemporaries about this, many admit to feeling (and acting) the same way. However, a small percentage does not. While the responses of those people can range from baffled, to concerned, to morally outraged, it is important to note that they, in fact, comprise a very small percentage of the control group and are therefore considered outliers (or just plain ol’ liars, because there’s no way they don’t feel that way … they just won’t admit it).

Still, there is one thing I know as true: my parents sure as heck didn’t seem to be children at heart when they were forty. Now, I realize that it was a different time and that they were from a different generation. They grew up during the Cold War—now, there’s a title for a militaristic vampire saga—they were poster children for corporal punishment, and they didn’t even have cable. Heck, when they turned forty the guy in the White House was older than their parents. 

When I turned forty, we had globalization, Eckhart Tolle helping us toward a spiritual awakening, and reality shows in which, no matter how bad we may feel (or life may get), we can always find someone worse off than we are. We even have the Internet, and blogs, where we can bemoan turning forty or talk about the books we write. Heck, when I turned forty, the guy occupying the White House was less than ten years older than me.

However, even more important was the fact that, when I turned forty, the world was just learning that one of the most famed presidents of all time had been a vampire hunter—and that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to the point of this blog:

I want to be a vampire.

No, ha ha, I don’t want to be hunted; not by Honest Abe or anyone else. I don’t want to be a pretend vampire like some people out there, either. I don’t even want to seduce young women or slowly build an army of undead to take over the world.

I just want to be an honest-to-goodness vampire.

And live forever.

The thought of living forever makes me giddy. Not in a silly schoolgirl way but in an oh-so-happy way (disclaimer: I’m not being sexist here; I’ve simply never seen a silly schoolboy who was giddy. I’ve seen silly schoolboys who were gaudy, gaga, gabby, and even grubby … but never one that I would characterize as giddy. Still, I could be wrong. Maybe I don’t know giddy when I see it. Perhaps my definition or understanding of giddy was irreparably skewed by my upbringing and/or experiences. Perhaps I had too much nature and not enough nurture. Or vice versa. Or some combination thereof that’s frowned upon somewhere. In fact, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut at all times. *sigh* Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean giddy schoolboys don’t exist or that I don’t believe schoolboys should be giddy. Of course they do! And of course they should! Perhaps it’s just safer if I say “not in a silly schoolchild way”).

Anyway … just imagine all I could do with forever before me. I could finally read all the books in my TBR pile. I could watch everything on the DVR. I could even think of new and creative abbreviations, like BUR (being undead rules) and IAV2 (I’m a vampire, too) to tweet.

I could finally learn how to tie a tie or make a really good bolognaise sauce or even discover the connection between meta tags and extraterrestrial life.

The possibilities are endless.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I believe that that lure of immortality is the single-most important factor in the continuing popularity of vampires.

It doesn’t mean the other factors are insignificant. I realize that legions of fans love the otherworldly mannerisms, the overt sexuality, and the enhanced senses and abilities (alas, not sensibilities) of our vampire creations—just not as much as the never-ending lifespan.

And even the paranormal romance fans—who loooove the dark, brooding, bare-chested males glowering at us from shelf after shelf of the local bookstore—wouldn’t have the patience and the empathy (and, I daresay, the desire) for the aforementioned heroes if those heroes weren’t so tragically … painfully … complicatedly … immortal.

So much of early vampire fiction revolved around a vampire’s desire to escape, and a human’s desire to avoid, such insufferable immortality. Well, I say, “To hell with that!”

I don’t want to grow any older and I sure as heck don’t want to meet my maker. Someone please turn me into a vampire before it’s too late! I’ll choose endless hunger (or a soulless existence, or a perpetual chill) over endless sleep, any day.

It’s my brother’s birthday, but I want immortality—the gift that keeps on giving.

Where’s my Edward?

You can read the original post here. 

