A vampire a day: Baltimore by Michael Mignola and Christopher Golden

This illustrated novel is collaboration between Michael Mignola, who created Hellboy and Bram Stoker Award-winning novelist Christopher Golden.  The result is a stylish dark fantasy with enough literary trappings to entice readers who wouldn’t ordinarily be caught dead (undead?) reading a graphic novel.  It’s a character study featuring four distinctly different men with experience in the paranormal, all of whom have unique stories to tell.

We are in an unnamed European city, sometime during the years of Great War.  The battles still rage, but a plague born of vampire blood breath is abroad and inside the City, everything is dead.  In fact, the plague has reduced the war to a mere sideshow, fought only by those who cannot admit that it no longer matters. 

The men, who are strangers to one another, have been summoned by Captain (Lord) Henry Baltimore, whose friendship they have in common.  They arrive at their destination—a deserted inn—before Baltimore and pass the time by exchanging tales of horror.   

Heart of Darkness, the classic Joseph Conrad novella, begins with people telling stories too, and I doubt that's an accident. There are all sorts of "references" in this story, which is rich and layered. 

A Sequel is born! Daughter of the Midnight King

Not quite eighteen months ago, my novella, Bride of the Midnight King, was published. It was a retelling of the fairy tale Cinderella with a vampire gloss on it. I had a lot of fun writing it and to my surprise, a lot of people had fun reading it. It very quickly became my best-selling work to date. I had intended to write the sequel right away but life got away from me for a while--I moved to another state, I ended up writing a movie, I ghost-wrote a DIY book, I mid-wifed the birth of my best friend's own novel-writing career. So it took me a while. But now Daughter of the Midnight King is finally  out in the world. On to the next project!!!

Two People You Wouldn't Expect to Have Written Vampire Novels/Stories

One of the least-known works by Theodore Sturgeon, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction writer, is his short horror novel Some of Your Blood. Like Dracula, it's told in epistolary form, but it's more like Twelve O'Clock High in subject matter. The story is gritty and unsupernatural, and well worth checking out.

Neil Gaiman's short story "Snow, Glass, Aples" is a dark retelling of Snow White in which the stepmother is not the villain(ess). It's unlike much of his work and makes you long for more twisted fairy tales from his unique perspective. If you want to buy it stand-alone, it can be yours for a little under two thousand dollars (on Amazon here). It was collected in the anthology Love in Vein II, which is available for around $68.  (Look for it at your local independent book store.)

A Vampire a Day: Vamp

I have a theory about vampire movies and the lackluster performance of 2014's Vampire Academy bears it out. I don't think audiences really like comedy blended with their vampire stories. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a hugely successful television series but the movie it was based on only made $16 million domestically and was never released overseas.
Vamp was a movie I saw one weekend when my roommate and I scooped up a ton of videos more or less at random because our local video store was already out of all the new releases. I wasn't expecting much, frankly, but as it turns out, I was pretty entertained. for one thing, Grace Jones as the vampire was both sexy and scary. For another, some of the comedy really worked. (I particularly liked amoment when a character gets staked through the heart but doesn't die because it's formica and not wood.) Robert Rusler as Chris Makepeace's hapless friend was darkly handsome (yes, I can be shallow), and Gedde Watanabe starred as well. Billy Drago and Sandy Baron also co-starred and were perfect.
If you're looking for something pulpy and silly to watch one Halloween night, check out Vamp.

He'll always be Hans Gruber to me. RIP Alan Rickman.

Yes, yes, he was in the Harry Potter movies, but he'll always be Hans Gruber to me. I started working for Silver Pictures the month that Die Hard came out. I've always liked action movies and Die Hard, like many of Joel Silver's movies, established a new story paradigm that other companies were quick to pick up on and run with. I cannot tell you how many "Die Hard on a (fill in the blank)" movies I read in the 18 months I worked there.Some were pretty cool, others were just lame knockoffs.

Bruce Willis ruled as John McClane in Die Hard. I'd only ever seen him on Moonlighting and in those beer commercials but he had a good smirk--only Clark Gregg does it as well--and I  liked his style. He was great. But Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber? He was perfection. Sinister and smart and he had the first "resurrected villain" moment that ever really worked for me.

