What makes vampires sexy?

by Laura

Vampires are sexy. The question is—why?

It may go back to the age-old attraction of bad boys. Vampires are ultimate bad boys; in many stories, they’re even soulless.

But there’s more to vampires that make them better than the average bad boy or even bad creature-of-the-night. Here are some of my favorite aspects of vampires (feelings so complicated they require nested bullets!):

• They drink blood. This can be written as horrible and violent, but it can also be written as erotic and intimate: vampires are connected with a primal life force.
  • The “siring” relationship—when one vampire creates another—also strikes a chord. Two people share a sexualized ritual, and then are forever connected, whether they want to be or not.
• They’re frightening, yet vulnerable.
  • Blood is difficult to get, especially for a reformed vampire. When they don’t get it, they need help—and at the same time, they can become more dangerous and primal, like a caged animal.
  • They generally have various other weaknesses, notably sunlight. Though strong and scary at night, they need to be protected during the day.
  • They’re overpowering, yet overpowered. Often they have physical and/or mental powers beyond ordinary mortals. They can cause humans to act against their own wishes, and yet they are driven by natural impulses to act against their own.
• They’re (usually) immortal. Forever young and pretty.
  • They’re often hundreds of years old (yet still pretty!), making them worldly and cynical. Ah, cynicism: a bad boy attitude with intelligence and experience to back it up.
• They can (usually) be reformed.
  • An unlimited lifetime is enough time to try anything—even a supposedly evil creature can find virtue or love eventually. The potential invites the right mate to try and draw it out.
  • On the other hand, an unlimited lifetime is enough time to try anything—even going good for awhile and then going bad again. So the danger is always there.
  • A reformed vampire still needs to kill (or at least maim) for survival. This leads to delicious angst. (Why angst and guilt are sexy is a topic for another time…)

What about you–what do you like about vampires?

My journey to writing paranormal romance

By Lori Devoti, author of Guardian’s Keep

When I first heard about Silhouette Nocturne I knew I wanted to write for it, but at the time it seemed like a long shot for me. I read a ton of dark paranormal and I am a major fantasy reader, but everything I had written at that point was light. I went so far as to say I couldn’t do dark.

But I wanted to, so I tried. I started out with what I saw as a sexy and unique shape-shifting creature, hellhounds. Then I tried to put everything into that first book that I loved about what I think of as traditional romances — the intense alpha hero, who doesn’t take guff from anyone — but I also wanted to write books where the heroine is strong — she may not think she is in the beginning, but she is and the hero knows it. No alpha heroes talking down to the heroines in my world.

As I built my world, things started to grow. I realized my characters really lived in a modern world based on Norse mythology. I discovered lots of fun and dangerous beings in this mythology, one of which I also saw as having hero potential — the Garm. Garm are wolf shapeshifters, but not werewolves.  They don’t “catch” shapeshifting from a bite or wound, and they aren’t ruled by phases of the moon. They are just shapeshifters, just as hellhounds are hellhounds, and elves are elves.

As I continue to write new Silhouette Nocturne books, I learn more and more about my world. And I love taking existing myths and updating them into modern versions. In Guardian’s Keep I used the myth of Fenrir, a mighty Garm feared by the gods themselves. I gave him a family and a motivation that wasn’t talked about in Norse mythology (although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, right?).

In my upcoming June 2008 Nocturne title, Wild Hunt, I visit the myth of the wild hunt, in which hellhounds are spectral beings that hunt down humans and drag them off to hell… or wherever the being running the hunt wants to take them.

I invent places and beings and powers. There are no limits. What more could a writer ask for?

Patrice Michelle’s SCIONS: RESURRECTION

By Patrice Michelle, author of SCIONS: RESURRECTION

The other day I went to a gem show with a girlfriend.  Sure there were plenty of beautiful, sparkly gems from diamonds to emeralds and everything in between to marvel over, but I was more interested in the unusual stuff…like rocks that have natural sparkle, crystals and of course geodes—crack that rough, dull surface open and unpolished beauty lies inside! Such amazing stones grow naturally all around us.  Now that was interesting! I found a couple of really unique stones I’d never heard of before and purchased them because my mind was already working on ways to incorporate these cool stones into a new story. 

As we were walking out, I told my friend, “My author-mind kind of works in contrast to many authors.  Instead of a storyline idea first, I’ll find an item that sparks my interest and I’ll build an entire story; the world, characters—everything—around that one thing in my mind until I have to write the novel.”

That’s exactly how many of my books were inspired and SCIONS: RESURRECTION was no exception.  But instead of an item as my inspiration, I had a dream.  When I woke up, I started scribbling.  The more I thought about that surreal dream, I began to build an entire plot, characters and world around it. RESURRECTION kicks off the first of my SCIONS books, featuring vampires, werewolves and other paranormal events.

Each of the SCIONS books will read as a stand-alone romance, but there is an underlying prophesy that will flow from book one, RESURRECTION to book two, INSURRECTION, and then the prophesy will be fully revealed in book three, REVELATION.

If you like paranormal action-adventure with a sexy, heart-tugging romance woven throughout, I hope you’ll give SCIONS a try.

All the best,

Patrice
www.patricemichelle.net