vampires Archives - Laurell K. Hamilton

A Cultural Tragedy

These news articles crossed my feed yesterday.

800-year-old ‘Crusader’ at Dublin church decapitated

Search underway for missing head of 800-year-old Crusader after vandals broke into church

This is the church I visited while touring Ireland while researching Crimson Death. I’m still sad I wasn’t able to use St. Michan’s on stage in the book. I’ve got story notes and always planned to revisit the Church, its crypt, and its mummies, yes, mummies in Ireland. I had no idea until we found the church and all its history by accident. We were lucky to be given a tour of the crypts by the historic preservation coordinator (I can’t find my notes, so if the title is incorrect, I apologize. Nor his name, deepest apologies, I will find it all later.) To be given a tour by the person who knew the most about all of it was amazing. He also shared that this was Bram Stoker’s family church while he was growing up in Dublin and the family had a crypt at the church. Walking down into the crypt I kept picturing Stoker as a little boy with only a candle to light the way. The crypt was dark with electricity, it must have been terrifying by lamp or candle, especially to a child. It was impossible for me to not think that the seed for certain scenes in Dracula were planted here. And then there were naturally occurring mummies in the crypts under the church.

Naturally occurring mummies in Ireland! One of the few places in the world where this has happened, and we still don’t know why or how! No, seriously, no one knows exactly why these bodies have mummified underneath this church. Our friend who works with the British Museum, and is an expert in her own right on Mummies, had no idea that she could find some naturally occurring ones just a day trip away. The Crusader and his crypt mates are artifacts of global significance, both to the historic record, and to origins of horror as a genre of fiction. I was hoping that some serious science would happen and we would learn the secrets of these amazing remains, and instead they have been desecrated, destroyed, and even parts of them stolen. The people who did this didn’t just take a head off a body, which is bad enough, they stole the history of Ireland. They stole the history of Bram Stoker and his family and of all the families that have relatives down in this crypt. They have stolen part of the story that created Dracula which was one of the very first modern horror novels. Without Dracula I might never have created my own vampire stories, perhaps no one would have, yes Dracula really is that important to the genre. I am hoping that someone will read this and help us bring this piece of history back. Help us reclaim this story, this inspiration.

Please, if you know anything, contact the Gardai.

For a more detailed write up on the church and its mummies, visit

ST. MICHAN’S Official Webpage

St. Michan’s Mummies at Atlas Obscura

Piles of Snakes

If you are phobic of snakes, please skip this blog. Trust me, you don’t want to see any of this. Now that I’ve warned all of you who suffer from ophidiophobia, here’s a recent video from Florida. Thanks to Ken Harris for bringing it to our attention. None of what you are about to see is my fault, even if my next novel Serpentine has a lot of snake Lycanthropes in it, and a few do change into a wriggling mass of snakes, and the book is set in Florida, this is still not my fault.

Video shows den of snakes slithering from tree in Oviedo

It would be disturbing if it was a tree in my own yard, but I had a Crocodile Dundee moment. “That’s not a pile of snakes, this is a pile of snakes.”

If you’re Scared of Snakes, Don’t Watch This

Witches, Wizards & the Writer’s Craft

Happy Mabon! We welcome autumn in with a revival of the guest blog post. We’re starting off with a wonderful and informative blog from my friend and fellow writer Michelle Belanger. Enjoy the magic of the day and of the words below.

-Laurell

Continue reading Witches, Wizards & the Writer’s Craft

Crimson Death, the book that would not end.

I wrote this weeks ago, but was so busy actually writing, and living that I forgot to post it.
It’s raining here today. The kind of rain that settles in like a guest before the cozy fire with a cup of hot tea and a good book. It’s that kind of day, but I can’t curl up with someone else’s book yet, because I have my own to finish. Crimson Death is written, but now it’s page proofs which are the last chance to catch any small mistakes. If you find any large ones that would require pages to fix, or even paragraphs, you are out of luck. The book has been to the printers and these are the finished sheets, so small changes like the fact that I keep trying to give Cardinale green eyes to match Damian’s, when she is introduced books ago with blue eyes, that can be caught and changed. You can add, or cut a sentence here and there, but beyond that the book is the book – it’s done. But like so often in publishing, it’s done, but it’s not. Crimson Death is almost set in stone, but here are page proofs to show that the stone can still be polished a bit more.

