Daughter of the Midnight King

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This magical, novella-length sequel to Bride of the Midnight King continues the love story of Yalira and the vampire king Idrax. 

Now pregnant with their child--the first natural-born vampire in centuries--Yala becomes the center of a three-way struggle for control of the kingdom of Eindar. Alliances are made and broken among those loyal to Idrax, the humans who want a larger say in their government, and the magic-born vampires whose thirst for power knows no bounds. While intrigue threatens the court of the Midnight King, Lord Thyr, the king's roguish cousin, finds love in a most unexpected place and the queen's stepsister Rilla encounters romantic difficulties in her relationship with master painter Ruel who initially courted her but who has been distant of late.

It's complicated.

This is the story of what happens after happily ever after in a Cinderella story of another sort. A blend of fairy tale romance, political and court intrigue, and familiar and fresh fantasy themes, The Daughter of the Midnight King expands the universe in Bride of the Midnight King--adding even more magic to the mix. New characters are introduced and fresh facets of familiar characters are explored. 

Daughter of the Midnight King does NOT contain a cliff-hanger. 

Bride of the Midnight King

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Bride of the Midnight King is a fairy tale fantasy with a dash of the paranormal. This is a novella set in a fabulous fairy tale land where humans and vampires co-exist. Bride of the Midnight King is based on one of the most beloved fairy tales of all time, melding the romantic/classic Cinderella story and a richly textured vampire mythology to create something unique and fantastical.
And like all the best fairy tales, the story begins with ...

Once upon a time...

There was a land called Eindar, and those who lived there called it “home,” but those who lived beyond its borders called it “The Divided Kingdom” because it was a place where humans and vampires shared the land but divided the day’s hours into sunlight and shadow, and there were only a few whose lives were lived in both realms.
Eindar had once been ruled by a royal house of humans, but that era ended when the last human king—Lorant the Third—took a vampire wife and died, leaving the kingdom in her care. Queen Isix abdicated in favor of her son Adraxus, and the sons of his line had occupied the throne of the Shadow Palace ever since.

QA Vampire a Day: Christmas with the Vampire by Shay Roberts. FREE!!

Yes, the season is over, but isn't Christmas a state of mind? Christmas with the Vampire  is a novelette set in Prague with a backdrop of a medieval town nearby. It's a fun take on the Santa Claus myth and a nice coming-of-age tale. It's available free on Kobo and Amazon.

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.

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: 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: 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.

A Vampire a Day: HEARTBLAZE by Shay Roberts

I don't know about you, but if I see ONE MORE paranormal book where the heroine is a passive little twit, I'm going to throw up my garlic pizza. HEARTBLAZE is a refreshing change.

Right from the start, author Shay Roberts serves notice that this is not going to be an ordinary paranormal romance. Yes, there are vampires and werewolves in the story, but there’s also a richly detailed paranormal world, where there are rules and reasons for what happens. Then there’s the setting—Rhode Island, a place steeped in history that comes alive, particularly in the sections of the book set in Emma’s past life. That past life element is very appealing, especially since there are “real life characters” woven into the tale. (Watch for a great bit involving the birth of the national anthem.)

Written in a briskly cinematic style—we’re plunged right into the action as heroine Emma Rue finds herself acting in inexplicable ways for reasons she doesn’t understand—and told from multiple points of view across two timelines, HEARTBLAZE delivers on all levels. There’s a vampire hierarchy, complicated clan politics among the shifter characters, and a vengeful ghost who has an agenda related to the larger world. And there’s a romance that’s deepened not just by conflict, but by intelligence. Emma is not a silly little girl and her pursuit of the truth about herself, about who she was and who she is, draws us in. And bonus points for the spooky old mansion! Both Gothic and contemporary, this book is a treat for readers who are tired of the same-old/same-old.

A Vampire a Day: Daughters of Darkness: Victoria by W.J. May

There are a lot of vampire novels (or in this case, novellas) out there, and I realized I had about a bazillion of them on my Kindle. I decided to see how many I could read in a month. I'm aiming for one a day. Here's the first one.

This is a novella, which is exactly the bite-sized bit of story I was looking for today. I like the setup of the daughters of Vlad being scattered all over the place and so numerous that they don't necessarily know each other. That makes sense to me. After a couple of centuries, it would be easy to lose count of your progeny, particularly if you move around a lot.

The title character is a "hunter," and as the story opens, she's after a girl who's a witch. But complications ensue when she finds out that the witch is actually one of her (many) sisters. And then, it gets really complicated.

Victoria (or "Tori" as her hunting partners call her), is a tough chick in the obligatory skin-right black leather outfit. She doesn't have a lot of patience with humans or half-vampires who can't keep up. (But who does really?)

A lot of this feels like it's been filtered through the UNDERWORLD movie franchise (vampires versus werewolves), but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I like adding the witch element, especially when we find out that the witch in question is untrained and having to "wing it" as her magic is activated with a heavy blood scent. I prticularly liked it when Tori corners her prey and the witchling's newborn powers seem to be fizzling out. Because you could see that happening!

Tori starts out with a little Katniss action (she's armed with a bow and arrow) and then switches to guns, but before the story's over, we get ultraviolet guns and gizmos. It's fun. The writer also gives us a sens eof a larger universe at work, with talk of "the Council."

#HEARTBLAZE--Twilight with a Bite!

If you're looking for something new in paranormal romance, you might want to check out Heartblaze 1: Secret Soul, the debut novel by Shay Roberts. the story mixes a contemporary tale about a troubled college student name Emma Rue with a past life adventure when she was a vampire aristocrat. And just to make things more complicated, there's a vengeful ghost trying to manipulate her, an anti-paranormal organization that's out to kill her, and a conflicted werewolf who can't decide between his duty and his feelings.

There's a real depth of world-building here--an element most paranormal romances skip over--and real stakes at hand. This is Twilight with a bite,  a story with some edge to its emotions.

Heartblaze is a great read, and it's available worldwide.

New cover reveal

I have a new longish short story that I'm about to put up as a kindle "short read" and I found this cover on a pre-made site. I fell in love iwth the font and also with the spider photographs. I once encountered a spider just like that one with the striped legs. Only one of us survived the encounter. Spite is, as you can imagine, a horror story. But I've been playing around with vmapire mythology and I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.