I’ve got another fabulous Wild Rose Press sistah and her book today for day 17 of the 25 Days of Holiday Romance: Kristal Dawn Harris and her addition, RED SNOWFLAKES.
Are you into sexy Vampires? Well, ask Santa for Dimitri!
Forensic photographer, Dena Williams, has spent her life trained to see what others cannot. Vampire, Dimitri Kovac, has waited every Christmas for a miracle that does not come. In the Oregon wilderness, during a snowstorm, these two destined souls collide. Dena’s only hope of survival rests in a vampire with the heart of a poet. Dimitri only has five days to win a skeptical woman’s heart. As the Christmas tree lights burn brightly and the snow continues to fall, will Dena succumb to a vampire’s charms? With so little time, can Dimitri win her love?
One of my favorite and prolific Wild Rose Press sistahs, Linda Nightingale, has a new book out just in time for Halloween and all things vampire and sexy related, titled, SINNER’S OPERA!
She’s brought along her hero today for an interview, so you’re in luck because you get to read a real live Interview with a Vampire! Hee hee. Sit back and enjoy…..-
Interview with Morgan D’Arcy, Earl of St. Averil, concert pianist, and…vampire.
When did you become a vampire? I was infected with the virus that mutates human DNA in 1659 in France. Of course, at that time, I only knew I’d been drained near death, fed blood from my vampire mother’s veins, and woke up immortal and craving blood. Within days she was destroyed, and I was orphaned with mind-blowing powers that I didn’t know how to control.
Do you drink blood or are you a psychic vampire? Personally, I believe psychic vampires are more dangerous. I’m a blood drinker. Except for giving pleasure in my vampire kiss, I don’t interfere with people’s lives…well, with one exception, but that’s another story.
What’s the worst thing about being a vampire? Loss of the sunlight. I’d love to see the sun shining on the blue ocean below my ancestral home. Royal Oak perches on a hill above a hamlet on the west coast of Devon. I can see the black ocean from my bedroom window…a tragedy really. The craving for blood runs a close second. It’s like a living thing stinging your veins and is completely irresistible. I can shield against the desire but it takes a lot of effort. Because I love her, Isabeau is my greatest challenge.
Are you a magical creature or are you a different species? I’m a magically different species. (he laughs) The cross has no effect on me, but I am light sensitive. You can see me in mirrors, thank God, because I’d hate to comb my long hair blind. Somehow it managed to tangle, even though I don’t move at all in my daily sleep! When I was a child, sometimes our cook used too much garlic, and I detest its smell, but it has no other effect on me.
Do you enjoy being a vampire? Most times. Of course, being a vampire does present problems, sorrow and regret creeping up on you when you least expect it. Blood lust endangers the ones you love the most.
How do you feel about humans? I’m in love with a mortal woman to the dismay of the Vampyre Council and to my own danger. I judge humans the way I judge vampires or any other species—by their actions. But I do have to admit that beauty is high on my list of priorities. My mortal love, Isabeau, is a beautiful, intelligent geneticist. She is the culmination of centuries of dreams.
Where are you from? I was born in 1632 in Devon, England.
What is your life goal for a life spanning centuries? A race of immortals with human morals and gentleness—half-vampire and half-human to bridge the treacherous gulf between the two quite different species.
Do you have a code of honor? I’m a relic from the Restoration era. My code of honor is often influenced by that mortal man who became the vampire Morgan D’Arcy. Now, in the middle seventeenth century, the aristocracy drank to excess, whored, and…I try not to allow this time of my life to rule my actions. The Vampyre Council, Les Elus, has the end say, but I’m a rebel at heart.
What makes you angry? Lucien St. Albans and Les Elus. Both stand in the way of my life purpose. Les Elus forbids the creation of a DarkeChilde, a vampire-human hybrid. As you may have noticed, I’m not overly concerned with the rules.
Name one person you admire. Charles II. I was with his touring band of banished Royalists after his father was beheaded at Whitehall. He suffered great hardship, and yet was restored to the throne of England without an ounce of bloodshed.
Morgan will be appearing in concert at the Royal Albert in London, England on November 11th.
Linda Nightingale’s Obsession series stars Morgan D’Arcy, in all his facets. The books are Sinner’s Opera, Sinner’s Obsession, and Morgan D’Arcy: A Vampyre Rhapsody, a companion book and a walk through the centuries with a piano-playing James Dean!
Tagline: Vampire Morgan D’Arcy has everything except what he most desires…a woman he has loved since the day she was born…Isabeau.
Blurb:
Morgan D’Arcy is an English lord, a classical pianist, and a vampire. He has everything except what he desires most—Isabeau. As the Angel Gabriel he’s steered her life and career choice, preparing her to become Lady D’Arcy. Many forces oppose Morgan’s daring plan—not the least of which is Vampyre law.
Isabeau Gervase is a brilliant geneticist Though she no longer believes in angels, she sees a ticket to a Nobel Prize in Gabriel’s secrets—secrets that have led her to a startling conclusion. Gabriel isn’t human, and she fully intends to identify the species she named the Angel Genome. Morgan is ready to come back into Isabeau’s life, but this time as a man not an angel. Will he outsmart his enemies, protect his beloved and escape death himself? For the first time in eternity, the clock is ticking.