The next thing I saw Alan Rickman in was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and my favorite scene in the whole movie was the one where he (as the Sheriff of Nottingham) has a conversation with Michael Wincott's hilariously dim Guy of Gisborne. "I'll cut out his heart with a spoon."  "Why a spoon cousin?" "Because it will hurt more."

I Will Make Wine of Your Blood

The heroine of my upcoming urban fantasy novel (Misbegotten)  is a paranormal crime reporter named Kira Simkins.  In the course of the story, I mention that "Kira" has written two true crime books, one about a syndiate of murderous mer-men (Poseidon's Stepchildren) and one called I Will Make Wine of Your Blood. My friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services whipped up covers for the imaginary books and I've always planned on writing novelettes to give away to my so-far nonexistent mailing list. But as I get close to finishing Misbegotten, I find myself more and more intrigued by the premise of this paranormal "true crime" book. I really want to write it now, but that will play havoc with my schedule this year.
I love this cover so much.

A Vampire a Day: Sunglasses After Dark by Nancy Collins

When I read this book, Sonja Blue was not yet the heroine of a series of books. I thought I was reading a one-off and was sad because I LOVED Sonja. I loved Sunglasses After Dark. They've redone the covers now that it's a series, and they're wonderfully retro, but the one I first read had the cover pictured.

Sonja's a vampire who hunts other vampires. That's not a particularly new idea (Blade, Vampire Hunter D), but I got a kick out of Sonja's particular brand of kick-ass. She stood out from all those katana-wielding, tramp-stamped hunter chicks  you see nowadays. Sonja is ... complicated.

Nancy Collins sounds like an interesting person too. I hope I run into her some time at SDCC.

A Vampire a Day: Gil's All-Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez

A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost ruin a Goth girl’s plan to open a portal for the old gods to usher in a new world of darkness.

This is a very, very funny horror story that uses all the tropes of urban fantasy and spins them in a redneck kind of way. The vibe is one part ZOMBIELAND and one part FROM DUSK TIL DAWN with a big dash of DUCK DYNASTY/HERE COMES HONEY BOO BOO thrown in. In other words, although the characters include vampires and werewolves and ghosts and zombies (and zombie cows), the backdrop is pure regional.

It’s a really loopy and off the wall and extremely entertaining as a book. Martinez really does urban fantasy well and he and Christopher Moore seem to have this branch of the genre all to themselves.

The characters are all fully realized and recognizable human beings, even when they’re undead or ghosts or weres or just hapless minions of the manipulative Tammy/Lilith.

A new book in a series that just keeps getting better and better

If you're not yet a fan of Stacy Clafin's "The Transformed" series, then why not?  The best-selling author has just released #11, Obscured. She's also hosting a giveaway on the Free Kindle Giveaway site. So if you haven't started the series, get reading. If you're already hooked--the wait for the new book is over!

A Vampire a Day: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

A curious young woman investigates her diplomat father’s past and stumbles across the true history of “Drakulya.”

I loved this book. My review of it read, in part:This book has close kinship with the wonderfully evocative period mystery IN THE NAME OF THE ROSE.  The story is atmospheric and densely fragrant, with details that anchor us in time and space even as the story spins its magic across the centuries.  The characters are rich and dimensional, drawing us into the outlandish tale one step at a time.  

The book garnered all kinds of praise for its literary excellence and no one seemed to mind that it was really a vampire novel. 

Most Stylish Vampire Ever: David Bowie

I was never much of a rock concert goer, but I saw David Bowie in concert when he was touring in support of his Let's Dance album. It was a great show and I can't even remember who the opening acts were.

My mother LOVED David Bowie. She got cable TV around the time that MTV started and the video featuring David Bowie and Mick Jagger singing "Dancing in the Streets" was one of her favorite videos. Bowie looks incredibly young, elegant, and sexy in it and it's bouncy and fun.

Bowie didn't do a lot of acting but when he appeared in a movie--whether Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence or Labyrinth or Zoolander--he made an impact. And in Tony Scott's stylish vampire movie The Hunger, he and Catherine Deneuve were probably the sexiest vampires ever.

Bowie celebrated his 69th birthday on the 8th and died yesterday. RIP David.

