The Vampire Who Loved Me blog tour and Giveaway!

Today is my stop on The Vampire Who Loved Me blog tour, presented by Bewitching Book Tours! I was happy to be able to interview Theresa Meyers! Keep reading for more info on the author, an excerpt, and to find out more on the giveaway!

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Where are you from?

The west coast. I say that because I spent my early pre-teen years in San Jose, California, then was moved to the small town of Sutherlin, Oregon when I was 13 and that’s kind of where I grew up. I went to college in Oregon then my husband and I moved to Phoenix, Arizona for about eight years and now we’ve been living near Seattle, Washington for ten years. Humm, now that I think about it, I seem to move every decade or so. Wonder if that means something?

What inspired you to become a writer?

I don’t know that anything actually inspired me to become an author so much as I was just born that way. I’ve always told stories. I’m dyslexic and so when I was younger I couldn’t read, but I adored being read to. My mom gave me a tape recorder and let me ramble on for hours telling the stories in my head.

I got into journalism in school and found I really enjoyed writing and started writing my first novel at age 17. At one point (after writing for 20 years and NOT being published in fiction yet) I was in the American Title II contest (the American Idol of books) as one of 11 finalists in the nation up for a publishing contract. When I got kicked off in about round three or four I decided I was going to give it up. After all, I had a thriving PR agency, what did I need to beat my head against my keyboard for?

Yeah. That lasted about half an hour.

I realized no matter what, I was still going to have these ideas and characters mulling around in my head and have to find a constructive way to deal with that constant barrage of stuff. I figured I could A) tell it to my friends, and potentially lose them all after hogging all the conversations over the years; B) take a second job so I could afford to tell a therapist all my stories and get them out of my head or C) keep writing. I like my friends. I don’t need another job. Writing seemed the best option to staying semi normal and if I was going to keep writing, why not keep sending it out?

What drew you to the paranormal genre?

Actually I’d have to blame that on my mom. She was always doing things to bolster our sense of the magical in the everyday. For instance, when I was about six she read me the story of the Shoemaker and the Elves. Just about the time she finished reading she acted like she heard something outside my bedroom window and told me to listen. I could hear little tiny voices talking. The next morning I woke up to find my room was clean. My mother suggested that perhaps it was the elves that lived in the big stump in the back yard and that I should bake them some cookies or make them something to wear as a thank you (which of course, I did with her help). I didn’t find out until I was in my twenties that she’d put a tape recorder under my bedroom window with a long gap of silence at the beginning of the tape so she’d have time to finish reading the story.

As I’ve gotten older, I still tend to see the world through that lavender colored lens where there is magical in everyday things, whether it’s the changing of the seasons or the opening of flowers or the frogs announcing at night that spring is coming. I try to be sensitive to my sixth sense and feel things just as much as I hear, see, taste, touch or smell them. I guess in many ways paranormal is my kind of normal.

About how many books have you written?

LOL. Do you want me to count the half finished ones, the ones under the bed and still in my computer, or just those that have publishing contracts? All told I’ve probably written ten full books, over a dozen partial books and more than 20 proposed books. This year I’ll have four print books out on the shelves, with three to four more already slotted for 2012. In addition to paranormal romance, I’ve written historical and contemporary romance, young adult, steampunk and urban fantasy.

What is your biggest challenge of being an author?

Good question. The biggest challenge for me is finding balance in everything. I’ve got kids still in school, so I can’t just cloister myself away and write. I have to have a schedule and I have to be disciplined to make sure the pages get done before they get home from school and the rounds of snack, homework, dinner, lessons, carpool, practices, etc. start happening. I also have to work to find balance in work vs. play and remember that exercise isn’t time away from writing, it’s to keep me healthy enough to write and that spending time with friends and family, reading a good book, watching a movie, isn’t time away from writing it’s refilling the creative wellspring within me.

What do you love most about being an author?

Being an author gives you a lot of freedom. Freedom to be creative. Freedom to change how people see things. Freedom to work a flexible schedule and anywhere in the world. Freedom to make a difference while never leaving your house. I love all those things about it. It does require a lot of effort and support, but it’s truly the best job in the world.

What do you do in your spare time?

