GUEST POST BY KATIE SALIDAS AUTHOR OF IMMORTALIS CARPE NOCTEM

I want to welcome Katie Salidas to Books R Us. Katie is the  is the Author of Immortalis Carpe Noctem. She is presently touring the blogosphere on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book! Thanks for stopping by.



Why you started to write about the occult, supernatural and vampires and was it difficult to get into the writing business?



I’ve been a die-hard vampire lover since I was a little girl. There was just something about those creatures of the night that struck me. Vampires were the only creature that “went bump in the night” and didn’t scare me. Unlike werewolves who hunted in the full moon, ripping their victims to shreds, or Zombies (Shudder… I hate zombies) who stalked you for your brains and ate the flesh away from your bones, vampires seemed more elegant and enchanting. They lulled you into a stupor, mesmerizing you with their gorgeous eyes. They were classy and spoke with old-world accents. And the best part, they didn’t always kill; sometimes they made you, like them.

What can I say? I was hooked, plain and simple.


So, as a lover of vampires and a writer, it was only natural I take the next step and merge my two loves.


But, with the recent surge in vampire popularity, it’s not enough to just write a vampire story. You have to give a little oomph to it, something different whether is it a concept or a change to the old myth.


We all know the standard vampire themes: Vampires cannot handle sunlight, crosses (or any holy relics for that matter) are a great deterrent, garlic is supposed to be toxic, and a stake through the heart makes a good killing weapon.


When writing my story, I asked myself, why? Why can’t vampires handle the sunlight? Why do holy relics bother them? What is the deal with garlic? What does bloodlust feel like? I wanted to give the reader a real, solid reason behind the answers to these questions. I wanted to make my vampires real enough to step out of the pages.


With all that in mind, I set out to deliver a story that let you experience, vicariously, the transformation from human to full fledged vampire.


To survive as a vampire, one must learn to, Carpe Noctem (Seize the Night).


While reading, you, the reader, will learn what it takes to be a vampire; you will experience the gut wrenching feeling of blood lust. You will make your first kill. You will feel the high and experience the guilt. If you can get over that, you will learn to hone your new supernatural abilities. In the end, you might even like being a creature of the night.


Of course, only you, the readers can tell me if I accomplished this task well enough. Immortalis Carpe Noctem, the first in my new vampire series is available everywhere you look to purchase books online. Please pick up a copy and see for your self if Alyssa’s world has the bite you need.


Thanks for having me stop by your blog. I’ve had a great time with this guest post!


Please visit Katie's website and check back on May 28th for my review of this very interesting book.

GUEST POST BY GRAHAM PARKE AUTHOR OF NO HOPE FOR GOMEZ

I want to welcome Graham Parke to Books R Us. Graham is the Author of No Hope for Gomez!.  He is presently touring the blogosphere on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book! Thanks for stopping by.

The Story Behind No Hope for Gomez

I've always been fascinated with bad luck.

Is it merely noticing the bad more than the good? Is it that we fret longer over coincidences we don't like? Do we attract it like some kind of self-fulfilling prophesy? Or is there, as I’ve come to suspect, something far more sinister going on?

My fascination with bad luck heightened while I was writing my latest novel, ‘No Hope for Gomez!’ The main character, Gomez, for reasons unbeknownst to me at the time, decided to put his bad luck to a quantifiable test. He wanted to find out exactly how his bad luck was dosed, and what brought it on. Now here was an interesting notion. One I hadn't actually thought of myself. So, for a few days, I let this idea stew and ferment at the back of my mind. Then, one night, I awoke with a workable test fully formed in my mind. It was a crazy test, of course. It was insane. It was like trying to lay bare the intricate machinery of the Universe. But it could be done.

At the time, I was working for a company that had its own research department. Our researchers were people who had been hired specifically to come up with interesting (cheap) answers to strange (expensive) problems. They were good at thinking outside the box, and highly adept at building (cheap) models and (inexpensive) work-arounds. So, the following day, I lured one of our researchers away from his desk with the promise of coffee and interesting banter. This in itself was an accomplishment, as researchers always want to try one more thing before leaving their desks. They, in fact, continue to try one more thing right up until the moment the security guards throw them out of the building at night. Anyway, I carefully explained to this researcher my hypothesis (the Universe is inherently evil and some people get dealt more bad luck than others) and I stipulated the test I wanted to perform to prove this.

He just stared at me.

So I explained the test again. This time using bigger words in an attempt to sound much more research-ery.

Once again he simply stared at me.

I realized we were experiencing an interfacing problem. My writer-brain was thinking fancifully about the possibilities of non-physical components to our existence, while his researcher-brain tried to understand what I was doing from a purely mathematical viewpoint. A viewpoint, I might add, from which my test could not possibly make sense.

So I decided to leave my motivation out of it and simply described the test and the results I expected. We had lift off. The researcher helped me iron out the kinks in the test, knowing, as he did, about 'false positives' and ‘reproducibility’. When we were done, he was satisfied that the test was at least correct – if not completely useful.

I've since run the test past friends and colleagues. These are people who work in fields as diverse as video-processing, digital art, and T-Shirt folding. None of them has been able to poke a hole in the logic. Gomez ended up performing the test to spectacular results in my novel. Yet, I haven’t performed the test on myself. I guess, deep down, I’m worried about the implications of ever finding irrefutable proof.

Graham Parke is responsible for a number of technical publications and has recently patented a self-folding map. He has been described as both a humanitarian and a pathological liar. Convincing evidence to support either allegation has yet to be produced.

No Hope for Gomez! is his fiction debut.

INFO:

I’ll be giving away signed copies of a limited edition novella set in the Gomez universe. It’s not available for purchase, but I’ll be sending copies to readers periodically from my forum. You can get there thru; www.grahamparke.com

Reviews for No Hope for Gomez!

"Extremely witty and clever writing that contains keen insights into human nature." -- California Chronicle

"The antics in this book will leave the reader laughing. Graham Parke is a genius." -- Readers Favorite

“[this] is a veritable page turner of nonstop laughs. Buy a copy and find out for yourself!" -- Reader Views

You can visit his website at http://www.grahamparke.com/


Check back tomorrow for My review of this interesting book.