Author Marie Treanor Interview

It's my pleasure to have fellow paranormal romance author Marie Treanor here today talking about her writing, her new book Serafina and The Silent Vampire, and that deliciously sexy vampire of hers, Saloman, from her wonderful paranormal romance series, Awakened By Blood.I fell in love with the first book from the series, Blood On Silk, and from then on I was a fan of Marie's wonderful stories.

GB: Welcome Marie! Let's jump right in. What drew you to write paranormal romance and vampires?

MT: Well, they’re a long-standing obsession! When I was a kid, I loved to stay up late on a Friday night with my Dad watching old “horror” films with Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee etc, and that got me hooked. After reading Dracula, I devoured all the vampire stories I could find, and this has gone on ever since! It was inevitable that as a writer, I would one day find my way to the paranormal, and to vampires, and if I can mix them up with a bit of gothic type romance and a touch of modern spice, I’m even happier :).

GB: Which do you find more challenging to write: love/sex scenes or fight scenes?

MT: Fight scenes. They don’t come naturally to me because apart from childhood spats with my brother, I’ve never fought anyone in my life.  I’m a naturally peaceful person, but my characters frequently find themselves in situations they have to fight their way out of! It makes for an exciting story, of course, and I do find this side of people’s character fascinating, so I do like to have fighting in there and hope my enthusiasm carries the scene convincingly. :).

GB: Is the character of Saloman in your Awakened By Blood series based on someone from history or is he entirely of your own creation?

MT: He’s mostly my own creation, although I suppose I was inevitably influenced by the fact that Bram Stoker used Vlad the Impaler as his model for Count Dracula. I took the idea a stage further and made Saloman older than Christ, and hinted at him and his undead race influencing civilization for thousands of years. But the character of Saloman is complete imagination – and he was great fun. I loved imagining how someone would be if they’d existed so long and experienced so much. So I gave him a value for existence in general and yet a carelessness of individual lives which he’s quite happy to sacrifice to his own good or the good of the world as he sees it. Plus, he had to have coping mechanisms for the sheer boredom of having seen and done it all before, and being so much more powerful than anyone else; as well as a profound isolation that no one can touch.

GB: Why did you choose to make the Awakened By Blood series a trilogy?

MT: It just came to me that way. I wanted to write a series that followed the relationship of the same main characters through various adventures with a continuing theme, and three books seemed a good length to do that in without stringing things out too long or growing tired of the characters.

However, living in that world for so long, I suppose it was inevitable that I couldn’t quite leave the story alone! It kept moving forward in my head – what happens to Elizabeth and Saloman after BLOOD ETERNAL? And at the same time I began to worry increasingly about Elizabeth’s friends the vampire hunters. I wanted to delve deeper into their pasts and find them a bit of happiness if I could – which is why I began a new series, Blood Hunters, a sequel series to Awakened by Blood, but following different hunters in each book. BLOOD GUILT is the first of this new series – available now :).

GB: Your newest book, Blood Guilt, is independently published. What made you choose that route?

MT: Well, NAL who published Awakened by Blood, didn’t want to take the story forward, so instead of  looking at other publishers, my agent advised me to try self-publishing which has grown so rapidly in recent years. It has a lot of advantages so far, so I’m enjoying the experience – such an exciting time to be writing and publishing!

GB: What do you think makes your vampire books stand out from the others in the paranormal romance genre?

MT: Yikes, I’m probably not the best person to ask :) . I’ve been told my world-building is unique, and Saloman has been described as ‘the best vampire in the romance genre’, which was very flattering!  I try to write my vampires as inhuman, flawed characters with humour and odd vulnerabilities and powerful if well-hidden emotions, and from there I just go with my imagination. And I’m thrilled if that works for readers!

GB: What do you have planned for the future?

MT: Excitingly, I have three new series planned. We already talked about the Blood Hunters series, and BLOOD GUILT which was released in June. I’m hoping to do at least four and maybe five books in the series.

The next series is called Serafina’s, all about a psychic investigation agency based in Edinburgh. The first book, SERAFINA AND THE SILENT VAMPIRE, just came out on 28^th August. Serafina MacBride is the psychic but not strictly honest owner of the agency, who doesn’t believe in vampires until she meets one biting her friend and assumes he’s muscling in on her scam. Then her client’s son dies with puncture wounds in his neck and she finds herself up to her neck in vampires, one of whom threatens her heart as well as her jugular J.  I’m writing the second book in the series now.

And in November, comes SMOKE AND MIRRORS, the first release in my third series – The Gifted – which features a sexy criminal with a rare if useful gift with fire.

Thanks so much for interviewing me, Gabrielle! It’s been fun.

Thanks so much, Marie!

Here are buy links for Blood on Silk, Blood Guilt, and Serafina and The Silent Vampire:

Blood on Silk: http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Silk-Awakened-Novel/dp/0451231562/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280655393&sr=1-1

Blood Guilt: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Guilt-Hunters-Series-ebook/dp/B0088Q23F8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1338875398&sr=1-1

Serafina and The Silent Vampire: http://www.amazon.com/Serafina-Silent-Vampire-Serafinas-ebook/dp/B0092UD3GM/

GIVEAWAY: Marie is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner. To enter, leave a comment with your email address and do as many of the Rafflecopter options as you like. Contest is open internationally and will run through September 10. One winner will be chosen at random. Good luck!

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