A Vampire a Day: Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambley

When I moved to the Pacific Northwest last year and was paying my movers $20 a box, I culled my book collection ruthlessly. I have a Kindle and I like the convenience of an eReader but there are some books that I just want in my actual library. Those Who Hunt the Night made the cut, along with its sequel, Traveling with the Dead.  The book was published in 1988 and now appears to be out of print in paperback, although you can find used copies in hardback. The books have been reissued in a digital omnibus collection, which is convenient.
James Asher, the hero of the novels, was once a spy for Queen Victoria. In the first book, he's approached by a Spanish vampire named Don Simon who wants his help finding out who's killing London's vampires. And let's just say, Don Simon does NOT take "no" for an answer.
I am a huge fan of Hambley's "Benjamin January" mysteries (that's how I first came to the writer) and I was delighted by the James Asher books. Hambley is not a spring chicken and last year was tough for her, but she's still writing and I am so glad for that.

One Night Only--new fiction for Nikki Finke's Hollywood Dementia

I have a new story up at Nikki Finke's Hollywood Dementia. Illustration by the talented Thomas Warming.

Cover reveal: The Unknown Road

I've been writing a series of novelette-sized modernized fairy tales, and grabbing covers from various sources. The fabulous Ravven was running a Christmas deal on her pre-designed covers and I snagged that great Hunter's Kiss (Snow White) cover from her for a fraction of what her covers normally cost. (And believe me, when I can afford it, I'm going back to her for my series covers because she does gorgeous work.)
As does my friend Joy Sillesen of Indie Author Services, who created this great cover for my retelling of "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," which was always one of my favorite fairy tales. I love the color palette on this cover.
The novelette will be out later this summer, but I just had to show off the cover now.

A Vampire a Day: The Shiny Narrow Grin by Jane Gaskell

Jane Gaskell wrote her first novel, Strange Evil, when she was 14.  Nobody had ever seen anything like it. (You can still find copies around. Here it is on Amazon with illustrations by Boris Vallejo.) China Mieville has called the book the first example of "new weird," a genre he now owns. Gaskell worked as a journalist for a while, and continued to write fiction until 1990. According to Wikipedia, she is now a professional astrologer.

The Shiny Narrow Grin is Gaskell's vampire novel and it is soooooo 60s pubished in 1964). I have a friend, born in the 70s, who is fascinated by everything Swinging Sixties, and this is one of her favorite books. The Shiny Narrow Grin .  the book is almost impossible to find. But strangely, it's up at Wattpad. (Read it here.)

A Vampire a Day: Fevre Dream by George R. R. Martin

I first encountered George R. R. Martin as a fan of the original Beauty and the Beast, which he created. I found out he'd written a couple of novels and went in search of them. I really liked Armageddon Rag, but I REALLY liked Fevre Dream, his vampire novel. It's an obscure one that ended up on the B&N Reads list of "the Ten Best Vampire Novels No One Has Read"  (I've read one other book on the list, Suzy McKee C Charnas' Vampire Taspestry but haven't read the other eight which means I have the chance to discover eight (EIGHT!!!!) great new books.

Fevre Dream is a gothic novel with a capital G. Wikipedia, which has an entry on the book (of course they do--it's not a "thing" unless it's got a Wikipedia article) that likens the book's style to a mashup of Bram Stoker and Mark Twain. Martin worked out a complex backdrop for his vampires (the "red thirst" they experience, the Pale King who leads them) and it mostly takes place on an elegant and elaborate steam boat (the Fevre Dream of the title.)

This is a lush and decadent and nuanced novel and (in my opinion) leaves Anne Rice in the dust.

A Vampire a Day: Salem's Lot by Stephen King

I'm pretty sure this was the first book I read by Stephen King. I never read Carrie, but I picked up Salem's Lot at the Westover Hills Public Library in Richmond and was completely hooked. I am an unabashed fan of King, and think he's a master at crafting character. (I believe he is the Charles Dickens of our generation. He is superb at characters. And even on his worst days--Desperation, Rose Madder, I'm looking at you--he's better than most people.)

I loved the way he played with the tropes of the vampire myth in this book, especially the way he did the "stake through the heart" thing. I liked the pairing of the kid and the writer who has come back to his home town. (SPOILER ALERT) He has written about killing the love interest in the book and he's absolutely right about the way that unsettled the reader. Because if he killed her off, what might he do next???

I also really liked the first television adaptation of this. David Soul, Lance Kerwin, James Mason and a scary, Nosferatu-type vampire. The scene where a vampire Geoffrey Lewis floats outside the young hero's window was damn scary. (Geoffrey Lewiswas one of my favorite character actors. I saw him in a spoken word performance years ago and he just killed it.) James Mason was perfect.  (And another example of the "all the villains are Brits" idea.)

