Saturday 23 August 2014

Scottish Werewolves, freaky Vampires and a Slayer @EMorgan2010 #bloodseries




Coming August 25th 2014!

Scottish Werewolves: freaky Vampires and a Slayer with a bad addiction and an insane legacy. Add a big dose of sarcasm, sizzling chemistry; a lot of silver and a ton of blood and . . . Welcome to the Blood Series.

They're back! The Blood Series has been revamped and repackaged and will be re-released on August 25th 2014.

Note: She-Wolf and Cranberry Blood are both previously published titles, but have been polished, improved, and have even had scenes added for their re-release. Both books as well as all that will follow will be self-published.

How The Blood Series Began
By Elizabeth Morgan

Ideas come to writers in many different ways. My ideas are often through dreams. On the odd occasion I will look at something, or someone will say something, and a small seed becomes planted in my mind. Sometimes it rapidly begins to blossom in to an idea, and other times the idea takes some tender loving care and persuasion. This post is all the madness and reasoning behind how I came up with writing my urban fantasy/paranormal romance series.
As you know the books have already been published before, so August 25th marks their re-release. You don't have to really read them in order. You could read book 1, Cranberry Blood before the prequel, She-Wolf, but events in CB would make more sense if you read SW first. I'm going to try my best to not put any spoilers in here, but since I wrote CB before I did SW and I'm talking about how everything came together it might be a little difficult, but by all means read on, because if anything you get to see how my crazy brain works ;-P

The moment the seed was planted....
So, I am waiting on this dark, quite road. Every now and again a car drives past, but other than that it is extremely quite. Across the road from me stands a fence, and beyond that is a college. With the sky being that odd blue colour it is in winter, the building looks like a giant black block. I'm tired and cold, hopping lightly from one foot to the other hoping the bus will show up soon, otherwise I'm going to be late for work. My focus is fixed to the college and its flat roof, and I find myself thinking it would be quite freaky to be walking down that street and look up to see a bulky figure sitting there. Feral golden - or whatever eye colour one would find chilling - eyes locked on to me. I'm alone on this street. If people are up and getting ready for work the lights in their houses aren't on. Would anyone be able to hear me if I screamed? Would that creature chase me now I have seen it? Is it hunting? Or is it up there for an entirely different reason?
Yes. Believe it or not, but that's how the idea for the Blood Series started. Yes, I imagined I had a Werewolf sitting on a roof looking at me.
Okay, it wasn't exactly that straight forward.
For years I had been playing about writing scripts, and for a while I had wanted to write something to do with vamps and werewolves. I had always loved old school horror, and anything paranormal, and one of the sayings writers do stick to is - write what you know, what you love - well I love me some vamps and were's, so darn it, I was going to write something with them in it.
For two months I sat scribbling and ripping up note after note, trying to figure out what type of a story I wanted to write. There are so many stories out there - stretching back years - with these two particular types of mythological creatures, I knew there was no way I was going to come up with something completely original. So I decided instead of trying so hard to do something different, I wanted to take parts of stuff I loved about those particular stories and just twist it all into something new. Something me, and my odd little imagination could whip up.
I love Dracula - so I knew I wanted to add a little Romanian folklore in there. So my vampires are based on a Romanian vampire know as a Strigoi. I picked this type of vampire because it reminded me of the guy from Salem's lot. He gives me the creeps. So naturally I loved the image.
I love the settings of old horrors, there is always some moors or a forest, and in all honesty a lot of the old horror are set in England or across the UK - even if it's only a couple of scenes - So the series definitely had to start in the UK, but I also wanted the United Kingdom to be the "home" for most of the characters and the series.
 Scotland was a definite for my Werewolves. Wide open spaces. Moors. Forests. This Pack can run free.
And then let's not forget, the havoc when the big bads come to town, which they always do. So I set the other part in London. Because let's face it, who doesn't love the idea of Werewolves and Vampires running around killing in London, England?
Last but not least, kick-ass Heroine - I wanted a kick-ass heroine - or at least a chick who is kick ass in her own right - I wanted my heroine to have a problem though; an addiction, or maybe for her to be trapped in a position that she doesn't want to be in, but has no choice.
After I had figured all of that out the story arc became a little bit clearer. But, the story that formed was not She-Wolf (Blood Series Prequel.) Oh no. She-Wolf I wrote in August 2010, and I will get into that in one moment.