I like to sew and design clothes. No. Seriously. I’ve been designing things since I was about nine. Mostly Victorian-style gowns. My mother taught me how to sew first by hand, then on the machine when I was very young. I sewed my first dress from a pattern, for her, when I was eight. All through high school if I wanted a formal gown for a dance, my mother would buy me all the supplies, but I had to sew it myself. I even sewed my own gown for the Junior Miss pagent when I was 16. Today I end up repairing items for the kids, sewing my own costumes for steampunk conventions or Halloween, and occasionally do something like sew curtains or a tea-cozy for the house. I think in our current society, it’s kind of a disappearing art. I also love to cook. I can vegetables out of our garden, and make blackberry wine and blackberry jam each summer. And of course I love to read. I also like to watch movies and try to squeeze in a tea day with my friends once a week, which is kind of our mommy time to keep sane.

What are you currently working on?

Remember, you asked…Right now I’m currently in edits for book three for the Sons of Midnight series for Harlequin, The Half-Breed Vampire, that’ll be out in spring 2012. It’ll be a slight expansion of the current world because we get to see how the Cascade vampire clan clashes with the Wenatchee Were pack when a vampire isn’t everything he seems.

I’m also writing my second steampunk paranormal romance, The Slayer, for my Book of Legend Chronicles series with Kensington that’ll be out in 2012 (the first, The Hunter, is out this Nov.) It’s a switch from the straight vampire world because I get to go back to my historical romance roots and write in the Wild West, only it’s the Wild Weird West. The series features three brothers, named after their father’s favorite guns, Winchester, Remington and

Colt, who fight supernaturals, kind of like if you plunked down the Winchester brothers from the television show Supernatural in the West and gave them some really cool steampunk inventions for fighting. It’s part Indiana Jones, part Wild Wild West, and part Supernatural.

In addition, I’m also working on a new urban fantasy romance world featuring dark fae that takes four sisters who can see the fae and get draw into their world to save each other and mankind. The first is a novella called Shadowlander, that will be out in Oct. from Entangled Publishing.

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Thanks for the great interview Theresa! Did you hear that girls? There IS a book 3 in this series! Oh, and i have to say that the sewing thing is pretty cool. Not too many girls can say they made their own gowns :)

The Vampire Who Loved Me

Book #2 in the Sons of Midnight mini-series from Harlequin Nocturne

By Theresa Meyers

ISBN: 0373618603

ISBN13: 978-0373618606

Releases: May 24, 2011

FROM SWORN ENEMIES…

Dr. Rebecca Chamberlin hated nothing more than the vampires who had turned her loved ones into creatures of the night…until she became one herself. Now her experimental vaccine has become more urgent than ever, and has made her the target of vampire security chief Achilles Stefanos.

TO FORBIDDEN LOVERS.

Built like a god with golden hair and an irresistible allure, Achilles made her feel passion the way no mortal man had before. Beck could no more deny her craving for him than she could the hated bloodlust in her veins. But when her vaccine fell into the wrong hands, Beck has a difficult choice to make—one that challenged everything she’d always believed…..

Dark and dangerous, the Sons of Midnight are a temptation that few can resist!

Theresa Meyers Bio:

Raised by a bibliophile who made the dining room into a library, Theresa has always been a lover of books and stories. First a writer for newspapers, then for national magazines, she started her first novel in high school, eventually enrolling in a Writer's Digest course and putting the book under the bed until she joined Romance Writers of America in 1993. In 2005 she was selected as one of eleven finalists for the American Title II contest, the American Idol of books. She is married to the first man she ever went on a real date with (to their high school prom), who she knew was hero material when he suffered through having to let her parents drive, and her brother sit between them in the backseat of the car. They currently live in a Victorian house on a mini farm in the Pacific Northwest with their two children, three cats, an old chestnut Arabian gelding, an energetic mini-Aussie shepherd puppy, several rabbits, a dozen chickens and an out-of-control herb garden. You can find her online on Twitter, Facebook, at her Web site or blogging with the other Lolitas of STEAMED!

http://www.theresameyers.com/

http://www.theresameyers.com/blog/

http://twitter.com/Theresa_Meyers

http://www.facebook.com/TheresaMeyersAuthor

http://www.ageofsteam.wordpress.com/

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Excerpt:

This guy was a vampire. As much as she hated

to admit it, if anyone knew what to look for in the signs

of a person changing into a vampire, it would be one.

Which meant she’d be pretty stupid to send him away,

especially since the pain wasn’t abating.

“For once in your life, Beck, stop trying to have a

game plan for everything and just go with this until we

can be certain what’s going on,” Kristin urged.

