The Monster Mash

I love this topic of the week!

I fell in love with the thought of supernatural beings somewhere in grade school. Witches, faeries, shapeshifters...all were grist for my youthful imagination. Somehwere around age 10 or so, my folks bought us kids a wonderful book (which I still have): the Reader's Digest Book of Fairy Tales (I may be misremembering the title). I devoured it. It was a many hundred paged anthology of faery stories from all over the world. Not just the more well known Disneyfied versions.

I think somewhere around there is when my own characters starting forming themselves in the back of my subconscious.

Many years later, when the first seeds of my world began coalescing into an actual novel, those stories, plus my love of vampires came together.

I wanted to use vampires, but not as the primary focus, nor as the protagonist and I also wanted there to be something different. Thus, Keira Kelly was born. One of the things I wanted to do was to explore what happens when someone who is not the stereotypical human woman, nor vampire hunter meets up with the hot vampire.

I also wanted to create a world where all (or most) of the fantastic characters that we all love could be possible--it just depends on the particular story that needs telling. This is absolutely why I love writing fantasy--we can do it all, as long as it makes sense within the framework of your world.

-- Maria Lima

ETA: Note to self: proofread before posting ::facepalm::