As always, I'm grateful to everyone at VampChix/Bite Club for inviting me to be part of the site. Here are links so you can connect:  

Website
Facebook
Twitter

Last year, I introduced Christie Rich's "Elemental Enmity" series, sharing my thoughts on its first three installments: Five, Dark Matter, and Genesis. Today, I want to introduce the final installment to this amazing series: Horizon:

Evil has many faces—unfortunately, Rayla Tate has seen them all, or so she thinks. Since she learned she was an Elemental, she has been hunted for her power. But Rayla hasn’t met her greatest foe; she hasn’t seen true evil…yet.

Rayla betrayed her bondmate to be with the man she loves. Now that she has Heath at her side, she is ready to face the fae council and move on with her life. Too bad Zach has other ideas. He’s not about to give Rayla up just because his sister got in the way. He will find Rayla and prove to her that he is the man she is meant to be with, even if he has to face the monsters of the dark realms to do it.

Despite her growing feelings for Heath, with every passing day her body gives in to her bond with Zach. Rayla must leave the dark realms or risk losing control of her mind and ultimately her power. Once back in Lombarda, she discovers a secret about her origins that could shake the foundations of the world, both fae and human. There is more at stake than who she is bound to. The Order and the fae both want control of the same thing, and this time it is not her.

Rayla must unite with unlikely allies to destroy the evil plaguing Faeresia. For if she refuses, she will succumb to a compulsion she never could have anticipated and plunge the world and those she loves into darkness or utter oblivion.

Christie Rich

I live in a small town with my husband, two kids, a spastic dog, and two lazy cats. I love delving into fantasy. Whether it is reading a book, watching a great movie, or recently, writing something I absolutely love.

I have been focusing on the paranormal, and my first published novel, Five, is a paranormal romance. It is the first book in the Elemental Enmity Trilogy and is about a girl that discovers her role in an age old battle for world dominace between the fae and humans. I am working diligently on the second book in the series and hope to release it this fall.

One thing I have discovered about myself through this exciting journey of publishing is that I love to see a world I've created come to life. The experience of writing is much more enjoyable than reading for me and that is saying a lot. LOL.

I hope you enjoy my books as much as I do. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will again.

My Review

In Horizon, the fourth—and final—installment of her “Elemental Enmity” series, author Christie Rich brings events to a most satisfying conclusion … but not before she subjects Rayla, and her readers, to another million or so (I’m exaggerating, but only a little) of her trademark twists and turns ...

From the book’s opening chapter, readers who believed that Rayla had finally decided her destiny at the conclusion of Genesis are immediately separated from such foolish notions. The poor girl still has a long road ahead of her. Along the way, she spends a “moment of feeling like the biggest douche ever,” and continues learning new insights and wisdom, such as “careful is for beggars and bastards.”

Is there an HEA in Rayla’s future or do the lustful lords abandon all hopes of exclusivity and draft a timeshare plan? You’ll have to read Horizon to find out, but I promise you won’t be disappointed. And, for those who hate to see a good thing end, I urge you to look at Horizon not as an end, but rather a beginning … the beginning of Rich’s next thrilling novel.

I highly recommend Horizon to YA, PNR, and fantasy fans.

What did you think? 

Today, I want to share a guest post I penned for Embrace the Shadows last March.

Vampires: Monsters Or Heartthrobs?

I’m so excited to be today’s guest blogger at Embrace the Shadows! To be honest, I’m also a bit nervous. It’s a great honor to be invited to speak to someone else’s audience, but along with that honor comes a tremendous amount of pressure. Everyone at Embrace the Shadows has entrusted you to my care, and I’ll be darned if I’m going to make them regret that decision. Plus, they’ve threatened me with bodily harm if I fail.

So here goes …

(By the way, the part about threatening me with bodily harm is untrue … or perhaps it’s the voices in my head. Nevertheless, no one at Embrace the Shadows threatened me—explicitly or implicitly—with anything. In fact, they didn’t even wish me good luck. Now that I think about it, I’ve never actually communicated with any of these people. Am I even supposed to be here? Is this all a dream? What does it all mean?)

But, seriously, I am quite happy to be here.

