Could
you please tell us about your latest book?
Hi Dawn, of course! This is my first novel,
but it’s the first part of a series. Blind Man’s Wolf an M/M Paranormal Romance
set in London, England, and introduces us to Ellis and Randall.
Ellis is an art dealer who owns his own
gallery in Mayfair. He was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in his Twenties
and by the time he became a vampire he had become almost entirely night-blind,
and suffers severe tunnel vision. Ellis is convinced that his sire was a
complete idiot, but we find out that might not have been the whole story.
Randall is a werewolf who freelances as a
dog trainer. His pack’s very disparate, and convinced that to remain functional
as a pack they need an Omega; and Randall’s it. They aren’t interested whenever
he points out to them that there’s no such thing in wild wolf packs, and he’s
getting sick of the bullying. He’s very much at the end of his tether where
staying with his pack is concerned, but wolf shifters have this terrible habit
of losing their tempers around the full moon, and only an Alpha can keep them
in line.
Randall meets Ellis when Ellis’ guide dog
begins to behave oddly, and soon they get caught up in the beginnings of a far
larger scheme…
Do
we need to have read your novellas first?
No, not at all. All my books are set within
the same world, so if you have read the novellas you’ll already be familiar
with the ins and outs of vampires and shifters from the perspectives of those
characters.
Blind Man’s Wolf is set in London, as was
Kiss of Winter, and we do have a cameo from Kiss of Winter’s Aaron Hughes, but
everything you need to know is contained within Blind Man’s Wolf.
If you’ve read Wolf in Geek’s Clothing you
will find that Randall’s experience of shifter life is very different from Sauri’s. Sauri comes from a place – Washington
State – where there are still vast tracts of mountains and forests where
humanity hasn’t taken over, and so his pack still live the way that shifters
have done for thousands of years. Randall’s life is essentially the result of a
decision like Sauri’s – to move into a human city and blend in – taken by wolf
shifters six hundred years ago, while humans were hell-bent on exterminating
the entire wolf population of England.
What
is your writing process?
Oh, gosh. I sit and stare at a blank screen
quite a lot!
The very first thing which comes to me is
the kernel of an idea for a character. I work on it a little, poke it and prod
it, until the personality is fleshed out a little better, and then I wonder
what kind of person it would take to breathe life into him.
From there on in, both characters are
developed side by side. I write their backgrounds, I work out what it is they
do and don’t like, figure out who they are as people and why they’ve made the
choices in life which brought them to where they are today, and then I begin an
outline by thinking “What does it take to make them meet?”
From there comes the outline, driven
entirely by what each character does, how they feel, what they think, and the
way they react to one-another and the things which occur within the story.
I’m very character-driven. I love stories
which are moved forward by the characters’ actions and choices rather than by
plot; to me the characters create the
plot.
What’s
the weirdest thing you’ve ever Googled in the name of research?
Ahem. Don’t look at me like that. I’m
probably on a list somewhere, but I’ve certainly Googled questions such as:
Mechanism for death by drowning
Best place to stab someone
Tensile strength of mahogany
That’s normal, right?
As for those
questions (you naughty perv!) I don’t Google those. I just call friends and ask outright ;)
Now about Blind Man's Wolf....
Tooth & Claw, Book 1.
Ellis O’Neill is an art dealer with too
many problems: his eyesight has deteriorated to the point of night-blindness;
he’s estranged from his family, to whom he owes a considerable sum of money;
and his guide dog went right off him the night Ellis died. Without his dog,
Ellis is trapped in a life bouncing between home and work, dependent on his
personal assistant.
Werewolf Randall Carter has problems of his
own. He loves his pack, he really does, but as their Omega he’s always the one
to bear the brunt of their rage. It’s a role he can’t avoid, and Randall
isn’t sure he can take it for much longer, so he buries himself in
his day job. Randall’s the best dog trainer in the city, and when he’s offered
a client who needs him to work evenings he’d be a fool to turn it down.
Soon Randall is falling for someone
he should despise. Everything about the undead is anathema to
his kind, but Ellis is exactly the kind of guy Randall would want to ask out on
a date – if he were still breathing.
Worse, they may not have too long to
figure their feelings out. Someone or something is gunning for Ellis and anyone
else who gets in the way; they won’t rest until the vampire is destroyed.
Buy Links:
Excerpt:
What’s to stop you taking Randall out? You
like him, he likes you. Just one date. Live a little.”
“And what happens when he sits up in bed
one morning and throws the curtains open?”
“Eh.” Jay sat again. “Obviously you don’t
go straight from date to bed, dear. I know you’ve been off the scene a while,
but have some restraint. You just take it easy, and if it looks like it’s going
somewhere tell him. Who knows? Maybe you could find someone who’d be willing to
let you, you know.” Jay’s tone turned dirty. “Suck on more than just his
swizzle-stick.”
Ellis snorted. “Pervert.”
“You could be partners in every sense,” Jay
crowed with glee.
“Is this it? Your ultimate goal? Some
homoerotic vampire sex fantasy?”
Jay sniggered. “It’d be hot.”
“God, where the hell did I find you?” Ellis
shook his head, unable to keep the smile from his lips. “Anyway, it’s all
pointless. It wouldn’t work. What happens longer term, when he gets to grow old
and I don’t?”
“Well, do you know whether you’re actually
going to live forever and never grow old and all that stuff?”
Ellis tapped his fingers on the arm of his
chair, and he leaned back. “Well, no. Jonas said the Council of Elders were
all, well, Elders, but-”
“-But he was full of shit,” Jay stated.
“Well maybe you should find out. You can’t just carry on not knowing anything.
There’s got to be enough of them out there to need a Council in the first
place.”
“And that Council has rules against us
letting people find out what we are. You could be in serious danger if they
ever work out you know even half the things I’ve told you.” Ellis sighed and
brushed hair away from his forehead.
“My lips are sealed, I promise you. I don’t
want to get eaten. Well, not like that.”
About the author
Since then she has written for corporate clients and personal pleasure, and finally stepped away from office-bound working in 2011 to freelance from home.
Amelia is also a keen photographer and film-goer, and resides in the city (not the City) with her husband. She is notoriously camera-shy, so please enjoy this picture of her cat!
Website: http://ameliafaulkner.com/
Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/ZiAEX
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/amelia_faulkner/
4 comments:
I love Amelia! I'm so glad she got interviewed, this book is so good.
I like several old horror movies but some time ago I watched An American Werewolf in London and it was pretty good.
I don't really watch horror films the last really frighting movie I watch was "Aliens" Oh god never again had bad dreams for ages.
ShirleyAnn(at)speakman40(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk
I don't watch horror movies either.
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