Interview with Marie Treanor & Giveaway!

BLOOD ON SILK by Marie Treanor

Scottish academic Elizabeth Silk is spending the summer in Romania researching historical superstitions for her PhD. While she is tracing local foktales, one subject in particular sparks her imagination. His name is Saloman, legend's most powerful vampire, a seductive prince staked centuries ago. Now, in the ruins of a castle crypt, Elizabeth discovers the legends are real. Her blood has awakened him. Her innocence has aroused him. But Elizabeth unleashes more than Saloman's hunger.

An army of vampire hunters has amassed to send Saloman back to hell. Sworn to help - yet fearing Saloman's deadly blood lust - Elizabeth seeks to entrap him, offering her body as bait. But something stronger than dread, more powerful than revenge, is uniting Elizabeth to her prey. Caught between desire and rage, Elizabeth must decide where her loyalties lie...and what the limits are to a yearning she can no longer control.

MY REVIEW

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Hi guys! Please help me in welcoming Marie Treanor to Lovin' Me Some Romance. She obligingly let me pick her brain over her new paranormal romance, BLOOD ON SILK.

My Interview:

First, who is Marie Treanor?

Marie Treanor is a writer, mainly of spicier paranormal romance, with a string of published titles to her name. She lives in Scotland with her eccentric husband of nearly twenty years, and three much-too-smart children. Having grown bored with city life, she resides these days in a picturesque village by the sea where she is lucky enough to enjoy herself avoiding housework and writing stories of romance and fantasy. She loves good books, old films, rich food and fresh coffee.

What is our obsession with vampires?! No matter how many vampire romances I read, my desire for more doesn't seem to cease as I gravitate unwaveringly - obviously never unwillingly - towards the next one. Why go this route that has been traveled so many times in the romance genre? Was the task intimidating or were you utterly confident with your twist upon such a well traversed myth?

Yes, the vampire thing is certainly addictive! I think it’s the power, and the sexual attraction of vampires, whether overt or understated, that draws us, and for me, I think it’s also the fact that the male vampire looks enough like a human to make me wonder how he would be if he behaved with just a hint of human emotion. It’s the contrast between softer feelings and the raw, power of an inhuman and lethal creature.

I chose to write about vampires because, like you, I love reading about them! Ever since I read Dracula as a kid, and later Interview with the Vampire, I’ve sought out vampire stories of all kinds – not just romance. In fact, I confess that as a student, I even went to Transylvania – in the days before communism fell too, so it took a bit of effort! – following the route Jonathan Harker took in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. :) The beauty of the Transylvanian hills under a full moon, with the distant howling of a wolf (all right, it might have been a dog) in the background, did nothing to dispel my fascination. Anyhow, when this story came to me, I was more than happy to write it.

Having contracted and completed it, of course, I did wonder if my story would get lost among the vast array of vampire romances out there. I’m still wondering :) But I am delighted with the level of interest so far among readers and reviewers, so I have hopes that people will enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing it.

BLOOD ON SILK mixes the old with new lending a distinctly gothic and bewitching feel to your vampires. With the lack of blasting and sharp modernity that soaks the vampire romances of today, I felt instead an ancient presence within your story, a dark romanticism that permeated each and every scene. Was this your way of differentiating yourself within the market or did your imagination and characters simply flow this way onto the pages? Was it important for you to bring new life to old myths? Or perhaps was it simply the influence of the incredibly old countries your novel visited that really couldn't be written in any other tone?

Thank you! That’s just the atmosphere I was aiming for! Not consciously to differentiate my story from the others, just because it came with my story, with the feel of it in my head as the awakening scene came to me and then as I began to write it. It is obviously important to keep a story new, however well-travelled the background, if only not to bore your readers! But I wasn’t consciously thinking about this as I wrote. The sheer age of my vampire and the history he’d been part of certainly contributed to the atmosphere I tried to convey. And of course, I love the old gothic romances with ruined castles and dark, brooding heroes with pasts….

