Please welcome Shira Anthony!

“Blood and Ghosts” Blog Tour: Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

Thanks, Kim, for hosting the Blood and Ghosts blog tour today! I’m so excited to share the second book in the Blood Series from Dreamspinner Press with everyone. Be sure to read down about how to enter the blog tour giveaway for a cool Dr. Who “Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey” pendant.

Have you ever dreamed you could go back in time and do things differently?  There are many different concepts of time and how the choices we make affect our future. Speculative fiction is hot right now, and there are some great books out there that delve into what might have happened if, for example, Germany had won World War II, or the South had won the United States Civil War and slavery had never been abolish. These sorts of stories utilize a view of time as linear, but with many twists and turns based on events and choices. This diagram demonstrates that concept. Each green dot is a choice that leads to a different outcome. Decide you’re going to have dinner with Jim, and maybe you don’t meet John. Each choice becomes a fork in the road.

The Blood Series was inspired by a Japanese anime, Noein, which utilizes precisely this concept of time (and yes, I’m a total anime geek, for those who may not already know!). The series features three MM pairings, but the main focus is on immortal vampire hunter Adrien Gilbert and the ancient vampire (born a vampire, not created from a human) he loves, Nicolas Lambert. Through Nicolas’s powerful blood, Adrien not only becomes immortal, but he gains powers beyond those of vampires or hunters. In book 2 in the series, Blood and Ghosts, Adrien discovers he has the ability to travel through time. Unfortunately for Adrien, controlling that power is something just beyond his grasp.

Blood and Ghosts features three timelines, or “timestreams”: the original timestream Adrien lives in which is chronicled in Blood and Rain (Blood #1), the timestream Adrien inadvertently changes when he’s sent back to a time before he ever met Nicolas, and finally, a confusing new future I won’t spoil in which he finds himself at the end of the second book (a where he finally gets a happily-for-now with his beloved Nicolas!). Keeping all of these straight, and keeping them understandable for the reader, was a monumental task. How did I do it? With a lot of input from my wonderful beta readers and my Dreamspinner Press editors. Oh, and a crap ton of rewriting!

Adrien meets three versions of Nicolas in the series: the Nicolas he originally fell in love with, the Nicolas whose life he changes when Adrien finds himself in his teenaged past, and a Nicolas of the future who has never met Adrien. Writing each Nicolas was a great deal of fun. At his heart (or soul, as the vampires would say), each Nicolas is the same. But events and choices can change and shape a person, for better or worse.

Adrien wants to spend his immortal life at Nicolas’s side. But which Nicolas he’ll end up with is far from clear. Finding Nicolas isn’t the only challenge Adrien must face—he must also repair the damage created by Verel Pelletier, another immortal hunter bent on reigniting a war between vampires and hunters. And Adrien must fix both past and present before he loses everything he ever cared about.

Blood and Ghosts ends with a happily-for-now for Nicolas and Adrien, and with a question: what would you sacrifice for your own happiness? That question will be answered in the final book in the series, Blood and Eternity, which will be published in early 2016. -Shira

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