Cranberry Blood (Blood Series: Book One)
It took me 9 months to write the original. It was the first book I had ever written, so I was still getting use to how to go about everything. Once I finished, I sent it off to some very helpful ladies who gave me their honest opinions. The feedback was positive, and very useful. After reading through CB a couple more times, I realised I had backed myself in to a corner. That was no good.
So in February 2010, I ripped the book to pieces - mentally - and started to re-plan and piece it back together. I took all the ideas and characters I loved and placed them on my mental "keep" file, then looked at the rest. A week later, I had a new story. My heroine wasn't as weak as she was during the original. She was stuck - vulnerable in a sense - due to the shit life had dealt her. I was completely in love - not to mention in lust - with the secondary character who has stepped up to be my new hero. Overall, I was happy. Everything had clicked in to place, and the flow of the story - past & future of all the characters - was crystal clear.
So I got to writing it, and had it finished by June. I sent it off to my helpful star ladies, and got great feedback.
If it wasn't for this book, for the heroine & hero - Heather Ryan & Brendan Daniels - as crazy as it is to admit - there would be no She-Wolf, and as much as I would like to kill Owen MacLaren - the hero of zed book - I do adore that book.

She-Wolf (Blood Series Prequel)
This book was never planned.
There are a lot of characters in the Blood World, and while writing Cranberry Blood I did a lot of history info (family trees, character profiles etc. - completely agonising, but worth it.) So I always knew the story between Owen and Clare.
It would be a lie to say that I never thought about writing their story, because I plan - and hope very much - to write a few short stories regarding certain characters in this world. All of them have been through some interesting events/situations at one point or another. All of them have a story to be told. I just never thought that I would be writing Clare Walker's and Owen MacLaren's any time soon.
She-Wolf started when I was trying to write a different story - Stepping Stones, which was recently re-released with Decadent Publishing. I was trying to concentrate on a conversation between two sisters from this sweet contemporary romance I was writing, and Owen barged in demanding his story be told. Mix that with a moment of day dreaming on the bus, while listening to "Follow You Home" by Nickelback, where I was shown the entire opening scene from the unwritten story and well, I had no choice after that. I had to sit down and write. As I started writing, I realised that their story took place before the events of Cranberry Blood, and that the two stories were actually linked.
(I realise that might sound a little insane. I have characters from Cranberry Blood in this story, so naturally the stories would be linked? Nope, some of my characters - despite the fact they are pack members or coven members - they have stories that don't affect their pack/coven. And I thought that would be the case between Clare and Owen. Oh, how wrong I was.)
I planned for She-Wolf to be a freebie. When it went past 10k I decided it would end up being a novella, and I might query it. By the time it had gone past 40k I was pretty certain that it was actually a novel, something that had Owen gloating in the dark corners of my mind. 73k - I was finished.
Now, the original/previously published version of She-Wolf ended on a bit of a cliff hanger. Since I got my rights back and have gone through the manuscript a good few times, a scene has been added, some have been extended, and the ending has been tightened, but it still is a bit of a "to be continued . . ." ending.
It wasn't originally planned, but because it is set before Cranberry Blood it was hard to avoid. In all truth, I suppose you could say the end of Cranberry is the same. You see, I was trying to do something a little different and in a way the prequel and book one have ended up being instalments in one big story. So, even though the books end, the story does and will continue. And when the ultimate ending of this story happens, which at the moment I think will be in 2 novels and 2 novellas time, you won't be disappointed. At least I hope you won't, because I have to say - and as bad as it may sound - the ultimate ending only hit me a couple of weeks ago while I was in the shower - yeah, funnily enough I get a lot of ideas in there as well ;-P - and man, I really didn't see it coming, but I love it and I hope you will too.



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Author Bio:
Elizabeth Morgan is a multi-published author of urban fantasy, paranormal, erotic horror, f/f, and contemporary; all with a degree of romance, a dose of action and a hit of sarcasm, sizzle or blood, but you can be sure that no matter what the genre, Elizabeth always manages to give a unique and often humorous spin to her stories.
Like her tagline says; A pick ‘n’ mix genre author. “I’m not greedy. I just like variety.”
And that she does, author of erotic ménage horror, Creak, paranormal erotic horror and UK, US & Australian Amazon best seller (Gay/Lesbian, Fiction, Lesbian), On the Rocks, erotic romance, US, UK & Spanish Amazon bestseller (Erotica Short Story) Truth or Dare? And sweet contemporary romance, UK & US Amazon bestseller (British/Drama & Plays) Stepping Stones.
She also has her hand in self-publishing. Look out for more information on her upcoming releases at her website: www.e-morgan.com
Away from the computer, Elizabeth can be found in the garden trying hard not to kill her plants, dancing around her little cottage with the radio on while she cleans, watching movies or good television programmes – Dr Who? Atlantis? The Musketeers? Heck, yes! – Or curled up with her two cats reading a book.
For more information on Elizabeth's work, published and upcoming, head on over to her site:
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