I have now read and reread this book so many times that I’m having to fight not to change things just to change things, so it will read differently. I’m somewhere between bored with it and terrified that I’ll miss something that will haunt me later. Today is the last day though, tomorrow the page proofs MUST be in New York. My editor, my publisher, the entire long suffering production team, everyone who has touched this book and helped it along are waiting for me to finish this one last pass through the manuscript, which now looks like the final typeset of the book. It’s still loose pages when printed out, but it is now set like it will appear between the covers of the book. The art department has that lovely cover waiting to go around these pages like a lover’s hug to hold it safe, warm, and made to feel pretty. The book is done, but it’s not.

Crimson Death more than any other book in memory has been done, until I realize it’s not done – yet. That first ending that didn’t work at all. That second climatic ending that in retrospect didn’t seem all that climatic. My old editor retired happily, and I’m happy for her, but my new editor and I are still finding our feet. I think I may owe her flowers after the grueling literary slog this book has become on our end. Or maybe we just need to meet at a bar somewhere and have a drink, or three. I don’t normally drink, but on the research trip to Ireland for Crimson Death, I finally learned to appreciate it. So cliche that I had to go to Ireland to learn to drink. This book is leaving me thinking that I might curl up in front of the fire on a rainy day with something a little harder than tea. Maybe some Glendalough whiskey shining amber in a crystal cut glass, while I finally put my feet up and get to read someone else’s book, but not yet.

Dead Ice now in Paperback, with Bonus Content “Wounded”

I’ve been so busy trying to finish writing, Crimson Death the 25th Anita Blake novel that I forgot that Dead Ice the 24th Anita Blake novel is out in paperback today! No, wait yesterday, because that was April 26th. I have a serious case of, “writing this book is eating my brain.” There’s a surprise in the back of the paperback, not the usual preview from my next novel, but something different. It’s entitled, “Wounded’, and it’s an outtake scene, or a short story, or a novelette, or a long epilogue for Dead Ice. I’m honestly not sure which to call it, but it is a series of events that we talk about briefly in the denouement of Dead Ice but they all happen off stage. A lot of you told me you missed seeing Jean-Claude dancing at the wedding and wanted to see more about Manny Rodriquez and his family. Well, so did I, and I thought why not? Why can’t I write them out and share them with all of you? Why can’t we see all of it on stage in living color? So I started writing out this brief extra scene and it grew until it was more than a scene, more than a story, and closer to a short novel. At one point I thought it might be as long as my novels Jason and Micah, but it didn’t quite make that word count, thank goodness, so what to do with it? Someone, I can’t actually remember now if it was my agent, my editor, or me, suggested what if we put it in the back of the paperback. Great idea! So for those of you who have read Dead Ice and wanted some more it’s in the paperback now! For those who prefer paperback to hardback here’s your chance and with extra bonus content! But please do not read the extra until you’ve finished reading Dead Ice, because the bonus novelette is full of spoilers. You’ll find out who lives, who dies, who the villain is and how the mystery is solved. No, really, it’s full of spoilers! You have been warned, so if you read the new content before you’ve read Dead Ice the plot will be spoiled for you!!!! So enjoy Dead Ice out now in paperback and I hope the story, “Wounded”, helps satisfy your desire for more from Anita Blake and her world.

