Twilight Thursday

KOOLIN OFF with K.T. BISHOP

MLM: Congratulations on your recent success.

K.T.: Thank you very much. It's been a pleasant surprise. While I am grateful for any success, there are still more obstacles to climb. Catching a Cuban Curveball has been on the best-seller list at Red Rose Publishing for three months.


MLM: Tell us about Catching a Cuban Curveball.

K.T.: This book, the sequel to Curing a Cajun Cold, surprisingly opens up Arnaz Booker's life. Booker assumed he knew a lot of stuff about his childhood. Turns out, his father was alive and living in Los Angeles. To quote the late Tupac Shakur, Booker was ready to “live and die in L.A.”-- confronting his father.


MLM: Some authors have trouble writing a series. How do you make it so easy?

K.T.: I've always been fascinated by the two to three book sets. Everything I've written, with the exception of two, are pretty much connected. Series, in my eyes, bring closure to characters.

MLM: What makes a great book in your eyes?

K.T.: An intriguing storyline, hero and heroine with differences who usually come together at the end. I love bringing people together for a happy ending.

MLM: You have a unique assortment of books at Red Rose Publishing that mostly revolve around Interracial/Multicultural theme.

K.T.: The IR/MC storyline is a topic I am very comfortable with. I can't explain why. Whenever I start to write, words just come out. I am fortunate that the subject matter ranks up there with paranormal is so popular.


MLM: Is there a topic you'll always avoid?

K.T.: Anything to do with women getting abused by men and babies treated badly. I've always hated those Lifetime TV movies of men slapping women around like Mike Tyson did opponents in the 1990's. I'm always a sucker for the guy meets girl, they date, get engaged, married and have kids.

MLM: With E-books slowly weaving their way into the public consciousness, are Print books becoming irrevelant?

K.T.: Not yet, but in five years, Ebooks will have taken over. That being said, I love print books (Can't wait for my first one). I can sit in Booksamillion, Barnes and Noble and read for hours.

M.L.M.: Some authors set measuring sticks for themselves. What are your goals?

K.T.: I am sure some writers reach for the skies, setting goals to be on the New York Times' best-selling list or sale a huge number of copies. I'm more of a realist. Building a strong, loyal audience, sell several books, landing critical acclaim and someday have a book signing in my hometown. In this business, you must take baby steps.


M.L.M.: What's the next step for you?

K.T.: Writing something that isn't me. I have a Love Holiday trilogy under consideration. I wanted to try something different-- writing stories about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. There are countless books on Christmas and Valentine's Day , but not many Turkey Day and January first ones.

M.L.M.: Thanks for visiting us.

K.T.: No problem, glad to stop by.

M.L.M.: Could you leave us an excerpt?

K.T.: Glad to. Enjoy....

EXCERPT:

His entire body trembled with shock after discovering he had a father he‟d never known. His mother, the one person he thought he could always count on, had stabbed him in his back. Clara was currently unavailable to confront, she was working a double shift at Tuscaloosa Medical Center.

The oak desk felt his wrath instead. He slapped the row of books from the top, along with the letter, dated January 24, 1969.

Arnaz, whose heart was still racing to the tune of a motorboat, read another letter, this one dated June 18, 1990. He had been at Fisk University attending a pre-med camp at the time.

Valden was attempting a career as a solo artist, having left his band, the Tropics after twenty years. He was currently living in Los Angeles.

He rolled up his fist and punched the two pillows. “That damn woman has been talking to this man the whole time.”

The damaged soul scribbled the number of his long-lost father onto a tiny notepad and slid the letters under his bed. He was going to go and find this man. Arnaz unwittingly involved his advisor, Jax Jackson, in his bizarre plan the next afternoon, as they ate hamburger platters on the patio, underneath the bright sunshine. “Could you get me an internship in LA?”

“Why are you interested in Los Angeles?”

He rolled his eyes and came up with a lie. “U-h, it would be great to leave the south for a spell.”

