Welcome to Something Wicked Rises!
Today, I’m talking about writing vampires and I’m featuring my own book, Sanguinary. So check out my post below, and be sure to enter to win an ebook copy of the book–leave a comment to let me know: what’s your favorite vampire story? What do you like best about vampires and vampire fiction? Then HOP to check out the rest of the posts!
Writing Vampires
How does a college English professor end up writing urban fantasy books about vampires?
That’s a question I get more than I expected when I first started this fiction-publishing journey.
In some ways, my interest in bloodsucking fiends is unsurprising. My academic specialty is the British eighteenth century, and the period is full of vampires, starting with the great vampire debate of 1732 (are vampires real?) and continuing through a number of stories, poems, and plays—enough to fill a book, and then some (and I’ve done just in an edited collection entitled Beyond the Count)
Moreover, the eighteenth century saw the development of gothic literature, starting with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto—and we can trace the influence of that gothic literature pretty much through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and right up to today’s urban fantasies.
So I can certainly point to some nicely academic reasons for writing a book like Sanguinary. And as my edited collection of early vampire stories illustrates, my interest in vampires is a long-standing one.
But honestly? I wrote this book because it’s what I wanted to read.
I love urban fantasy. It’s my favorite escapist fantasy.
But when I started writing Sanguinary, there weren’t nearly enough of the kinds of vampires I wanted to read about. The thing is, I like my vampires to be brutal and bloodthirsty—as much as I enjoy the recent trend toward sexy vampires (because YUM), I think there’s a reason that we, as a culture, keep coming back to the kinds of vampires who are absolute monsters. Both kinds of vampires—those we want to devour and those who want to devour us—are the expression of the human id, that part of us that is unsocialized, that wants what it wants without thought of consequence. The hot vampires of paranormal romance allow us to fantasize about one kind of unsocialized behavior. But the murderous vampires allow us to explore even darker fantasies.
The vampires in Sanguinary don’t have a sparkle among them; they are definitely more beast than beauty—and that’s what I like best about them.
I’d love to hear from other folks, too. Tell me: What do you like best about vampires and vampire fiction?
Detective Cami Davis and her sexy, cowboy-turned-vampire informant are all that’s standing between humanity and monsters who would rule the world—and all that’s standing between them having a torrid love affair is the fact that he’s an enemy of humanity.
THROUGH DARKEST TEMPTATION
When Dallas police detective Cami Davis joined the city’s vampire unit, she planned to use the job as a stepping-stone to a better position in the department. She didn’t know then what she knows now: A silent war rages between humans and their supposedly pacified predators, and the vampires are winning. With the clock running out on her kind, Cami will do whatever she must to defeat the “Sanguinary.”
Enter Reese Fulton, a disaffected ex-cop and a vampire. She can’t exactly trust him, but with his cowboy boots and good-ole-boy drawl he’s the perfect beard for Cami’s fledgling undercover operation. Yet playing Reese’s Claimed—a vampire’s personal bloodgiver—isn’t as straightforward as she was led to believe. His bite is as enthralling as his dimpled smile, and soon Cami is wondering which will pose more of a challenge: subduing the enemies of humanity…or her own desire.
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Excerpt
I took a long, ragged breath. “Okay,” I said. “Whatever we need to do.”
He glanced down at me now. “Anything?”
I shuddered, my nipples suddenly hardening beneath the light silk of the camisole I wore. “Anything necessary,” I clarified.
His nostrils flared at the same time his lips parted slightly, and I knew he was tasting my desire on the air around us.
With a nod, he took my hand and tugged me gently off the barstool, leading us both back toward the curtained alcoves.
My heart raced in my chest, but I fought to keep my breath even. As we moved into the small room, another tremor shook me. Part of me was terrified of the possibility that Reese was using the Blood House meet as a chance to get a free meal. The rest of me wanted his touch so badly that it didn’t matter why he was doing it.
I had to keep that second, larger part of myself in check.
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Buy Links
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About the Author
Margo Bond Collins writes urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She lives in Texas with her daughter and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them—and sometimes fight them.
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Words, Words, Words 
Such a clever title, and the story sounds enticing too!
The *Vampire Knight* manga and anime series.