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Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Volume 2)

by Rosemary A. Johns

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GENRE: Urban Fantasy Paranormal Romance

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BLURB:

WELCOME TO THE BLOOD CLUB

Light is a Rocker Blood Lifer with a talent for remembering things. He’s meant to be the predator. It’s been that way since Victorian times. But not now. Not since someone hunted him. Enslaved him. Ripped out his fangs. Who are these ruthless humans? Who’s their violent leader? And who betrayed the secret of the Blood Lifer world?

WHERE THE PREDATORS

London, Primrose Hill. Grayse is the commanding but alluring slaver’s daughter. The enemy. She buys Light, like he’s a pair of designer shoes. So why does Light feel so drawn to her? Especially when his family is still in chains. Will he risk everything – even his new love – to save them?

BECOME THE PREY

Does a chilling conspiracy lie behind it all? A stunning revelation leads Light to an inconceivable truth. If he can face his worst terrors, he can save his family and his whole species from slavery.

Maybe he can even save himself.

The third book in the series, BLOOD RENEGADES, will be out Spring 2017

‘Didn’t exactly stay dead.’ I pushed away from the fireplace, jumping up to sit on the arm of the leather sofa. I scrutinized your serious features and those intent grey peepers. ‘You really don’t know anything about us Blood Lifers, do you? How we evolved or--’

You shot me a sharp look. ‘You wouldn’t be here, if that’s what I thought.’

‘Alright then, as in, only good Blood Lifer’s one in shackles?’

Your mouth tightened into a thin line. ‘And what about humans? Do we come in small, medium or large?’

‘In America you can supersize.’ I grinned, but you didn’t return it: some birds have no sense of humour. Of course, Ruby would’ve clocked me for that comment. ‘Look, that’s not who I am now. I’ve been on blood abstention for fifty years.’

Your voice was so cold it could’ve given frost bite. ‘Good for you.’

‘Not asking for a medal, sweetheart. I just wanted you to know I don’t… Not First Lifers. Not for a long time.’

‘Makes no difference to me.’

‘It does to me. You’ve no idea how much.’

‘OK.’ You turned back to your laptop, opening it with an air of indifference. Then there was that blasted clack clacking.

I listened for a moment in silence. Then I couldn’t hack it any longer. ‘What does?’

‘What?’ You didn’t stop typing or look away from the screen.

‘Make a difference to you?’

You didn’t even pause. ‘The profit margin.’

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AUTHOR INTERVIEW:

Have you ever had an imaginary friend?

I didn’t need one – I had my brother! He’s less than a year younger than me and we were often mistaken for twins. We spent every waking moment together as kids. Imaginary worlds? We created vast ones. Played out wild adventures in the garden. Or recorded our own radio shows. If I wasn’t reading or writing, I was playing with my brother. I didn’t blame him for things though – like an imaginary friend. Guess I missed a trick there…

Sisters and brothers often play large roles in my stories. Blood Shackles is all about family. How you can create your own. In Light’s words,

‘I didn’t have a scooby how to keep myself safe in this modern world, let alone my first ever misfit following.

Yeah, a family – this was my family.’

Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Volume 2)

Yet Blood Shackles is also about how you can be enslaved by the bonds of family. And how it’s as hard to set yourself free from family, as it is to set yourself free from a cell. I’m sure most people can identify with that.

Do you have any phobias?

Spiders. Does that even count? Who likes spiders? I’m fascinated by psychology though, so I understand phobias because a writer should always use fear – good emotion that.

But I do have this - when I’m on a cliff over the sea (and it has to be the sea) I have the overriding urge to throw myself off. I think I was a lemming in a past life. Or maybe I’m just a thwarted romantic heroine?

In Blood Shackles fear (and the courage to overcome it) is the book’s guts. There’s no true bravery, if there’s no terror to face first. And enslaved by the human Blood Club, defanged and embroiled in a dark conspiracy, Light has more than his fair share of terror to face. But it’s how he does it, which is redemptive.