New Pub Date for Crimson Death

Crimson Death, the new Anita Blake novel, will be published on September 13, 2016. For those of you who follow my blog, you know I’m still writing the book, what you don’t know is that I finished it once already. I typed, The End, one glorious morning as I watched the sun rise; but once the euphoria of the writing high faded and I got some sleep, I knew something was wrong. I’d known something was wrong for weeks, maybe months, but definitely weeks. I was too close to finishing the book, so I ignored my muse and my characters arguing with me. One character in particular wasn’t happy. Damian, who started life as a Viking until one dark night he and his brothers in arms tried to raid the wrong castle. She-Who-Made-Him, a master vampire that traumatized him so badly he’s afraid to speak her name, held him as a virtual slave for centuries. She let him go, and he still doesn’t know why, but he was allowed to go to America where he became a manager at one of the hottest dance clubs in the country, Danse Macabre. In fact, he first appears in the book that introduces the club. The Killing Dance is the sixth book in the series, and this is Damian’s introduction:
“I TURNED to find another new vampire. He was tall and slender with skin the color of clean white sheets, but sheets didn’t have muscle moving underneath, sheets didn’t glide down the steps and pad godlike across a room. His hair fell past his shoulders, a red so pure it was nearly the color of blood. The color screamed against his paleness.”
Originally, I thought Crimson Death would be a short novel like my books, Micah and Jason, called Damian, but very quickly I realized it was going to be a big book. I believe my largest word count was 300,000 words. I’m one of those writers that writes long and then cuts, but this was excessive, even for me. It was another clue that my muse and I were debating with each other. The original plot had Damian kidnapped and Anita coming to his rescue. It would take me typing to the end, or what I thought was the end, to be willing to listen to my muse, and to Damian. He finally got through to me and not literally said, but basically told me, “I’ve been in the series since book six and now I’m finally getting my own story in book twenty-five and I’m just the damsel in distress. All those newer characters that have come on stage and been heroes, or major love interests, or something more than just the victim du jour, and now I’m just as unhappy, just as powerless, just as afraid as I began. Nineteen books and I haven’t grown at all.” He was right, and it was unusual for me, because I’m all about the character growth and letting my fictional friends have interesting lives, except for him. Damian had been almost static, I don’t know why, but he finally stepped up and threw the gauntlet down.
“You can do better than this,” he told me, and he was right. I turned my plot on its ear and now Damian is going back to Ireland to help solve a mystery. He’s going back to face his greatest fears to save lives as a consultant with the Irish authorities about their sudden vampire problem. Sudden, because Ireland isn’t supposed to have any vampires. It’s one of the few countries on the planet that has no folklore about them. The only dead that walk in Irish myths are ghosts and the shades of heroes. But Damian knows differently, he knows that there is a vampire so powerful and so frightening that to even speak her name is to risk her power seeking you out, even across an ocean. She-Who-Made-Him says the vampires plaguing Dublin are not her doing, and that she’s grown weaker since Damian left her side. U. S. Marshal Ted Forrester, AKA Edward, is already there acting as a consultant. He wants fellow marshal Anita Blake to come help hunt the undead and to bring the only vampire that might know the truth about what’s happening. Anita thought Damian was going home, but Ireland was never home, it was the place where he died.

Teachers can make all the difference

Beverly K. Sheline
August 9, 1947 – January 10, 2015
Kokomo, Indiana

Miss Beverly Sheline was an English teacher at my high school. She taught my first creative writing class. I was fourteen, still painfully shy, and a serious bookworm. Now most writers read voraciously when they’re younger, but I was still using books to hide from the social anxiety of dealing with too many other people. By the next year I’d begin to force myself to break the prison of my shyness by joining speech team and drama, but that year I was still very much letting books be my shelter. I mean, if you’re reading people are much less likely to try and talk to you, so you don’t have to worry about talking to them. I was still very much in hiding, and only decided that summer that I wanted to be a writer, but not just a writer, I wanted to write horror, dark fantasy, and heroic fantasy. I was this shy kid from the middle of Indiana farm country that had decided she would be a horror writer as her profession. Can you imagine how badly that could have gone if I’d gotten the wrong teacher at the very beginning? But Miss Sheline was very much the right teacher.

She let her students write whatever type of story they wanted without judging the worth of the topic. I would get a lot of judgement on the fact that I wrote genre fiction in college, but in that first precious class there was no judgement, no classifying of one type of story being morally superior to another. That was a gift, to just let her students fly and be who they were as writers, a gift that far too many creative writing classes don’t give their students.

I’d been writing since I was twelve but had only finished a story beginning to end that summer. It was a horror story, a mystery and slasher flick really, because everyone died horribly except for the baby who crawled away into the woods with the implication she would starve to death with no one to care for her. My Uncle Monk, who I think was the only one I gave it to for reading, did the best thing possible. He patted me on the head, said it was good, and didn’t get all freaked out that I was writing about torture and dismemberment. It was the best reaction he could have given, I think. The year I was thirteen- fourteen was a very big turning point for me creatively. I discovered Robert E. Howard’s short story collection, Pigeons from Hell, which solidified what kind of writer I wanted to be and I’ve never wavered from that decision. It led me to find other horror authors to read including Stephen King and Anne Rice, which would both influence my own writing, especially Salem’s Lot and Interview with the Vampire.

I wrote my very first vampire story for Miss Sheline’s class. I’d grown up watching the old Hammer vampire films, had read Salem’s Lot, Interview with the Vampire, and I think all that helped me be ready to write that first story. The other ingredient was a friend I rode the school bus with let me have the cover off her Teen Beat magazine. It was a picture of Parker Stephenson who played one of the Hardy Boys on the then TV show. Yes, I had a crush on him, but it was the image, not the crush, that made me want the picture. I couldn’t explain it to my friend, but I knew it was important for me. I told her I’d use it in a story, she was dubious, but she let me have it, making me promise to show her the story afterwards.

