Why vampires?

Please welcome guest blogger Rosemary Laurey

That’s a question I get asked a good deal, No doubt from people wondering why a mind-mannered grandmother spends her days writing about the blood sucking undead.


A good question too: What’s the appeal? Why are so many readers (and writers, of course) drawn to vampires?

Speaking for myself, the vampire first chose me, unexpectedly announcing around about chapter five, that he was actually Kit Marlowe, and not dead as had been supposed for 400 years. After that, the undead sucked me in (forgive the pun, it just came out, I couldn’t help it). Whether heroes, heroines or villains, vampires are fun to write and add a layer to the story that mere mortals couldn’t possibly manage.

In the Bloody Series, I wrote the vamps as villains. Of course from their point of view, they are fighting nobly for a cause, aided and abetted by the German High Command. The Others of Brytewood see the whole scheme completely differently and one by one, with a few casualties, deaths and close calls along the way, they eliminate the enemy. As the villains, they had to be eliminated but while they wreaked havoc among the Surrey hills, they added interest and tension to the books. In fact without them and their mission of sabotage and subversion, there wouldn’t have been much of a story.

In my Rosemary Laurey books, my vamps are romantic heroes and heroines. Very different and remarkably odd, if you think about it. Vampires as villains pretty much fits the notion of a bloodsuckers preying on the living but the metamorphosis from horrific figure to romantic hero is an incredible leap. Or is it? He fits many of the parameters of the genre. He’s the ultimate dark and dangerous hero. Messing around with a vampire you are playing with the ultimate risk. He might be good in bed but his kiss could kill. Plus, no matter how desperate your mother might be to see you settled for life, she would not want you bringing a a dead man home for Sunday lunch. Then there is the fantastic sex (although strictly speaking aren’t we skirting around necrophilia here?). On the other hand, by the time a man is a few hundred years old or more, he’s no doubt learned a thing or two and with a vampire’s stamina, he won’t fall asleep afterwards.

Hero or villain, a vampire in the plot makes for wonderful escapist fiction.

USA Today best-selling Author, Rosemary Laurey is an expatriate Brit, retired special ed teacher and grandmother, who now lives in Ohio and has a wonderful time writing stories of vampires and shapeshifting pumas.


Kallaayt's Tale

A dragon has found his true love…but can he bring her home?

Once upon a time, Kallaayt the dragon visited the town of Llanbarra in the guise of an itinerant peddler—and unexpectedly found his mate in the beautiful Gwen. Now he’s returned to fetch his bride back to the Great Fire Mountain.

But his love has disappeared.

Gwen is willing to wait as long as it takes for her beloved Kall to return, but her uncle is not so patient. For refusing the marriage the evil man arranges for her, she’s raped by the rejected suitor. When she discovers she’s pregnant, the people of Llanbarra shun her as a wanton. The only safe haven she can find is in the kitchens of a brothel working as a cook.

Kallaayt lives by dragon law, not those of an unjust human town. First, he must find his love and convince her he still loves her. Then he will seek his vengeance.