Working Notes – July 4. Blood Knot II

If you’re subscribed to my newsletter, you already know that my writing and publishing schedule has taken a short detour.

Blood Knot has suddenly become hugely popular.  Last week it was #262 on Amazon’s Most Popular Vampire Romance chart.  As I write this post it has moved up to #257.  Considering that Amazon have 3,175 books tagged “vampire” and 3,027 books categorized as “paranormal romance”, that makes Blood Knot …well, popular.

I was in the middle of charting and writing a sweeping three-or-more book epic series that started with Branded Rose. I’ve pushed that aside to get the sequel to Blood Knot written.  It seems wise to get it written as soon as possible…don’t you agree?

I’m in the planning stages right now, but I’ve already started shaping the two new heroes of the second book.  The early inspiration for them — the seeds for their character and appearance — are here for you to meet.  Brian Austin Green, or as he is in Blood Knot II, Adrian Romanus Xerus, or simply ‘Roman’ to his friends.  A warrior of almost pure Roman blood (hence the name) born in the 15th Century in Constantinople.  It is the “almost” purity of his blood that caused trouble early in his life, for he was born a bastard in a noble family.

He was captured by the Turks when they conquered Constantinople, made a slave and it is while he is a slave that he is made a vampire.  With his new-found strength and skills, he escapes to wander west, until nearly a century later he finds himself in the Scottish highlands, where he meets another renegade,Calum Micheil Garrett, of the mighty Bruce clan, who chafs under the new royal status of the clan, and the strictures and lack of freedom of the old ways.  (You might remember Eric Stolz playing a very fine highlander in Rob Roy).  The two are drawn to each other, and when tragedy strikes, Roman is forced to turn Garrett, too.

That is the history behind these two heroes, who, because of the ways of vampires in Blood Knot, are forced to part and go their own way through history, until the present day, when vampires are on a fragile and critical cusp in their own history:  Do they reveal themselves to humans, or not?  Do they change the way they have been surviving throughout time and fundamentally change the way the world functions for humanity, as a result?

Nial, Sebastian and Winter, from Book 1, are on a mission to ensure that vampires can step out of the dark and take a place in the real world, as free people, alongside humans, with full rights and dignity.  Garrett finds himself in the unique position of being part of Nial’s group working to make it happen.  But there are plenty of people, both vampire and not, who will stop at nothing to prevent them from succeeding.  Garrett expects resistance, but he’s dismayed when he learns that Roman is one of those opposing him…

Of course, there is a heroine involved in all this, but I’m not ready to introduce her yet.  Perhaps next week!

Happly Independence Day to everyone in the U.S.A.