By (image via http://streamline.filmstruck.com/)
I will admit that I have had a lifelong fascination/obsession with vampires. It started young. I remember watching Salem’s Lot when I was just a wee eleven years old. I’m not cognizant of any significant vampire related moments prior to that, but I have very vivid memories of watching it on TV in the apartment where we lived in Hilton, NY. Of course, some of that is to do with my age, and some with the fact that my younger brother had snuck down the stairs to watch for at least parts of it and was haunted for MONTHS after by the scene in the image above.
So, it would be safe to say the Stephen King introduced me to vampires. He was by no means the last to walk me into the dark, of course. I read the book the movie was based on that same year, and after that I dug into other books and movies and TV shows, too many to count and name, for certain.
By the time I was 20 I had read Dracula enough times to know entire passages by heart. I wasn’t content to stop there either, I dug into vampire lore, exploring the different ways they were presented in different cultures…the similarities, the differences. I was fascinated by the concept of immortality, drawn in by not only the idea of being witness to history, but the mundanity of living a daily existence where every night bleeds into the next.
I was, as a pubescent teenager is like to, pulled to the erotic notion of the biting, of taking life from the very essence that keeps us all alive, the intimate nature of that exchange, while also at the same time, being a practical child, by the idea that not every meal could be an erotic buffet of hot neck biting and licking that led to what my teenage hormones could only imagine. I found myself thinking about other ways a vampire might get what she needed, without the entanglement of the humanity that comes with drinking from a human chalice.
By the time I was sixteen, I had a pretty good idea what my vampires would be like, if I were to write about vampires…and from that idea, Amara was born.
It is safe to say that Amara comes from those first vampires I experienced, and is influenced by those that came after.
And you can experience Amara and all her nuance right now for 99 cents! Forever is available right now for Kindle at the low price of 99 cents. Grab your copy today…and leave a review if you would! Reviews make writers happy!
My coffee cup seems to be empty, I best go fill it up. Happy Wednesday, Readers!
Natalie J Case 