An unapologetically dangerous killer of a hero, Saloman starts his journey as an ancient and newly awakened vampire with seemingly no redeeming qualities. I'll admit that while I rooted for him continuously from beginning to end, I also felt my connection with him dip dangerously low at times for he's an incredibly complex hero. Were you worried at all about reader connection with Saloman? Was your writing experience of him just as mysterious as my reading experience?

Looking back, I think I only worried about his evil tendencies after I’d finished writing it and discussed it with my editor! At the time, this was how I meant him to be. He isn’t just an incredibly strong male who happens to need a little blood to exist, he’s a vampire. An alien, very different creature whose people walked the earth before humans. He doesn’t think like us or act like us, and he certainly doesn’t have the same values. He’s scary and dangerous and I wanted to convey that. For me, it makes his moments of softening, of understanding or vulnerability, all the more meaningful.

After writing the above question, I now realize that Saloman is a complete anti-hero. Rare in the romance world, an anti-hero can be frightening, unpredictable, and have little regard for anyone but themselves. Even the heroine isn't safe from him for while he may be obsessively intrigued with her, that doesn't me she's safe from the death that he threatens so seductively with acute promise. Do you agree with this observation? Why or why not?

Hmm, I don’t know that he’s a complete anti-hero, although he definitely has tendencies! As you say, even Elizabeth isn’t safe from him for much of the book. But in fact, although they aren’t human ones, he does have values that go well beyond the selfish. Of course, when he first awakens, he’s angry. He’s out for revenge and determined to assert the power he believes should be his. Well, he’s had more than three hundred years of agony to brood on his betrayal and I have a certain amount of sympathy for that! But as his anger fades, there are hints of a better person underneath who could, we hope, develop through contact with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Silk, your heroine, is in some ways more overwhelmingly complex than Saloman. Her emotions run in such tangible extremes and while that should have made her more palpable than Saloman, I felt my connection to her as one of simultaneous begrudging acceptance and champion awe. In other words, I didn't always like or agree with Elizabeth's decisions but I valued and rooted for her undeniable strength. How did your writing experience with her differ with that of Saloman? What's the level difficulty and pressure to create a heroine that would catch and hold the eye of such an enigmatic hero? Or was it the opposite? How do find a hero to compel such a heroine?

In some ways Elizabeth was a lot easier than Saloman to write: she’s human for a start, and like me, she’s a bit of an observer of life rather than a forceful participator! But that has to change when she wakens Saloman and is thrust into the terrifying world of vampires. I had to think quite carefully how she would react to certain situations, how her native strength would come to the fore to deal with some of those, while her weaknesses and insecurities would hamper her dealing with others. At the same time, there has to be something about her that is unique enough to intrigue a being of Saloman’s vast experience. So yes, she is complex and I think she became harder to cope with as the story progressed!

BLOOD ON SILK is an unconventional romance in that it lacks the traditional Happily Ever After. Pretty risky maneuver there, one my romance reader heart still has difficulty coming to terms with. Why does Elisabeth have to be so stubborn?! Just kidding, but why no HEA?

:) Well, she wouldn’t be Elizabeth if she wasn’t stubborn! But let me assure you that the story isn’t over yet. Blood on Silk is only the first of the Awakened by Blood trilogy, and Elizabeth and Saloman will certainly meet again in Blood Sin, scheduled for release in April. I take your point, though - the ending of Blood on Silk IS a bit risky for romance lovers! But I do like a cliff-hanger, and I think the hint is there in Saloman’s final words: “It will never be over.”

What can we expect next from Marie Treanor?

Well, there is Blood Sin next April, as I said, and the third book of the trilogy to come later in 2011. Before that, on 28th September 2010, I have an ebook release at Samhain Publishing, co-written with Bonnie Dee. Awakening Beauty is the third of our Fairytale Fantasies that take an adult twist on well known fairytales.

Giveaway Details:

Marie Treanor is giving one lucky commenter their pick of any ebook in her backlist. Here's how to enter:

*Comment with a Valid Email Address (Entrants that do not leave an email address will be disqualified)*

**Contest Open to ALL**

***Must be 18 or Older to Enter***

****Contest Closes Thursday, September 23th at Midnight U.S. Pacific Standard Time and the Winner will be Chosen Randomly and Announced Friday, September 24th****