Parisian Phoenix Publishing

I can tell you the exact moment in time when I became obsessed with vampires. It was summer-ish time, circa 1990, and I discovered a campy Canadian television show, Dracula: The Series. The actor who played Max went on with his entertainment career to be a part of something you might have heard of Heated Rivalry. I discussed more of this cosmic convergence in this newsletter, We Too Have Hockey Fever Because of Vampires.

Because of actor Geordie Johnson and my impressionable teen mind recognizing the vampire as the perfect way to write about addiction (really, as the daughter of alcoholics, I pegged that right away— blood/beer), I started reading every vampire book at Waldenbooks in the Stroud Mall that I could afford.

Our public library was 20 minutes away and had no real useful books in their collection.

The first vampire stories I ever read

• Anne Rice, Interview with A Vampire, read in front of the fireplace in the living room with a fire going
• Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat, now we take the whole vampire-with-a-conscious concept for granted…
• Anne Rice, Queen of the Damned, and yes— I hung with Anne Rice for every new release up to Memnoch the Devil and Tale of the Body Thief but the quality of the writing plummeted and I hated them. Broke my heart.
• Stephen King, Salem’s Lot, small town vampires, what’s not to love?

And of course, I read every book I could find with a vampire and most of them were not memorable. But the last one worth a spot on the list…

• James and Deborah Howe, Bunnicula, because it taught me to think outside-the-box. Or rabbit hutch.

But, Angel, you say…

There are no vampires in the Fashion and Fiends series.

Blood magic, sure. But no vampires. Yeah, but in the first ten years of drafts, Galen Sorbach was a vampire (and an antiques dealer in Germany) and Kait (I should look up her full name but it’s very Irish and I’m lazy) who remains a character in the first five volumes was literally the Lamia. Originally, Galen was “sired” as they often say in vampire stories by an ancient Greek hero, maybe Hector? It was something from The Iliad.

And Etienne d’Amille was a small side character who slowly become too big for his britches and stepped into the spotlight as a protagonist.