Beck sighed. Desperation won out over indignation.

She sure didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want to become

one of them, either. “Fine. But I’m only doing it as a favor

to you.”

The tension coming through the phone from Kristin’s

side instantly relaxed. “That’s good enough. Call me if

anything changes.”

“Sure. Night.” She stared for a second at the phone,

then handed it back to the stranger in her room.

He took it, scrupulously avoiding her touch as he did

so. “You didn’t believe that Kristin sent me.”

Beck cocked her head to the side. “If a strange man

entered your bedroom, in particular a vampire, would

you trust his word?”

“No.”

“Right. Then cut me some slack.” She latched on

to the anger burning in her chest formed partly at her

own inability to stop the virus and partly at her needing

assistance from the very beings she detested. She needed

something to help her focus past the pain she felt. She

sighed, shoved her crazed curls out of her line of vision

and peered intently at him.

He had a thin faded scar that bisected his right

eyebrow, the stubble on his chin seemed just as golden

as his hair, but a shade darker.

This was the first time she’d really gotten to analyze

a vampire up close. Beck had to mentally switch off the

scientific section of her brain that was ready to go into

full investigative mode. “So you’re a vampire, huh?”

“So I’ve been told.” He gave her a playful grin that sent

heat spiraling down to her toes. The scent of rosemary

that tinged the air changed slightly, now underlined with

the smell of warm ocean. If she’d closed her eyes she

could have pretended to be on a strip of sand gazing out

at the azure water. But there was no way she was going

back to sleep with him in her house.

“Look, before we get into this too far, let me tell you

that I’m really against becoming a vampire. And I’m not

into being a donor girl, so don’t even ask. Are we clear?”

Of course even as she said the words, her curiosity about

him spiked further. Up until now her observations of

vampires, with the exception of Kris, had been from as

far a distance as possible while she formulated a way to

reverse the virus.

Did vampire fangs get in the way when you kissed?

Beck wiped her hand across her forehead. Wow. Maybe

she was sicker than she thought. There was no way,

absolutely no way, that she should even be contemplating

kissing a strange bloodsucker, no matter how gorgeous

he was, no matter how real the fantasy in her dreams

had been before she’d awoken. After all, she reminded

herself, no matter how normal he seemed—okay, who

was she kidding, he was way better than normal—he

was still one of them.

“Crystal clear. My only mission here is to protect you

and to mentor you through your transition.”

“Oh. Good. Glad we got that all straightened out.”

She finally lifted a hand out to him. “My friends call

me Beck.”

He grasped her hand lightly in his, then brushed a

skimming kiss against the back of it sending an electric

arc zinging up her pulse points. “Yes, but I like your given

name.” His eyes glittered as the pad of his thumb stroked

the soft underside of her wrist. “Rebecca…Rebecca…

Rebecca.” Her name came out a soft, seductive whisper

said so slowly, so deliberately, that it sounded like a

lover’s mantra.

She yanked back her tingling hand. “Stop saying

that.”

“Your name?”

She fidgeted, bunching the comforter more solidly

around her. “It just sounds wrong when you say it like

that. It makes me…uncomfortable.”

A killer smile lit up his face and made her heartbeat

stutter step. “That’s even better.” He was teasing her.

Beck whipped her body away from him so quickly

that a few of her annoying curls bounced, but at least she

could hide the tightening points of her breasts from his

view. “I’m not sure this mentor thing is going to work out

between us. I might need to see about getting someone

else.”

He chuckled, but it held a sad, hopeless edge to it.

From the corner of her eye she watched him crook his

finger at a wooden ladder-back chair she kept by her

dresser. It seemed to hover across the room and plant

itself on the floor behind him. She pulled up the bed

covers and tucked them securely under her armpits, then

twisted to face him again.

“That’s funny to you?”

He smiled in a good-natured way that seemed completely

at odds with his ass-kicking appearance, then

relaxed back into the old wooden chair. It creaked in

protest. “No, it simply shows how little you truly know

about vampires. Once you’ve been given a mentor, that

mentor is yours until one of you dies.”

Curling her legs close to her belly helped with the pain.

It did nothing for the nausea or the growing hunger that

had her cramping stomach growl annoyingly. “Hardly

likely given you’re undead.”

He slanted her a mild look. “Precisely.”

“So I’m stuck with you if I turn into a vampire.”

