FAQ-When Will There Be Another Vampire Bride Book?

THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE is my personal favorite of all the books I've written. Conceived in a dream, it would take nearly a decade of writing off and on to finally complete the novel about my favorite heroine, Lady Glynis Wright.

The novel challenged me in so many ways from the extensive research I did on Vlad Tepes, Regency era fashions and traditions, the countries of Romania and Hungary, and the history of the city of Budapest (Buda in the story) to writing the novel in first person.

Perhaps I also love it because it is the first full length novel that I wrote that felt like it was ready for publication. I had learned from all my trunked novels and finally found my footing in my writing.

THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE has slowly built its audience as it continues to garner rave reviews. It has undergone a cover change not once, but twice, and has been optioned for a possible TV show.  The sequel to the first book, THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE, has also garnered solid reviews and is about to be released again in paperback with a whole new look to the cover and interior.

 Out of all my book series, this is the dearest.

Therefore, I am thrilled when people ask the following question:

When will there be another vampire bride book?

I had hoped to have the third novel out in late 2012, but my writing schedule didn't allow for the extensive research and time it takes to write this series. Out of all the series I pen this one demands the most writing time.  The time period, the European setting, and the rich history of the area are an important part of the tapestry of the story and require a lot of research.

I am hoping that the third book, THE LAMENT OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE, will be released sometime this year.  I already know the major theme of this novel and how it ends, but not all the story details have fallen into place and probably won't until I'm writing.

Is THE LAMENT OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE the final book?

Yes, and no.

THE LAMENT OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE concludes a three book arc that centers on Glynis breaking free of the power of Vlad Dracula.  The massive power struggle between Vlad and Glynis that is rooted in the blood bond between them will come to a conclusion in the third book in the series.

That being said I do see the Vampire Bride series as ongoing.  The next book may be a standalone in her adventures, or the first half of a two-parter. I'm not sure yet.

So you're going to keep going past the third book?

Yes, I am. But I'm not going to hold myself to a strict schedule on the series. There are at least two other novels (or novellas) set in Glynis's world that I would like to write. One is about the true love of Vlad Dracula, Erzsebet, and her fall from his grace. The other is about Gavril and Ilinca, the vampire siblings.

If you have other questions about the series, you may want to check out my "Ten Things About..." posts about both THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE and THE VENGEANCE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE.  In them I address several issues, such as the fact there is NO LOVE TRIANGLE and that Vlad is not a love interest, but the villain, and why certain things in the story happened.

Happy Birthday, Sir Christopher Lee!!

Today is the 89th birthday of Sir Christopher Lee. Though a lot of younger people now know him for his role as Saruman in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, I am fond of him for his portrayal of Count Dracula in the old Hammer films.

I will admit that when I was much younger I liked Bela Lugosi's version of Dracula a lot more than Christopher Lee's. I blame this on the fact that the first version of Dracula I ever saw was Christopher Lee in Count Dracula (1970). He so terrified me that I refused for years to watch another film with him as Dracula. It wasn't until my twenties that I came to appreciate Christopher Lee in the iconic role.

Eventually it was Christopher Lee's portrayal that had the biggest influence on my own version of Count Vlad Dracula in THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE. One of the things that irked me about Lee's Dracula when I was younger was that he never kissed the girls. He would always turn their heads and bite them. When I grew older, I came to understand the dangerous sexual power of the vampire. The women desired his love only to be killed.

Christopher Lee's appearance also had a huge impact on my version of Count Dracula. It is uncanny how much he resembles the real Vlad Tepes. It was his appearance as Vlad Tepes in the documentry In Search of Dracula that gave me a clearer vision of what my own Count Dracula would look like.

Christopher Lee has had quite an amazing career. His voice is low, powerful and a little frightening and he has done a lot of voice work over the years . He has appeared in low budget horror films and epic blockbusters. He is famous for his role as Dracula and his interest in the occult has been life long. Though he played a character charged with sexual charisma and the seducer of many young, nubile women, Christopher has been married to his wife since 1961. He was also knighted and is officially Sir Christopher Lee.

I won't lie. Though my heart is broken that I will never meet Bela Lugosi, I hold onto a shred of hope that I may one day manage to make it to a convention where Christopher Lee is attending. Despite the role of Dracula being played by other actors since Lee's reign, he is still the pop culture representation of this epic figure.

