Coffee Time Romance Interview

Can you tell readers what Under the Moonlight is about?

Under the Moonlight is about Detective Morgan Carbone and what happens to her when she gets bitten by a serial killer that claims to be a werewolf. Most of the back story is explained during the prologue, which incidentally, started out as a short story and after a while with Morgan stewing in my head I had no choice but to turn her story into a novel. The rest of the novel is about what happens to Morgan when she gets captured by a werewolf named Mario Bonaventura who sends her to Europe to kill Elizabeth Bathory. What no one was counting on was that Morgan would fall in love with the very beautiful and very deadly vampire, complicating her mission in more ways than she could’ve imagined. 

Here is the official blurb:

In the blink of an eye, Detective Morgan Carbone’s life changes from day to night. Sociopath, serial killer, and charmer David McAllister won’t reveal where the bodies of several young women are located, and Morgan is determined to get answers from him. She gets much more from him during an interrogation, when he sinks his teeth into her hand, causing her to bleed profusely. The bite leaves Morgan with flawless skin as her wound heals quickly and perfectly, and it leaves her with severe bloodlust as she has now turned into a werewolf, like her serial-killing nemesis. This drastic change casts Morgan into an action-packed, dramatic journey as she is pressured (a deadly chip in the brain can do that) by a man to go across the country to kill a vampire that has supposedly killed his sister. Morgan must decide if she will fulfill her goal for him or let her heart fall for the deadly vampiress, who eerily reminds her of her first and only true love – a woman who got away.

I have actually heard about the real Elizabeth Bathory while watching a program about vampires. History states that she did in fact bathe in the blood of nubile young women to abstain the aging process. Was there something in particular about Elizabeth Bathory that grabbed your attention and had you wanting to write about her?

I always found her story fascinating (in a grotesque sort of way) and the more I read about Elizabeth Bathory the more I wanted to use her as a character in one of my stories. What really drew me to her was the fact that it was a beautiful woman who thought that bathing in young girls’ blood would keep her forever young and beautiful. And even though she was found guilty of these crimes (it took a long time to catch her, she was so careful) she was only held under house arrest in her own house, living the rest of her days locked up in her room. The opportunity presented itself for me to finally use this twisted woman in my novel while I was writing Under the Moonlight. I actually did a lot of research on her before I even started writing her into my story. If anyone is interested, this is the book I used for my research The Blood Countess: The Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory by Valentine Penrose.

What I loved most about your novel was the “what if” question that kept going around and around in my brain. For example there was a character in the novel who was known as being a mad doctor of sorts. Was there really a Marianne Green who went by The Surgeon? If so, what fascinated you with her characteristics? If not, how did you come up with this character?

LOL. Marianne Green was someone I came up with. I love characters that are beautiful on the outside and incredibly ugly and twisted on the inside. Marianne is a brilliant scientist who can’t stop herself from doing these terrible things to people and it doesn’t really take much to instigate her. If you look at her the wrong way or drop something on the floor too close to her feet…that’s really all she needs to lash out on you.  As to how I came up with her? Let’s just say whenever I have a bad day my mind runs rampant with very bad thoughts. Good thing I have my writing to vent.

Read the rest here

Add a comment March 6, 2009