He leaned, tipping back in the precarious chair and

propped big booted feet up on the edge of the bed.

“That’s right, sweetling.”

With a sweep of her arm, she knocked his boots off

her bed. They landed with a heavy thud on the floor and

he arched a dark blond brow at her.

Beck ignored the look then got up and strode with

all the confidence she could muster in her semi-dressed

state toward her closet where she grabbed a pair of jeans

and yanked them on. She glanced at the clock. Five in

the morning. With any luck there’d be no one to bother

her until 7:00 a.m. and she could make some progress

in figuring this mess out before she couldn’t think at all.

Anything was better than staying here with a massive

vampire brooding over her with a gaze that was too

intense for her liking. “Good. Then it won’t be too long,

because I’m not becoming a vampire.”

He deliberately placed his boots back on her bed,

blocking her path to the bedroom door. “Where do you

think you’re going?”

She glanced down at his legs, then stepped over them.

“To work.”

He stretched in the chair, spreading out his arms that

had bulging biceps. He managed to take up even more

of her bedroom, if that was possible. Then he relaxed.

“I’ll go with you.”

Beck turned and pinned her best no-nonsense glare

on him, the one that usually cowed the most persistent

interns at the lab. “No. You’re not. I’m going to work.

You don’t work there.”

“Aren’t you the least bit interested in playing doctor

with me?” He grinned, showing normal, even, very

white teeth. The effect of his killer smile would have

been devastating to any normal woman. For Beck is

was catalytic. She hadn’t had a date in so long because

she’d been too focused on her research. She’d managed

to forget how the air in the room could shift and change

in an instant, wrapping around you like a heated blanket

when a guy as virile as this was close by. Okay, being

truly honest, she’d never dated someone like this. Not

even close. Why would she? He was a vampire. Oh, why

on earth had Kris sent him?

The intensity of him vibrated in the room. She felt

like a hydrophilic molecule to water, helpless to resist

him and that sensation took her aback for an instant. She

couldn’t feel attraction to a vampire. After all, look what

it had apparently gotten her mother. It wasn’t logical. Her

common sense scrambled trying to come up with some

fact she could fixate on instead of the rush and tumble

of sensations crashing around her insides. There was no

way she was going to answer his question.

“I thought vampires had fangs.” How she managed the

words when her mouth was so dry, she had no idea.

He leaned forward resting his thick forearms on the

tops of his black jean clad thighs. God, she bet his butt

looked spectacular in those jeans. Snap out of it, Doctor.

Remember there’s an us vs. them at work here and unless

you want to start playing for the other team, you better

freakin’ pull yourself together.

“Wanna see?” His eyes glittered.

Beck shook her head pressing her fingertips to her

throbbing temples. “Yes. No. I mean I don’t need you

to show me anything.”

“But you’re curious.” The teasing tone of his voice

was seductive enough to make her nipples pucker.

He’d definitely taken her mind off the pain that was

lessening now. A dull aching throb she didn’t like, but

could ignore if she concentrated. “No. I’m a scientist.

Any interest is purely out of a desire to bolster my current

research.”

He glanced at the platinum Rolex on his thick wrist.

“It’s 5:00 a.m. I give you four hours, maybe five, max.

By then you’ll be so hungry you’ll be begging me to help

you.”

Beck huffed and started walking out of the bedroom.

She stopped midstep and leaned back past the edge of

the doorjamb to catch his intense green gaze. Ask help

from a vampire? Ha! That would be the day. “You might

want to make a note. I don’t beg. Never have. Never will.

See you.” She wiggled her fingers, grabbed her purse and

streaked toward the front door as fast as her wobbly legs

would take her.

If she’d learned anything from her mother and her

own experience as a woman in a highly competitive male

dominated profession, it was that a man like that was

trouble with a capital, neon-outlined, throbbing T.

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Now on to the fabulous giveaway!

Win Some Vampire Love!

Theresa is giving away a special Vampire Love Pack which includes a pair of high-quality customizable fangs you can use again and again, an autographed copy of The Vampire Who Loved Me and a luxury bubble bar from LUSH so you can soak your cares away in a truly movie-style bubble bath while you read.

Sorry, open to U.S. residents only. Leave a comment here, along with a way to contact you if you win. This giveaway is open through July 4th. Good Luck!!


Visit Bewitching Book Tours to check out the other stops on this tour!