Excerpt:
A refugee from Les Miserables peered at me with the strangest, most beautiful eyes—gray with black flecks. Her hair, straight, thick and pale as mine, flowed over thin shoulders past her hips. She took a tentative step closer, and I saw that her legs were horribly twisted, a birth defect. Failure haunted me, and resentment burned in my heart. I could help end such needless suffering. With my DNA, Isabeau would save the unborn from this misery. I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. If not for Vampyre law and my own mistakes, tonight Isabeau would be my wife and the mother of my child. Instead, she would go on without me—and I would…I didn’t know what I would do.
“That looks like blood on your coat.” The girl wiped her nose on her hand. “It’s dark. What’re you doing alone in the graveyard? Did somebody you love die?”
My throat closed, my heart cramping. “Not exactly.”
“You’re either dead or you’re not.” The ghost-like urchin, shivering in a thin, torn jacket, was a mere ten years old.
“That’s not exactly true either.” I kicked an acorn with my toe.
She inched closer, her eyes wary. “You talk funny. Where you from? Like music, kind of going up and down.”
“What are you doing here alone at night? Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?”
Her face was young but too wise. “Momma says the dead can’t hurt you. It’s the living you got to worry about.”
“Your mother is a wise woman.” I studied rain-jeweled trees, the rain-slick path.
The girl shrugged a shoulder. “If she was all that smart, she’d get rid of Tommy.”
I wished I had time to continue this conversation. “That’s why you ran away?”
“Yep. Sick of kids laughing at me. Tired of being hungry. I’m going to ask the sisters to take me in. I can work.” She tilted her face to the misty sky, raindrops sparkling on her lashes and her hair. “I always thought I’d be a great lady someday, you know?”
“A great lady?” My voice sounded as hollow as the stone angel weeping over the tomb.
She flung her arms wide. “I’d marry a prince or a rich duke.”
I tried to smile but failed. “Prince Charming isn’t likely to find you in a nunnery.”
This little girl was my chance to play the angel once more. Last night, I’d withdrawn ten thousand dollars from an account in the Grand Caymans as a safety net for my tightrope act. There was scant chance the authorities had thought to freeze or could even find my holdings and I had plastic by the number. I fished in the chest pocket of my coat. My wallet was still there, bulging with wet thousand dollar bills.
“Are you a bum?” She cocked her head, one eyebrow arched.
“Do I look like a bum?” I’d dreamed of changing the world. How the Mighty fall.
“Well, yeah.” She stressed the last word.
A bitter laugh burned my throat. “Hold on to your dreams. Dreams do come true.” My hand shook, and I almost dropped the wallet engraved with my initials and the St. Averil crest—worthless reminders of a life left behind.
“Come closer. I won’t harm you. I promise.” I folded the sodden currency and shoved it into her hand.
She gasped. “Is this real money?” Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, my, it is. A lot of money.” An accusing gaze captured mine. “Did you rob a bank?”
“The money is mine. Now it’s yours.” Thinking of a special little girl I’d taught to dream, I smiled wistfully. “I must warn you. Princes are in short supply.”
“You are an angel,” she whispered reverently. “Grandma said angels didn’t always look like angels when they appeared to you.”
A sharp pain lanced my heart. “I’m not an angel, child. Run along home before you catch a chill.”
And I used energy I couldn’t afford to expend to disappear and reappear behind a mausoleum ten feet away, still smelling of rotting flesh. Past new headstones, I fled, gliding around the shadowed turn. The path twisted left, the bricks chipped and broken. The old cemetery dated to the birth of the colony—a time I’d well enjoyed. Here, there were no faded silk flowers. The loved ones who’d tended these graves were moldering in other graves. I stopped at a raised tomb, wiped the inscription with my sleeve.
Samuel Rutledge, a soldier of the South.
“Samuel, old man, I shall be honored to accept your hospitality this bleak evening.”
Born in South Carolina, Linda has lived in England, Canada, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Atlanta and Houston. She’s seen a lot of this country from the windshield of a truck pulling a horse trailer, having bred, trained and showed Andalusian horses for many years.
Linda has won several writing awards, including the Georgia Romance Writers Magnolia Award and the SARA Merritt. She is the mother of two wonderful sons, one in England, one in Houston. She retired from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center as a legal assistant. She loves horses, sports cars, piano, theater and the symphony. She enjoys dressing up and hosting formal dinner parties.
It’s always a fun day on my blog when Wild Rose Press sistah Tena Stetler comes for a visit. Hey, girl!
“Good Morning Peggy. Thanks for having me on your blog today talking about my upcoming release “A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance.”
“Glad to have you, Tena my friend. Let’s start with what inspired A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance?”
