I’m going to start having monthly competitions on my blog now. They’ll be easy to enter as you’ll only have to reply to the blog post, and the post will be topical or fun so you will have something to say, I’m sure.

So, the competition is open for a month and I’ll announce the winner when I post the next competition. You don’t have to leave an email address, just your name. Just check the next month’s competition to see if you’ve won or not, and then email me at the given address. That way, I’ll get spam (I’m used to it) for giving out my addy online and you won’t!

What can you win? The ebook of your choice from my back catalogue.



This time I want to talk about vampire romance.

Has the nail finally been hammered into the coffin of the vampire romance genre as the industry would have you believe?

My answer: I don’t think so.

The industry loves to say that one genre is dead or over, or reached its peak, but often that just seems to be because there’s an influx of stories in that genre rolling into the publishing houses. And sure, I can understand that they’re probably getting a bit bored of the same old vampires doing the same old stuff, and I can sympathise with that. Anyone who knows me knows that I can’t stand the redemptionista vampires—those who hark on about how they can’t drink human blood or kill and they just want to be human. They weep on and on about wanting to be mortal, as though that would make them some better being. Oh, give me a break. Honestly, if you were reborn as an immortal killing machine superior to the human race, I don’t think you’d be particularly worried about the fact that you need human blood to survive. We kill animals all of the time for sustenance.  To a vampire, it would surely be the same? They’re doing as their bodies demand, just as we are, only unlike us, they can’t normally survive on a vegetarian diet instead. Essentially, we have a choice about killing living creatures, they probably don’t. And besides that, who’s to say that they have to kill? They could probably feed without killing if they really had a problem with it, it’s all down to the author.

But I have to say, if you’re a writer who is squeamish about having a killer as your hero or heroine (which a vampire essentially is), then you’re probably not cut out to write paranormal romance books. I believe in vampires behaving in the same way as we do because we see ourselves as top of the food chain—with little concern for what we’re killing because we’re boss and that’s final. In fact, my Vampires Realm vampires revel in the kill and the feed, they thrive on it and the way it feels for them, almost addictive and like a drug.

So yeah, the industry is probably finding there are too many similar vampire romance stories right now and they’re swamped with them, but there’s always room for a good vampire romance story, something different with a twist or a plot which makes it worth the read and worth putting it out there on shelves for everyone to enjoy.

I don’t think readers are bored with the genre. Vampires have been popular for a long time, since Dracula first came around, and I can’t see them going poof anytime soon. I think that they’ll be around for a while to come as long as the writers have the common sense to try to make their story a bit different. Not that I should be encouraging them as they are the competition after all. It’s much the same as any genre. If everyone ends up writing the same stuff, it gets boring. Just spice it up a little and think outside everyone else’s books (or in my case, don’t read them unless it’s for research purposes on what level of writing sells, that way you’re not influenced).

So what does everyone think about this ongoing message that it’s the end for vampires? Is it just the industry bored of reading about them, or are you getting that way too? Do you think it’s just a tactic by the industry to lessen the number of vampire stories and increase the number of other paranormal types to fill out their shelves?

I know variety is supposedly the spice of life, but if you like something you like it. I love chocolate. You don’t see me complaining there’s too much chocolate in the world and it’s all much the same! I’ve never seen a reader complain that there’s too much vampire romance out there.