Salem's Lot was written when King was only 28.

A Vampire a Day: Innocent Blood

You didn't see this movie. Nobody did. I know this because it was a Warner Bros. movie and I was working at WB at the time. In fact, I was working at Warner Bros. helping develop a vampire script that had been written by two guys who'd penned a massive, franchise-spawning hit. The premise of the script was original and featured vampires in Vegas preying on people in 12-Step programs. We submitted the script to the studio the weekend Innocent Blood opened and on Monday, our script was deader than disco. And unlike vampires, it did not rise from the dead. (For the record, Box Office Mojo says it made less than $5 million in domestic release (and even in 1992, that was terrible). It never got an international release and considering the global appetite for horror, that tells you just what a stinker the studio had on its hands.

On paper, the movie was a no-brainer. Directed by John Landis, starring Anne Parillaud who was hot off La Femme Nikita, and the late, great Robert Loggia, with Anthony LaPaglia and Angela Bassett in supporting roles. The movie was chock full  of character actors, from Zhazz Palmenteri to Luis Guzman. Even Don Rickles showed up. The storyline combines romance, Mafiosi, and dark humor. Maybe it was the humor that was the problem. Audiences seem to prefer their vampire movies straight up unless it's an out and out spoof like Vampires Suck.

It had a GREAT poster. The kind of image you could see on a paranormal romance today. No fangs, just Anne Parillaud's gorgeous face and big red eyes.

If you're curious, you can watch the trailer here.

A Vampire a Day: Sabella: Or the Blood Stone by Tanith Lee

You don't always remember what your gateway book was to a new author but for me, the Science Fiction Bookclub 1980 double-novella collection SOMETIME AFTER SUNSET (comprising "Companions on the Road" and "Sabella') was my introduction to Tanith Lee.

I had never read anything written in that darkly lushly style before. Tanith Lee used words the painters use oil pigments, just slathering them on, layering them, swirling them around. Her prose was absolutely  gorgeous and I was a fan from that moment on. I've read most of her work and that's saying something because she was wildly prolific.

She wrote several vampire stories, including Dark Dance, which I somehow missed (and which sounds like it has a bit of 50 Shades of Grey in it), and several other books in her Blood Opera series. It's probably heresy to admit it but I never much cared for Anne Rice's vampires. Like everyone else, I devoured Interview with the Vampire but it didn't send me off on an Anne Rice reading binge. (And for me, the absolute best thing about the movie was Kirsten Dunst's performance as the child vampire.)

But Sabella...It was science fiction. It was horror. It was fantasy. It was beautiful. And if I had never read it, I would have missed out on 30-some years of wonderful books.Now if I could just find a copy of BLOOD OF ROSES, which you can get used on Amazon for $151 or new for a few thousand.

A Vampire a Day: FOREVER KNIGHT: Intimations of Immortality by Susan Garrett

I knew Susan Garrett. She was a friend of a friend of mine and soon after we met I realized that Susan was a friend to everyone. She was warm and generous and lovely and when she died a few years ago, even though I hadn't known her long or known her well, I felt bereft.
Susan was active in the fan fic community, writing stories in several different universes, including Forever Knight, the Canadian television show that has attained cult classic status. She and I shared a fondness for Forever Knight. (My best friend is a dead ringer for actor Geraint Wyn Davis, who played the vampire lead.)

The powers-that-be producing the show read some of Susan's fan fiction and invited her to write one of the tie-in novels. I think there were three, but this is the only one I ever read. It was a lot of fun, and can be read as a stand alone, even if you never saw the show. It preserves the struction of the television episodes, which involve a modern-day story taking place in an unnamed city (clearly Toronto because you can see the CN tower in most of the exterior shots) and then flashing back to a time in the main protagonist's past life.

The book was a mass market paperback published in 1997 and you can still get copies on Amazon for a penny and postage (around $4). If you like vampires with a side-order of romantic angst, you'll love this book. And you'll love Susan's writing too. A lot of her fan fic is still online, so if you liked this story, you can find shorter works she wrote.