Jackson seemed to believe this, and ended the questioning of his prized student. He called the LA Lounge Magazine, which happened to have an internship available.

BUY LINK: http://redrosepublishing.com/books/product_info.php?cPath=135_35&products_id=651

REVIEWS:
http://goteroticromance.blogspot.com/2010/08/curling-up-by-kt-bishop.html

SUPERNATURAL SUNDAY

Tony-Paul de Vissage shines in the Moonlight

When I began writing the vampire series titled The Second Species, I wanted to tell a story of a people who, through circumstance and misunderstanding, became the basis for one of humanity's most enduring--oops, almost said endearing--legends: The Vampire. Going back over my collection of vampire novels, videos, and non-fiction by such writers as Bram Stoker, Montague Summers and Ornella Volta, I noticed how, in the '70's, a trend began concerning the vampiric hero. Around that time, the emphasis upon the vile, unearthly, bloodsucking demon began to give way to a more sympathetic view. Suddenly, the vampire was more to be pitied than censured, a being for whom one was allowed to feel sympathy, perhaps even a friendship--though prudently coupled with caution. After all, even the most well-controlled vamp will still be compelled to feast at midnight, and if you're his best-friend, no matter how tight the tie that binds--when the hunger pangs set in, you could up being the entree! A good many of these stories were actually disguised as Gothic romances, ending with the heroine accepted her demon lover's way of life rather than help in his destruction.

For the characters in Second Species, I wanted a difference--they, I decided weren't going to be the usual types of vampires, not Undead creatures brought back to life in their attacker's image, to continue to ravage the night only to be dispatched by a stake wielded by peasants with torches and pitchforks or a well-educated professor and his group of vigilante vampire-hunters. Yes, they would live longer than humans, not through supernatural means but simply because of their heredity. And it would be their heredity which would get them into this mess in the first place. My aventurieri--Transylvanian for vampire--would simply be a second species of Mankind, evolving on a different path at the time Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon vied for domination of the Earth. Becoming nocturnal hunters, they develop a sensitivity to the sun, a condition scientists in our time would diagnose by the names PMLE or XP, a genetic disturbanace in which an individual's DNA can't repair the damage done by ultraviolet rays and the victim must forever shun the daylight. They would also be allergic to certain herbs and spices such as garlic and sea salt. They can’t change into bats, don’t dissolve into mists, a stab wound or the infection from a lead bullet will kill them just as swifly as a stake through the heart. But here the difference begins. Though they eat food like their human half-brothers, they must consume blood, to supply the deficiencies in their bodies because of their avoidance of sunshine, and--they develop wings.

Can you imagine a cave man—or someone in the year 1100 or even the Fifteenth Century—coming across such a creature? Feared by superstitious early Man, persecuted and hated by those who can't understand, they take refuge in the mist-enshrouded cliffs of the Carpathians, raising their children, organizing their government, living out their lives with as little communication with Humans. Those who dare leave the mountains continue to live a masquerade, in continuous fear of discovery.

Though the majority of the aventurieri faithfully follow their kind’s strigent laws, there are rogues among them who are dangerously like the fabled vampire, They are dealt with by their Prince in a singularly cold-blooded fashion, and it is one of these rapitors who becomes the catalyst for my story when the Domnitor orders his assassin to punish an aventurieri who has broken the Law...and that single act begins a series of events which will send the assassin's eldest son on a journey of revenge and self-discovery...eventually changing the lives of every living aventurieri forever.

The Second Species is the story of Marek Strigoi and his family, their quest for revenge and how it affects not only them but the humans they meet on their journey from the Transylvania of 1794 to the wrought-iron balconies of post-Katrina New Orleans in 2010.

As the blurb states: “When both the hunter and the hunted are vampires, neither Love nor Hell can stand in the way.”

The Shadow Lord, first novel of The Second Species, is now under contract to Red Rose Press.

Buy Link: http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore