10 Things About THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE

I wrote a post a while back called "Ten Things about The Tale of the Vampire Bride." I thought it might be a little fun to revisit that idea with its sequel THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE.

WARNING: Do not read this post unless you have read the book, or don't mind being spoiled.

1. The title is actually not a reference to Glynis. Though she is a vampire bride, she's not the bride in question. It's actually a certain blonde bride who would like nothing more than to see Glynis dead.

2. Laura's presence in the sequel was hinted at in the first book.

3. One theme of the book was "the constraints of society." Glynis tends to chaff against societal rules and she lives within two distinct and dangerous societies. The aristocracy and the supernatural. She knows how to maneuver through the world of the aristocracy, but she is incredibly naive about the supernatural world.  Without Vlad to protect her, Glynis flounders her way through this book. By the end, she finds a way to stand on her own two feet within the supernatural world in a very dynamic way.  She also makes a bold move as to how the mortal world will regard her. The aftermath of both these decisions is the premise of the third book THE LAMENT OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE.

4. For Glynis to become her own woman/vampire, she needed to be free of the two vampire men in her life, her creator and her lover.  Both are deliberately not in the book very much because it was important for Glynis to create her own support system. (I know a few peeps didn't like this, but it was on purpose and for a reason.

The Vampire Bride series is all about Glynis. It's not about Vlad. Though he's her creator, he will never have the center stage of the series.  Though his shadow casts a pall over her life, Glynis's story will continue with him on the fringes.  That being said, I may write a story about Vlad and his one true love, Erzsebet, sometime next year. It will be called THE TALE OF THE IMPALED BRIDE.

I stated this in the previous list, but I'll reiterate here.  There is no love triangle in this series. Ignatius is the love of Glynis's life and her relationship with him will continue to evolve. Whether or not they can stay together or will be torn apart by forces greater than they is yet to be seen, but they will never willingly part from each other.

5.  Astir's genderless/sexless state of being was grand fun to explore, both for the character and for me. S/He will continue to slide effortlessly back and forth between the two identities. Though angels are the hot stud muffins of YA right now, Astir is decidedly not a romantic hero.  If anything, I think Astir regards him/herself as a snake in the vampire garden and rather likes it.

6. I can only imagine one person playing Astir in the TV show.  That person is Tilda Swinton.  I think she could perfectly capture Astir's intensity, naughtiness, and androgyny to a T.

7.  The big shift from the brutality/sexual violence of the first book to the second was an enormous relief for me and for Glynis. At last Glynis could be her own person and not be constantly beaten and afraid. There will never be a return to the brutality of the first book because Glynis is free of Vlad Dracula. The tonal shift was deliberate. The third book will have a new tone as Glynis takes her place among the court of Ilinca and Gavril, establishes herself as a divorcee in the world of the aristocracy, and faces a brand new threat to her new found freedom. Meanwhile, she'll discover more about her great love Ignatius and deal with the reality of having her own vampire fledgling.

8.  Katya was in the first book, but was never intended to be anything more than a one-off character. She surprised me, and Glynis, by worming her way into the story. I don't see her going away any time soon either. At least, not willingly.

9.  One of the difficult things Glynis has to deal with in the sequel is the reality that the best laid plans for revenge can easily go awry. She's thwarted in her great plans for revenge by the fact that she has to live in the shadow of the mortal world and deal with the dangers of the supernatural world. One of the most loving things Glynis does is abandon her quest for revenge against Sir Stephan out of love for Laura. I feel this choice is her greatest moment just about. It was a huge step forward in her maturity.

10.  The battle between Vlad and Glynis took weeks to write and multiple rewrites. There were several things that needed to be very clear in that scene: 1) Vlad is a raping/murdering bastard who wants to quash the very thing he loves in Glynis 2) Glynis will fight to the very end to be free of him.  I told a book club once that Glynis could chop Vlad into a billion pieces with an ax and it would still not be enough to assuage her hatred against him.  For Glynis, the scene was her revolution, her fight for freedom.  For the series, it was the establishment of the new reality between the two as great adversaries.

And a freebie:  10 episodes has been written for a possible TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE TV series. Of course, whether or not it will ever get the greenlight is a whole other story, but it's exciting nonetheless.