A Vampire a Day: Bent Steeple by G. Wells Taylor

Horror writer G. Wells Taylor (his new book, The Night Once More is a genre-bending, phantasmagorical noir-horror-thriller), hit an absolute home run with Bent Steeple, a stand-alone vampire book set in the Canadian north woods. If you like Stephen King (and I do, a lot), you will LOVE this book. The characterizations are absolutely first rate, from a doctor who sees what's happening before anyone else, to a disabled kid. (Fergus will break your heart.) this is another vampire book that is for readers who prefer their horror to be just that--horrific. Taylor is also the author of the Dracula of the Apes trilogy, a masterful mashup of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Bram Stoker. (You'll never look at Tarzan the same way again.)

Bonus:  I love this cover. Stark. Graphic. Eerie-looking. So much subtler than the usual black and red  with creatures.

A Vampire a Day: Vampyrrhic by Simon Clark

Remember when vampire books were horror stories? Me too. (I still get chills thinking about Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot.) Vampyrrhic, which is free today, is a throw-back to the days before sparkly vampires and alpha-hole blood-drinkers. The vampires in this book are Nosferatu and they're damn scary. The tale unfolds in a small town in Northern England and like all horror stories that take place in small towns, the isolation and the vulnerability of the town play a part. Clark is a writer to watch in the horror-thriller genre and if you like your vampires to be monsters, you will like this book.

A Vampire a Day: Blood and Snow by RaShelle Workman

I love re-imagined fairy tales. I love writing them (Bride of the Midnight King, Fashionista) and I love reading them. I'm always pleased when someone comes up with an inventive new twist on an old story, as Christine Pope did with her sci fi Beauty and the Beast novella Blood Will Tell. RaShelle Workman's contemporary paranormal version of Snow White is now a multi-book series that's sold more than a million copies and it's easy to see why. You can get book one free on kindle, and move on from there.

Workman's version of Snow White is a thoroughly contemporary young woman who doesn't own any makeup, is hopelessly out of fashion compared to her fashionista friend, who is prone to bouts of TMI, and generally doesn't think she has much to offer. She's sympathetic, relatable, and likable. And SHE HAS A CHARACTER ARC!!

And the author has worked out a history and a mythos for her vampires. And there are consequences for people's actions.

I liked this book a lot. If you like heroines who have character, and plots that involve real emotion, you will like this series.


Bonus: I really liked the font used for this story. So many ebooks look like they were typed on a typewriter or use some generic font that is just ugly. The font here is very feminine without being overwhelmingly girly/swirly.

Another one for the TBR pile (bookcase)

I am an absolute sucker for books on the "secret history" or the "history you never learned" books. This one caught my eye on a Library Thing give-away and I'm not the only one fascinated by this kind of material. Something like 600 people have already put their names in the hat to win 100 review copies. So yes, that's a one in six chance but the month is still early. And I can't wait. so I'm off to snag my kindle copy of Spies, Sadists, and Sorcerers by Dominic Selwood. (The painter of the Shroud of Turin was found in the 1300s!!! I cannot wait to read this book.)

A Vampire a Day: The Vampire Maid by Hume Nisbet

First of all, don't bother to download this "public domain" novel from Amazon. The type is spindly and hard to read and the formatting is atrocious. (Words like "kind" are split.) But because the story was written in 1901, the good people of Project Gutenberg have made it available online in a much more readable form. (Find it here.)

It's a wonderfully Gothic kind of story that makes me wonder why we haven't heard more about Hume Nisbet. Turns out he was a really interesting guy. He was an artist and a poet who also wrote books on art in addition to lots and lots of ghost stories. He also wrote a fair number of romances.His paintings are all quite moody--his most famous is probably "the Flying Dutchman," and are full of clouds and fogs and so forth.

I really enjoyed this short story and think you will too.

A Vampire a Day: Vampires Rule by Kasi Blake

Like ohmigod, I thought when I saw the title of this book, thinking it was going to be a story about teen vampires in high school or something. As it turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
The cover is a better clue to the content. It's got that angsty thing going on and despite the kind of cheesy typeface, the image clearly depicts the kind of isolation the young vampire narrator experiences.

The book begins with a very emotional and very effective scene as "a boy with no name' pays a visit to his childhood home and sees that the cheery yellow his mother chose has been painted over with a muted olive green. He nearly panics t the thought that his brother Billy has sold the farm, but as it turns out, losing the farm is not the worst problem facing him.