What started out as a single book, Seducing the Darkness, has now spiraled out into an eight book series with the possibility of more. I never say I’m finished with a book when I write the final words because there is always the possibility of it coming back in some other form such as side-line characters demanding their own story. As is the case with the Darkness series.

Originally I had written the return of the sun at the end of Seducing, but when the idea for a second book came to mind, I decided to leave my characters in the dark…so to speak. So for the rest of the series, with the exception of the last two, the sun is absent due to a ritual used to release the big bad king of vampires, Avadur from his jail in the Realm of Dark Mystics. Throughout the series, my heroes and heroines fight to protect the city from the vampires now attempting to take over the city of Jacob’s Cove as well as take out the last man standing who was involved in the ritual.

The Darkness in my titles and the books have a few meanings. One is the most obvious. The sun has been blotted out and therefore the city is cast in darkness. The other is the epitome of what everyone thinks vampires stand for. Dark, dangerous blood thirsty night dwellers. The third is the darker side that is inside every human being, every creature. We all have dark thoughts sometimes Read more… »

I’ve just had the pleasure of reviewing a really awesome book by Felicity Heaton for WWR. I liked it enough to wonder about other books by her, so I visited her website. Then I found her other site dedicated to the entire world she’s built for her books. It’s so cool. Totally kicking graphics and the layout is just incredibly easy to use. You have to check it out…

So visit Felicity’s VAMPIRES REALM today and see how the beautiful graphics there and read more about her stories.

Later,
AJ

Are You a Bubble Off Plumb?

by Jacquie Rogers

People, both readers and writers, often ask me how I write humor. In fact, this issue arises in nearly every writing conversation and interview. I’m puzzled by the question and completely stumped by the answer, whatever it may be.

So how did I end up writing humor? The first bit of fiction I endeavored to pen was a murder mystery set in the future. That was ten years ago and futuristics weren’t exactly the hot item then, but that’s beside the point. I have 32 first chapters. That doesn’t count the first chapters I revised and revised. It was dark and gritty. Oh, I was so happy to be lord over such drama!

Only there was a problem-my critique partners kept laughing at it. By the last half of the book, I made it into a pretty decent romance, except of course most of it took place in the Virtual Wild West Theatre. Then I had two elements I hadn’t ever bargained for: humor and western. (Westerns weren’t selling, either.)

So my next venture into a novel took me to western historical romance. This wasn’t a stretch at all for me because I grew up in a sparsely populated county in southwest Idaho where the Old West still lives, sorta. But I knew westerns weren’t selling and humor sure wasn’t, so at least I could make it dramatic. Only I soon found that plopping a laced-up schoolmarm in a brothel with batch of color-coded prostitutes was . . . well, dang it, funny. And it finaled in the Golden Heart that year.

Neither of these books sold, nor did the next three. So westerns and humor aren’t getting me very far. Until I hit the short story market.

Some writers thrive in a shorter format. Me? I’d never tried to write a short story and didn’t think I was suited for it at all, but was badgered into it. So while I love to write full-length novels (I have three of them started right now), my first success came in short stories. Two of my stories, Faery Good Advice and Single Girls Can’t Jump, were included in an anthology to benefit breast cancer research, No Law Against Love.
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