SOMETHING TO GET YOUR TEETH INTO—Guest Post with Scarlett Parrish!!
Hurr hurr – did you see whut ah did thur? Teeth? And this is a post about vampires! *sigh* I give in.
Okay, so when I first had the idea of writing a vampire novel, I was eighteen years old and many moons away from discovering my calling as a smut-peddler. I may not yet have realised my full, perverted potential, but I'd read many a vampire novel and still indulge today.
I first read Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was seven years old (yes, really) and it sparked a lifelong fascination with the undead. Being allowed to stay up late to watch Hammer Horror films also had something to do with it. In my teens I discovered Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire and also read The Vampire Lestat. I didn't get any further along in the series because TVL took me so long to get through I envisioned spending months on subsequent novels.
But by far the best (in my not-so-humble opinion) vampire novels are Freda Warrington's A Taste of Blood Wine, A Dance in Blood Velvet and The Dark Blood of Poppies. Sadly, they're out of print in the UK now, but you might be able to get second-hand copies on Amazon or eBay.
What makes them different is Warrington's use of something called the Crystal Ring, a dimension vampires can step into which is parallel to ours, from which they can view our world. However, we would not be able to view it, so to ordinary human beings, when a vampire slips into the Crystal Ring, it's as if they've vanished, become invisible in an instant. While in the Crystal Ring, vampires can travel at speed to any other location on earth, but they can't gain access to it while weakened, say, by hunger/thirst or blood loss.
I really do recommend seeking out copies of these three books if you can. They're set during Edwardian times and utterly delicious. Full of lust, longing and fangs. What more could you ask for?
In the meantime, you could always try a little something I wrote, called A Little Death. *cough*
So, commenters – what are your favourite vampire novels and movies?
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Scarlett Parrish lives in the U.K. in the small corner of her flat not currently overrun by books. She can often be found drooling over James Purefoy or searching for the perfect chocolate bar. She believes most fleshpeoples (except James) are evil and much prefers the characters in her head. On the occasions she ventures out, Scarlett is always accompanied by her BONER—Black Omnipresent Notebook of Erotic Romance. One never knows when inspiration will strike. Sometimes she'll visit the cinema, alone but for the aforementioned characters. Another favourite pastime is listening to 30 Seconds to Mars and thinking about Shannon Leto's tattoos. A chronic insomniac, she writes most of her dirty books in the middle of the night and loves to keep her e-reader stocked with erotic romance to occupy her down time.
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Seeing dead people is all very well…unless one of them wants to kill you.
To Mallory Sharpe, vampires are a fact of life. They exist, walk the streets, and for the most part mind their own business. As a second-year university student, she doesn't pay the undead much attention until she meets Jonathan Cutler. He has needs, and blood is only one. The other, Mallory is more than willing to help him with. After all, he has but one rule: to never spend more than one night with a woman. He won't get attached, or consciously put anyone's life in danger.
Another vampire, Cian Ambrose, isn't so troubled by conscience. Mallory's fair game, a weapon to taunt Jonathan with. In fact, it might be fun to make her his grail, or living blood donor, and Cian Ambrose doesn't take kindly to the word no. He hasn't heard it often in his one hundred and fifty years and it usually results in the other person ending up dead.
So with Mallory's tolerance for undead guys running very low, Jonathan has to re-gain her trust, stop Cian killing her, oh…and for God's sake, not fall in love.
Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content and graphic language.
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Author blog: http://scarlettparrish.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/scarlettparrish
Buy A Little Death here: http://www.loose-id.com/A-Little-Death.aspx