Think Taken. With vampires. Or Spartacus meets vampires. Either way, Light isn’t alone. He discovers both love and family in the unlikeliest of places. And it’s the drive to set them free, which gives him the courage to face his very worst fears…

I’m a music fanatic. Think I’m exaggerating? Cut me open and I bleed…Smells Like Teen Spirit. I can’t listen to music when I write the first draft because I’m so lost in the world. I see a novel happening in my head; it’s like I’m translating it down onto the paper. Tarantino has said he does the same. Apart from he probably said it in a cooler, more American way. That’s us Brits for you.

Once I’m onto further drafts and edits – that’s when the fun begins…because I can put on the music my characters listen to!

And I do that. Seriously. So if you want to listen to the same soundtrack as me, the clues are littered throughout the Rebel Vampires series. Because Light is into his music too.

In Blood Dragons it’s The Stones, Billy Fury and Jimi Hendrix. I love the chapters set in the wild 196os London music scene. In Blood Shackles? Amy Winehouse, The Beatles and 1920s jazz. Eclectic? Yeah. But then these are Blood Lifers.

Do you ever read your stories out loud?

I perform my writing sometimes; I love that.

I always love interacting with readers. Hearing their reactions. I write it. But once it’s out there? It doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s not like a baby: more like a boat you set adrift and then watch from the shore.

And to answer…yes I always practice my writing out loud! There’s no way to know if it reads right without this process. So if you’re wondering? I do have voices for all the characters. My dad’s a Londoner. But I don’t have Light’s accent. I imagine a young Michael Caine as Alfie – and it works.

Tell us about your main character and who inspired him/her.

Light is the central vampire in both standalone books in the Rebel Vampires series.

Light is a British Rocker Blood Lifer with a photographic memory. And a Triton motorbike. He’s a Blood Lifer James Dean: rough leather motorcycle jacket, studded and faded, decorated with a worn gold Ace of Spades, collar firmly turned up, over a black t-shirt, jeans and tall motorcycle boots. He tried to conforming once: didn’t fit.

Favourite possession? His leather jacket. For the last 150 years, Light has always owned a ‘blinding coat’.

Favourite phrase? ‘Bollocks vampire myth…’

Light is a British rebel antihero – a loner even amongst other Blood Lifers. I fell in love with him, whilst writing this series. And I don’t fall in love easy. As a character, he was sparked by my son, who’s autistic and has a photographic memory. It made me wonder what it would be like living over the centuries and witnessing glories and horrors but remembering it with the clarity of a photograph. Would it be a blessing? Or a curse? It’s certainly Light’s talent.

In Blood Dragons he uses this memory to tell the story of his two loves – one a savage Elizabethan Blood Lifer and the other a forbidden human singer – to the human he’s loved for fifty years since the wild 1960s. Because she has dementia and is losing her memory. Forgetting Light. Herself. Their love. Just as he can never forget a single moment.

In Blood Shackles he’s enslaved but fights to save his family – and species. He’s shocked to discover family for the first time in 150 years in the most surprising of places. He’s obsessive when it comes to love but he’s always loyal. And always keeps a promise. Most of all I wanted to write about adult love. Paranormal but true emotions. Lives. And hope amidst the dark.

Light is the unlikely Blood Lifer, who can set his species free – and also be set free himself. Through family and love.

ROSEMARY A JOHNS is a traditionally published author of short stories under the name R. A. Johns. She is the author of Blood Dragons the compelling first instalment of the Rebel Vampires series.

Rosemary A Johns wrote her first fantasy novel at the age of ten, when she discovered the weird worlds inside her head were more exciting than double swimming. Since then she’s studied history at Oxford University, run a theatre company (her critically acclaimed plays have been described as "uncomfortable, unsettling and uneasily true to life"), and worked with disability charities.

When Rosemary’s not falling in love with the rebels fighting their way onto the page, she heads the Oxford writing group Dreaming Spires

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