VBT + #Giveaway: Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Volume 2) by Rosemary A. Johns @RosemaryAJohns @GoddessFish

Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Volume 2)

by Rosemary A. Johns

GENRE: Urban Fantasy Paranormal Romance

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

Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Volume 1)

Excerpt:

You grabbed my hand, dragging me after you down the warren of side streets behind the shops.

It was pelting down now. Even though I was soaked, I was still buzzing from the barney.

At last you stopped, shoving me up against a brick wall at the back entrance to a butcher’s.

 ‘Look,’ I said hurriedly, ‘I’m sorry about--’

‘Thanks.’

Questioningly, I tilted my nut. Your lips were close to mine. All I’d need to do was…

You pulled back (of course you bloody did), even if you were still clutching onto me, as if my body was yours.

Because no matter what other nasties you might do with it, you’d never kiss your slave, would you?

Then you suddenly hauled me closer, and we were snogging.

At that moment, none of it meant anything.

Slave or Mistress. First Lifer or Blood.

It never does when skin meets skin. It was just Light and Grayse. 

So it was a good kiss. To me, it changed everything. But to you..?

‘If you would be so kind, some of us are trying to feed in peace.’ A nasal but polite Turkish Blood Lifer popped his nut up from further down the alley.

He licked down the neck of a twitching First Lifer bird, who was propped up against a skip.

When you shrieked and tried to jerk away, I held you still by the wrist.

I shrugged. ‘Yeah, my mistake.’

Your peepers were now flint.

I started edging you backwards out of the shadows. Now wasn’t the time to give you a crash course on Blood Lifer dinner etiquette.

It seems, however, that our Turkish friend was determined to educate me. ‘You know, young one, it is most inconsiderate to interrupt a fellow’s kill. I had no intention to do so with yours.’

Guest post:

Three Ways Writing Plays can Help Fantasy Authors

Firstly, thanks for having me on your site!

I wrote plays. I ran a theatre company. And the last few years I’ve been traditionally published as a short story writer. Now my new fantasy series Rebel Vampires is out.

I still think like a playwright. I’m visual – I see the novels like a film rushing through my mind and have to translate it onto the page before I miss it. Tarantino is the same.

You’d reckon the skills were different. But playwriting and working in theatre has helped me write Rebel Vampires.

Rebel Vampires is set in the supernatural world of Blood Life, in a hidden London where vampires are both predator and prey. The world is divided between Blood Lifers (vampires) and First Lifers (humans). It’s not clear who the true monsters are. 

I wanted to write a vampire book for adults. Where the vampires were not only the hunters but also the hunted. And death drives desire.

It’s a secret world of vampires, rebels and romance.

In Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Volume 1) Light is caught between his century old love for a savage Elizabethan Blood Lifer and his forbidden human lover.

Blood Dragons is out now (e-book and paperback). Click here: http://viewbook.at/BloodDragons

In Blood Shackles Light is abducted, defanged and enslaved by the secret human Blood Club. The conspiracy behind it? You’ll have to read the series to find out! Light discovers love and family for the first time and fights to save his whole species from slavery. It’s like Taken. But with vampires.

Blood Shackles is out now at the promotional price of $0.99. Click here: http://viewbook.at/BloodShackles

Here are three ways writing plays can help fantasy authors:

1.   DIALOGUE: Playwrights are mimics. We can’t help it – we hear a new accent or dialect? And we’re listening for the grammar, slang and rhythm. I love that. It makes your work distinctive. It’s part of what makes Rebel Vampires unique – each Blood Lifer both comes from and loves a different time period – Elizabethan, 1920s or 1960s. And it has to sound right. For fantasy and science fiction books unique dialogue should be at their heart.  

2.   STRUCTURE: In a play? Everything comes down to structure. Acts. Scenes. Even timings. There’s a discipline to that. Planning and plotting. I plan my novels in scenes. Each comes as vividly to me as a film scene. And propulsion – everything is driven by forward momentum. Emotions or action. It must all drive the story.

3.   DRAMA IS CONFLICT: Plays and films are built around conflict. Conflict can be thriller style but usually is emotional. Obstacles to overcome. Relationships where things don’t start smoothly and then run to happily ever after. It’s real life but amplified to the point of tension. Suspense. So it’s gripping and compelling. Rebel Vampires is like that. The love is painful, destructive, obsessive… but there to the very end.

Blood Shackles is a journal. It’s immediate. Direct to the reader.

I wonder whether writing plays led to such a distinctive voice for Light.

Still, as Light says:

‘So, dear Reader (because I know you’re reading this, there’s no use pretending otherwise), did you reckon giving me this poncey journal - all softness and stink of leather - would make me spill my Soul? You already have my body, bought and paid for. You think you have my mind.

My thoughts, however..? They’re my own.

Write in it every day, you’d ordered, with that little smile.

What do you think this is: Bridget Jones’s Diary?

I’m not a performing monkey. I’ll write, when I write. You want more?

Good luck with that.

You want to know how I was captured? Enslaved? Defanged?

 I won’t guarantee you’ll like what you read. No one does when it’s the truth: raw and flayed. Bloody.

But not tonight.

Maybe you won’t even read this. Why would you? I’m only a slave now. What difference could my thoughts make?’

Blood Shackles (Rebel Vampires Volume 2)

Read Blood Shackles today:  http://viewbook.at/BloodShackles

Want to read Blood Dragons first? Click here: http://viewbook.at/BloodDragons

AUTHOR BIO:

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

To sign up to Rosemary A Johns’ VIP Email Newsletter with news of hot releases, promotions and the free short story “All the Tin Soldiers”, click here: http://eepurl.com/bQ0kMX

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Buy Link:

Amazon

THE BOOK WILL BE $0.99 DURING THE TOUR

Giveaway:

$50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC
 

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