I used that picture to base my first master vampire on, but the main character of the story was a petite, black-haired vampire herself who had made friends with a human girl that the charming but evil vampire had seduced and killed. The main character used a crossbow to kill the other vampire and avenge her friend. I no longer have a copy of that story, but I remember it in startling detail all these years later, and yes the first shape of Anita was in that main character. The vampire loosely based on Parker Stephenson’s picture never showed up in my stories again; strangely dead is dead for me with characters.

It never occurred to me that Miss Sheline might be disturbed by my subject matter. It would only be years later that I realized how differently it could have gone, but instead she read it, gave it an A, and said, “You scared me.”

I’d scared a grown up! I’d scared a teacher! That was heady stuff and just the kind of ego boost that I needed to keep me going forward with my dream.

I learned just two days ago that Miss Beverly Sheline died of cancer recently. She is being laid to rest today and family and friends are gathering to say goodbye. If I’d been thinking more clearly I would have sent flowers, but it hit me strangely harder than I thought it would, and I didn’t think about flowers, I thought about writing. I thought I would write about the teacher who helped start me on my way to being a writer. There were other teachers at Oak Hill High School that were influential on me as a writer and a person, but I’ll save those stories for another day. Today is about Miss Sheline. I did tell her, and say in my very first newspaper interview which was for the local paper where I grew up, how much she had helped me. She read the interview and she and several teachers that I’d mentioned came out to the signing at the local mall. I’m doubly glad she knew that she’d made a difference to me and that I got to tell her in person years ago. Good teachers inspire, lead, but sometimes the best thing they do is to let the students know they matter, and that their first efforts are rewarded. I still remember the thrill I got from her words, “You scared me.” Now, I scare people professionally, but few moments have been as important to me as that first one. Thank you, Miss Sheline.

Signed copy of A Shiver of Light, if you order by 8PM tonight!

Here’s a link to a live interview I did last night at BookTalkNation answering questions about A Shiver of Light, Merry Gentry and all her men, plus yes, the babies will be born in this book! Uterine liberation, at last! I also answer questions about Anita Blake and her cast of characters, my writing process, how I world build, and my best advice for all you beginning writers.

If you order by 8PM tonight you can have a signed, and personalized copy of A Shiver of Light. I will not be personalizing at most of the events across the country, sorry, so this maybe your chance at that. Apparently, to sign as much as you guys want me to I’d need the biceps of Arnold Schwarzenegger. *laughs*

http://booktalknation.com/video/hamilton

Dancing with the Muse & The Devil’s Panties!

30 pages for the day in three sessions of 12, 13, & 5. Still not completely out of this section of plot. Was hoping to finish before bed, but I give, need dinner, but the muse & I have played happily today. I still got to have lunch with my husband, Jon, and went to MMA class. Also, Dancing, the new Anita Blake e-special came out today! Thanks for all the great comments, everyone! Glad you are all enjoying it!

You can order Dancing from Amazon or Barnes & Noble

To top the day off I was in Jennie Breeden’s comic, The Devil’s Panties

This has been a wildly productive & truly awesome day!