Happy Birthday, Christopher Lee!!

The Vampires Arise

The last few years I have been all tied up with the zombie hordes. They've been damn annoying, too. I absolutely despise zombies and they have a really good way of wrecking a good dream when they show up and start eating everyone. I hate it when that happens. But I've been writing about the cannibalistic dead pretty heavily for awhile now and if I don't write I get "stopped up" and the zombies run amok in my dreams until I wrestle them down onto paper.

In other words, my mind doesn't let me rest until the story is done.

But my first, true love, is the vampire. The bloodsucking undead have terrified and fascinated me for years. I absolutely feared them and nothing my mother or anyone else said could convince me that they were not real. I'm not even sure where I first heard about Dracula, but I begged my Mom relentlessly to let me see the old black and white film when it showed on TV. I think I was around six. She finally gave in. The next morning she found me curled up on my sleeping bag outside her bedroom door with a towel wrapped around my neck.

In fact, for years, it was part of my nightly ritual to tuck my covers up around my neck securely. Now I was just a kid, so I really didn't think about the fact that Dracula or any of his minions could just pull down the covers and have a nice hearty drink.

Of course, what I fear is what I am drawn to it seems. I would watch Hammer films as a kid with a pillow over my face, peeking around the edges, and then screaming at the slightest hint of blood. I finally read a vampire novel when I was a teenager. It was like nothing I had ever read before. It was Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat . I had a healthy diet of Agatha Christie, Victoria Holt, science fiction and classic literature novels before I borrowed that book. I read it in one night and it literally made me sick to my stomach. I just remember I felt like I was drowning in darkness and I felt queasy. Funny how life works out...considering I'm Goth and a horror novelist!

I avoided vampire novels like the plague for awhile, but finally sat down and read Bram Stoker's Dracula and I was smitten. Since I love Victorian Gothic Literature, I read the old classics first and worked my way up to modern times. I was reluctant to pick up Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, but I finally read it and loved it. Though I read all the books that followed up to the novel about Armand, the first in the series held the most magic for me.

The state of vampire novels today actually makes me quite sad. I do love the urban fantasy of the Sookie Stackhouse and Rachel Morgan novels, but the bloodsuckers never quite feel like "real" vampires. I'm not sure what it is, but something just feels like its missing. Most of the other vampire novels are stuck in the paranormal romance genre and I have a rough time imagining a vampire looking like a Fabio clone. I have tried to read a few of these series because I was desperate for a good vampire read. I threw one book across the room and just gave up.

My own vampire stories are rather diverse. My favorite is about Lady Glynis Wright, an English aristocrat who longs for an indecent life as Lord Byron's lover, only to end up the Bride of a powerful vampire. My great love for Victorian literature definitely influenced that novel and its rich in Gothic imagery. The heroine, though, is just great fun and I adore her. She's a bit wily and always contrary. I recently renamed the and I hope to release it early next year.

The second vampire novel is about a modern day girl in East Texas who starts off the story buried in the forest. That vampire novel is very Texan, and very modern, but keeps to the traditional vampire lore. One of the things that haunts the character named Amaliya throughout the story is that she has no reflection and she has to go to great lengths to hide this from others while dealing with it emotionally. Since there is necromancy, zombies and vampires in this novel, I see it coming out after the zombie trilogy.

I'm not saying that my vampire novels are greater than anything else out there, but I am aware they are different. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I like my vampires to be something dangerous and not tame. Creatures that aren't swayed by a beautiful virginal girl's undying love or seeking their long lost soulmate. I adore Glynis because I would be afraid of her if I met her. Despite her courtly manner, she is dangerous. She is a passionate creature that is also a killer. The same with Amaliya. They are both creatures of instinct and great power.

After the zombie trilogy is out, I will be turning my attention to both these novels. The vampire stories I posted on Scribd got my vampire muses stirring around in my head and I have at least one unfinished vampire story that is begging to be finished.

I think posting the vampire stories on Scribd yesterday reminded me that yes I like my zombie tales, but I also write about much more than just the shambling, mindless dead. The beautiful undead with the wickedly sharp teeth and jewel eyes are also lingering in my imagination.

Maybe its just time to look back at what scared me first...and most.