“Several years ago I took a creative writing class to brush up my skills. Vampires had always intrigued me. Dark Shadows a 1966 TV show was a favorite of mine and Barnabas Collins was my dream. Yeah, I was a strange kid. Anyway, the assignment was to write about anything you wanted. Stefan, assassin to the Vampire Council was born. That summer we vacationed in Glacier National Park, I was struck by its beauty and possibilities as a setting for my vampire tale. I completed two-thirds of his story before I discovered another’s story, A Demon’s Witch, had to be told before I could finish Stefan’s. As it turned out there would be one more tale, A Warlock’s Secrets, before Stefan’s tale would be told. He became a secondary character in two of my paranormal romances before I finished his story. But it had to be an extraordinary vampire tale, so my vampire assassin transitioned to a midnight DJ in the small town of Whitefish, Montana.”
A solid knock on the door took me by surprise. “I’m not expecting anyone,”
“I invited Stefan to join us – I hope you don’t mind.”
“Of course not, I’ve always wanted to meet a tall, dark and dangerous vampire – up close.” Absently rubbing my neck, I sucked in a breath and swallowed hard. “Come in Stefan.”
He sticks his head in the door. “I’m not intruding, am I? Tena asked that I come by if I had a couple minutes. As luck would have it, I’ve got a bit of time before I meet Brandy for lunch.”
I blew out a breath drinking the tall, handsome vampire standing before me. “Of Course not. Stefan, have a seat and tell us about yourself.”
He eased down into the chair between us. “I became a vampire because I fell in love with the wrong woman. She was only toying with me, turned me and left on me on own. Unable to control my blood lust, I was a danger to myself and my tribe. My grandfather who raised me was the tribe’s shaman. Though it broke his heart, he asked me to leave the tribe, but not before he conjured a gold chain around my neck that allowed me to walk in the sunlight.”
“That’s powerful magic.”
“Yes, it was but didn’t keep me out of trouble. I was alone, rogue vampire who wandered into Lady Rose’s territory. Without a responsible sire, I was lucky Lady Rose didn’t terminate me immediately. After hearing my tale of being turned, she arranged for me to be mentored by one of her vampires, who happened to be the Vampire Council’s assassin.”
“So she offered you a vocation.”
“I guess so. I learned to live within the vampire rules and became proficient at my craft. When the kill orders became political, I was caught in the middle. To survive, I had to play both sides, but my allegiance remained with Lady Rose. A faction of the vampires broke off and tried a coup. Lady Rose quashed it and terminated those responsible. At that point I asked to be released from her service, something that a vampire rarely survives, but she allowed me to leave.”
“So what did you do next?”
I drifted around a while, careful not to interlope into another vampire’s territory. Settled in Whitefish, Montana, a little town located outside Glacier National Park. As it turned out the man I rented a cabin from was the manager of a local radio station. One of those over-friendly sorts. You know that type?
“I do.”
“He offered me the midnight DJ position and from there things got interesting. I met Brandy who had secrets of her own. A fated trip to Ireland reveals more than a family reunion at Christmas.” He glances at his watch. “Unfortunately, that’s all the time I have.” He stood bowed slightly, reached out and brought my hand to his lips. “It was a pleasure talking with you.”
I fan my face with the useless interview script. “The pleasure was all mine.” In a whisper of movement, he was gone – the door closed quietly. It took a couple of beats for me to gather my thoughts.
“Tell us a little more about A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance.”
Stefan is a Native American vampire, former assassin for the Vampire Council. In a twist of fate, he now DJ’s the midnight shift for a small radio station in Whitefish, Montana, on the edge of Glacier National Park where his secret is safe until…
Born in Ireland, Brandy now works as a park ranger and trail guide in the park. During a full moon, Stefan and Brandy’s paths cross in a near physical collision on a trail. Their attraction is immediate and undeniable, almost as if fate demanded it.
Their union was foretold long ago in Irish folk tales where vampires and gryphons, warlocks and demons, witches and faeries must work together for the good of man and magic kind. Is a trip to Ireland the key to unraveling secrets and returning the magic? And even more importantly, will their love survive the trip?
A sneak peek between the pages of A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance.
It was nearly midnight when he cut across the Sun Road to another trailhead, so intent on his goal that he nearly collided with an attractive young woman. He skidded to a stop, spraying gravel, rocks, and small twigs down the road in front of him. A pinecone dislodged and bounced along the road past her. Tall and slender, she had miles of fiery-red hair that hung down her back in a cascade of curls. Intense emerald eyes stared back at him as he attempted to regain his composure, not to mention balance. What the hell was she doing here at this time of night?
“Whoa.” She stepped lightly to the side to avoid the flying debris. “You really should watch where you’re going, especially at that speed.” Her voice scolded, but the smile on her lips teased. “Someone could get hurt.”
A Vampire’s Unlikely Alliance is available for pre-order at Amazon , itunes and Barnes & Noble. Release date November 29, 2017. Just in time for Christmas. Reserve your copy today!
About the Author:
Tena Stetler is a best-selling paranormal romance author with an over-active imagination. Colorado is home; shared with her husband, a brilliant Chow Chow, a spoiled parrot and a forty-five-year-old box turtle. Her books spin the adventures of magical kick-ass women and the mystical alpha males that dare to love them.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 