The Blog I promised

It’s the 20th anniversary for the Anita Blake series, and to help celebrate that I asked you to tell me what the books and characters had meant to you, and how you found them. The response has been overwhelming and wonderful – Thank You.
I’m sitting in my office with just our three dogs for company, as I usually am when I write. It is a very isolated job, writing. Authors spend most of their lives in a room by themselves while the world passes by outside. The inside of my head is full of a slightly different world populated by people so real to me that sometimes it feels wrong that I will never be able to touch their hands, see their smiles across a table from me – not for real. I call them my imaginary friends, rather than my friends, because in years when I just said, my friends, some fans misunderstood and thought that Anita, Jean-Claude, Richard, Micah, Nathaniel, Jason, all of them were based on real, flesh and blood people. So, I started saying my imaginary friends so people would understand that I did not base my characters on real people. It also started cutting down on fans asking for the phone numbers of my imaginary men. But one thing many of you made clear was that my imaginary friends had become your friends, too.
In fact, you told me that my imaginary friends, my world, my creations, had helped you guys get through some really tough times. That the books had been what you read at the bedside when your families were in the hospital, or even been a refuge when you had to face the death of those close to you. Some of you told me that Anita had taught you how to be strong, how not to back down, and that until Anita a lot of women, especially, hadn’t realized how to be strong. I’m always amazed by that, I guess because I was raised by a very strong woman, so strength and being female was just a given to me, but I’m glad I could share some of the strength I learned growing up, and building my life. I’d already lost track of the number of women who had told me at signings that they’d left abusive relationships, because they knew Anita wouldn’t have taken it. I am very proud of that, and I know that Anita would be, too.
I asked who your favorite characters were, and wasn’t surprised by most of the answers. Jean-Claude is big fan favorite, and he’s earned it. I think that he was more surprised by how he and Anita have grown as a couple than even she is, after all it’s not every woman that can surprise a man that’s over five hundred years old, but our girl keeps doing it. I think the key to that is that Anita keeps growing and changing, willing to be pushed outside her comfort zones. Many of you told me that you’ve learned to go outside your own comfort zones from reading my books. You know what? I’ve learned the same thing. I joke that I haven’t seen my comfort zones in at least ten years, and that’s true. It’s not a comfortable way to live, but it’s never boring, and it’s led me to be happier than I ever thought possible. What I hadn’t expected was to hear how many of you had learned a similar lesson. I guess, we’ve all grown together.
Trying to do justice to the hundreds of years of lady’s man for Jean-Claude led me to learn how to walk in high heels, and has totally changed my clothing choices. he’s like this voice in my head that pops up and goes, hmmm . . . what if you wore this today, or that would look lovely. I probably take more clothes advice from him than Anita would tolerate. *laughs*
I expected Micah to be a favorite, and the Wicked Truth, though Damian is very underused for someone that so many of you like. I’m sorry for that, but he’s happy being monogamous with Cardinale and who am I to argue with that? We may be seeing more of him in the future, but I’m trying to figure a way of doing that without wrecking his relationship. Zerbrowski is one of my favorites, too. I’ve actually made notes about a short story that would let us see him at home with his wife, Katie, and their kids. We’ve referred to Anita, Micah, and Nathaniel, going to cook outs at their house with the other cops, but never seen it on stage. Something about hitting this anniversary has made me look around the series and go, “What is it that we’ve never seen on stage that would be fun?”
Richard still has his fans, though admittedly most of you are not. Richard really is in therapy, and is making peace with himself and the conflict between the life he wanted and the life he has, which are miles apart. He’s been talking to me again, and I’m hopeful. I swear, that I brought him on to marry Anita. It was my solution to breaking her up with Jean-Claude and not having to kill him. It would take me years to realize that Richard was my ideal man, at the time, but maybe not hers.
The character that more of you mentioned than any other, either in a list with others, or alone, was Nathaniel. I knew he’d be on a lot of people’s favorite list, but I hadn’t anticipated what he’d meant to you so many of you. Some of you told me that him talking about his own therapy helped you be willing to see your therapy. That’s wonderful, because I’m a big believer in good therapy. It’s made a huge difference in my own life, and still does. I am so happy that sharing Nathaniel’s story has helped so many of you understand that just because something terrible happens to you, that isn’t the end of the story. We can heal, and grow, and learn to be happy. Thank you for telling me how much watching Nathaniel’s journey through the books has helped all of you understand that you can be happy, too. I know that would mean a lot to Nathaniel, too. Writing him has taught me, and Anita, that strength doesn’t always come full blown, sword in hand, but that some of the bravest people are the ones that learn to be brave.
In fact, several of you have told me that my books taught you that true bravery isn’t when you’re not afraid. True courage is being scared to death and doing it anyway. It was such a given to me that bravery is acting in the face of fear, that it never occurred to me that everyone didn’t understand that. It is one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned and I am very happy to share it with all of you.
Thank you for so many of you telling me that my characters have helped you understand that you have to stand up for what you believe, what you want, who you are, and not let society tell you different. Anita and I both started the series so conservative, and now here we are so very not. 🙂
I would be a different person today if I had never written Anita. I would be a different person if I had only written the original three books I was contracted for, and stopped, or even stopped with the first six. The research I did into real crime, real violence, showed me things that I didn’t always want to know, but it helped me make Anita’s police work, more real. I believed that if I wanted people to believe in zombies, vampires, and wereanimals, that I had to make the real life details as real as possible. I haven’t always gotten it right, but I thank all the police and military personnel over the years that have helped me try, all mistakes are mine and mine alone. You guys did your best with this writer that has never worn any uniform for a job. But more than the true crime, the research into alternative lifestyles opened my eyes and showed me a much broader definition of . . . nearly everything.
Some of you have been with Anita and me from the beginning, but I hear from people every day that have just found us. Thank you for being on this journey with us, whether you found us with Guilty Pleasures, or somewhere in the middle, or just watched the video for Affliction and thought, I want to read that. Me, too, it’s why I wrote it, why I still write Anita, because I want to know what happens next.