I’ve known for a few weeks that I was scheduled to write this blog. Well, not this blog—I mean, who has that kind of foresight?—but a blog for this site. So, anyway … my approach to guest blogging is fairly straightforward: first, I find out if the site has any guidelines pertaining to guest blogs; then I spend as much time as possible doing research—reading through blog posts and comments, trying to get an overall “feel” for the site while everything sort of percolates through the gray matter; and finally, I pray that inspiration strikes.

With a system like that, crafting a guest blog can be a pretty smooth process.

In fact, I haven’t seen the other side yet—you know, when it’s the night before the blog is due and I’m staring at a blank computer screen, wondering why the writing gods have forsaken me—which isn’t a testament to my creative prowess, by any means. Some of the credit goes to the fact that I haven’t been asked to write many guest blogs, so the law of averages (or something similar) is on my side. Much of the credit, however, goes to the blog owners and their fans. There’s always so much interaction, so much energy created, that I can’t help but find inspiration.

I was pleasantly surprised by my experience for this blog post. Oh, I did the usual research, but a seed had been planted the second I saw the blog name. Embrace the Shadows. Who couldn’t find inspiration in that? It sent the thoughts careening in all sorts of directions. All I had to do was allow that seed time to germinate and then somehow harness those careening thoughts into something coherent.

Embrace the shadows.

The concept resonated with me. Of course, you can’t physically embrace shadows. I should know, as I spent the better part of one night trying—quite unsuccessfully, I assure you—to do just that. All I got for my efforts was a visit from a police officer. It seems a concerned citizen reached out on my behalf. I never embraced a shadow, but I did come within a whisker of a free night’s stay at the local precinct.

In retrospect, I should have immediately realized that “embrace the shadows” was a metaphysical, not a physical, concept … but heck, a strip search (totally warranted, given the circumstances of my arrest, and performed in the most dignified manner possible, as stated in the waiver I signed as a condition of my release) and a few bumps and bruises are a trifle when compared to my transgressions. Besides, that’s why hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?

Anyway, once I realized I could embrace shadows in a spiritual sense, things really started coming together. I knew what the theme of my blog was going to be. I just needed a vehicle to help with delivery.

Enter Twitter, stage right.

A few weeks ago, a question began circulating through the small community I’m a part of. The wording was different, but the gist of it was this: do you prefer your vampires as angelic lovethings or monstrous bloodsuckers?

The question originated at a blog, so I dropped by and left a short comment. My wording was different, but the gist of it was this: I embrace the shadows.

While some of you are nodding your heads and admiring my wit, others are shaking theirs and muttering (a la Bugs Bunny), “What a maroon.”

If that reference is lost on you, watch this:

Yet, I speak the truth. When it comes to vampires—in particular, when it comes to my vampires—I do embrace the shadows. You see, I want my vampires to be awesome and savage. I want them to be violent, virulent, and vitriolic. I want them to inspire fear, kick proverbial a$$, and take what they want.

But the heroes in my novels are vampires. Teen vampires, to boot.

So, what gives?

Well, you see, I am embracing the shadows. Shadows hide things. Monsters lurk in shadows. People are afraid of walking into shadows. Yet, aren’t shadows simply projected images of something else—images that are similar to, but not quite perfect copies of, the original?

So, my heroes are vampires and my monsters are væmpires, because væmpires used to be vampires … before something caused them to mutate into bigger, stronger, faster versions of their former selves.

With a hunger for cold vampire blood.

You see, shadows can also be gray areas. Not pitch dark, but certainly not light—somewhere in the middle. I want vampires to be monstrous, but a lot of people—writers and fans alike—disagree. They insist on humanizing vampires. So, if vampires are going to be human-like … then I believe vampires should experience what it’s like to be human in a world full of monsters.

What it’s like to be prey.

You can read the results in my novels. A word of warning: they’re not for the faint of heart. As one reviewer put it, væmpires is like “vampires meets X-Men meets The Walking Dead.”

I can live with that.

You can read the original post here. 

As always, I'm grateful to everyone at Embrace the Shadows for inviting me to be part of the site. Here are links so you can connect:  

Website
Facebook
Twitter

Last week, we were part of the cover reveal for an awesome upcoming novel: Cheree Smith's Shadow Embraced. Today, we finally get to view the trailer, which was created by the ever-talented Silvia Paoletta (official video editor for Vaempires!).

