M. Garnet switches genre gears for latest story, EYES OF DANGER

Please welcome M. Garnet. When I learned that her most recent publication was a switch from her usual fare, I asked her to talk about why she decided to write a contemporary romantic mystery this time around.

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Anne, I want to thank you very much for inviting me as a guest on your blog.  There is a lot to say about my story EYES OF DANGER due to the fact that it is a little different than most of my published books, so the opportunity to talk about it with your readers is something I appreciate.

When I put up an introduction for my release of this story I said “I locked up my vampires in the closet and turned off my telescope”.  My fans who have read my stories will understand what I meant by that strange little sentence.  I have written several stories about love that included space travel with strange events and strange individuals.  There is something that I love to write about sexy aliens.

I also have had a reasonable amount of success writing about Vampires including a series called BLOOD SISTERS of which the third in the series, MISERY was awarded a four star award from Romance Review saying it was ‘an outstanding read’.  Some would say I should stay with what is selling.  I want to say here that I do love my vampires and I have the fourth in the series with the publisher at this moment.

But, there is always something that draws me back to the contemporary mystery genre so I just can’t resist plowing through my old notes and emailing all my great research contacts to get back into a modern thriller with love pulled apart in the middle of evil government types with too much power.

With this story, I wanted to bring my reader along with the heroine into a web that she got lost trying to understand as she fell in love with a pair of dark eyes.  I needed to surround her with some real locations, actual threats and true ways of getting away and safe.

For some authors research can be tedious and boring.  For me it is exciting and a great way to learn.  On top of that, because of my long and interesting life, I have had the surprise to find that I have a plethora of people that I know personally who have first hand knowledge on things that most of the citizens around us never even saw on the evening news.  My list of people I can dip into involves retired Navy Seals, Experts on Police and Federal armament and every military type you can think about.  My email reaches out to those in almost every US state but also those who personally experienced time deep inside the working process of both the government and the largest businesses that run this world.

The cover may not have a half naked vampire or very sexy alien on it, but still my favorite artist Carmen Waters did an outstanding job doing artwork that was stunning.  Pardon the pun but it is ‘eye catching’.  I also have to give credit to my editor Tex Burd who keeps me out of any trouble that might make me look like I slept through all the courses on Lit 101.

This is the third in the genre of contemporary mystery love story I have written but, I will have to warn my fans, it won’t be my last.  I just hope that there are some fans and perhaps some new ones that will find this story with a strange turn at the end interesting enough to recommend it to others.

Again Anne, thanks for this opportunity. 

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Learn more about M. Garnet on her website.   

You can purchase Eyes of Danger at Extasy Books.

Enita Meadows Shares ShapeShifting Demons

Who doesn't like to expand their knowledge of monsters? Edita Meadows complies with this fascinating description of the very scary-sounding creatures called Aswangs, which feature in her novels.

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Vampire vs Aswang

 by Enita Meadows

These days, vampires are in. They’re cool, they’re trendy, and sometimes it’s just plain difficult—near impossible—to find an author who hasn’t written a vampire story. And who can blame them? However, deciding whether I am or am not one of those authors is tricky: It all depends on how strictly you define “vampire!”

The “tricky” part is that my Aswang Wars trilogy is about aswang, a type of shapeshifting demon. They don’t burn (or sparkle) in sunlight, they aren’t weak to a stake through the heart, and they don’t sleep in coffins. But they do drink blood. They do change their shape. They are nocturnal. So are they vampires? Or are they not?

I spent many sleepless nights researching these ghouls of Philippine folklore while writing the Aswang Wars. Their lore is completely separate from vampire myth, existing before the introduction of western cultures. There are similar ghouls in surrounding areas like Indonesia and Malaysia, but none as profound and culturally influential as the aswang is to the Filipinos.

But what is an aswang, exactly?

Essentially, an aswang is a creature which takes an unassuming form during the daytime only to transform at night and feed off humans for their blood or internal organs. The word aswang in the Philippines covers a wide array of ghouls and monsters, but most share common traits, such as a taste for human blood/entrails, some form of shapeshifting, and a trademark cry described as a wak wak or tik tik. An aswang can be many things during the day; usually a beautiful young woman, and other times an animal, the most common being a black cat or dog, a large pig, or a bat. They have proboscis tongues capable of stabbing clear through human skin, a voice that is louder when far away but softer when nearby, and have a knack for snatching up small children and even unborn babies straight from the mother’s womb.

In The Aswang Wars, the main character is one of these creatures, who has forgotten his true nature and everything about himself and the aswang world. He knows only his name, Jei Rivera, and nothing else. When an aswang named Malaya comes along to tell him not only is he an aswang, but the most vital part of the battle between warring clans, he’s thrust back into that world with his only true motivation being to learn about the past he’s forgotten.

Although I put my own twists on the aswang while molding them for the story, a lot of honest research went into the creation of the Aswang Wars trilogy. On top of that, there was a lot of discovery to be had about these blood-suckers during the writing process itself. I learned what it was like to think from a monster’s point of view, and found the distinct differences between aswang and vampire to be too great to categorize them so closely together.

Aswang are monsters, all on their own. They’re not infected with their condition. They’re demons, from birth to eventual death. Despite feeding on blood and changing shape, there’s not a lot to justify the aswang to be categorized as a “vampire” at all. In fact, maybe the vampire should instead be categorized as a type of aswang. Let’s just hope there aren’t any walking among us tonight.

Hope you all had a happy Halloween. Don’t let the monsters bite. ;)

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Learn more about Enita Meadows on her website.

Purchase the Aswang Wars series on Amazon.