(Haven #1)

No escape.

Those words haunt Scar’s dreams. She thinks the creature that terrorises her while asleep isn’t real, but when she’s abducted and taken to a reform school meant to contain creatures too dangerous to function in society, she starts to wonder whether she isn’t some monster.

She turns to an underground fight club full of vampires, werewolves and witches established by the students to control her urges, and who is she kidding, she loves to fight.

When fighters begin to disappear, turning Scar into the prime suspect, she must race to prove her innocence before her true nature is exposed.

The only problem is that she’s not entirely sure she’s innocent.

Cheree Smith:

Cheree Smith lives in a country town in Australia as a high school English teacher where she writes paranormal, horror and dark stories for young adults. She enjoys listening to and learning about legends and myths, watching scary movies and dreaming up new worlds where monsters can come alive. When she is not in her writing cave she can be found listening to music, even dabbling in the occasional writing of music or reading.

Be sure to check out Shadow Embraced when it's released!

Today, I'm proud to be part of a cover reveal for an awesome upcoming novel: S.M. Blooding's Nightmare's Dream.

(A Dreamland Stories Novel)

Harley’s been fighting Dreamlander society since the day she was born to a family of fixers, Dreamland’s janitors, with the abilities and gifts of a mechanic. She can see how to fix anything. That doesn’t matter though. As soon as she graduates, she’s scheduled to go to the Clink, Dreamland’s high security prison, for daring to be different.

Nightmare Keme has been a loner since the day he was pulled from death, and dumped into the Lake of Dreams to be reborn a nightmare. However, the day he walks into his quarters and discovers a woman mumbling about “killer glitter”, his heart does something it hasn’t done in over a century. It warms.

The Nightmare Realm is in trouble. Nightmares are dying. It soon becomes something much bigger when Harley stumbles onto the masters’ Compound, the location of their secret experiments to combine a dreamer’s body with all the powers of their barely used brain, with the world bending gifts of a Dreamlander’s soul.

Soon, glitter overtakes all Dreamlander places; Fixer’s Fairway, the Center, the Eat’s Market, the Burbs. Dreamlanders everywhere are falling to the virus; the more powerful the gift, the harder and faster they succumb.

Harley and Keme are the only ones who can save them. Keme, the nightmare who dared to dream, and Harley, the woman who defied her world.

S.M. Blooding:

SM Blooding lives in Colorado with her pet rock, Rockie and Ms. Bird. No. She did not eat the Chicken. SistaPITA would have killed her. She’s taken a break from the piano since it’s currently packed, which Ms, Bird is quite happy about, and now knows more than one word in Arabic. Basically, she can say hello, good-bye, give it to me, and hurry up! Though, on every other Tuesday and Wednesday, she forgets how to sayany of those. She’s dated vampires, werewolves, sorcerers, weapons smugglers and US Government assassins. Yes. She has stories. She’s also an investigator with a local paranormal investigation group, Colorado Paranormal Rescue!

Today, I'm proud to be part of a cover reveal for an awesome upcoming novel: Cheree Smith's Shadow Embraced

(Haven #1)

No escape.

Those words haunt Scar’s dreams. She thinks the creature that terrorises her while asleep isn’t real, but when she’s abducted and taken to a reform school meant to contain creatures too dangerous to function in society, she starts to wonder whether she isn’t some monster.

She turns to an underground fight club full of vampires, werewolves and witches established by the students to control her urges, and who is she kidding, she loves to fight.

When fighters begin to disappear, turning Scar into the prime suspect, she must race to prove her innocence before her true nature is exposed.

The only problem is that she’s not entirely sure she’s innocent.

Cheree Smith:

Cheree Smith lives in a country town in Australia as a high school English teacher where she writes paranormal, horror and dark stories for young adults. She enjoys listening to and learning about legends and myths, watching scary movies and dreaming up new worlds where monsters can come alive. When she is not in her writing cave she can be found listening to music, even dabbling in the occasional writing of music or reading.

Come back next week to see the book trailer!