.99 NOW! Count Down Deal on 3 Books!

Hello, my pretties! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying all your presents. But if you have an Amazon card, and still have a few $ left over for an eBook, look no further. I've got three books that are only .99 today, tomorrow and the next day.

So, if you're looking for a nice deal on a few of my eBooks. Well, I've got a Count Down Deal going for the next several days for the following books at Amazon. All will be .99 for the next 3 days. It will go up in increments by a dollar until January 4th, and go back to the regular price. So, if you've got time head on over by clicking the links below.

Vampire's Trill

Vampire Nocturne

Spell of the Black Unicorn

Again, these eBooks won't be .99 for long, so go on and browse and I hope you choose one!

See you all in 2014!

Crucifixes and Garlic anyone?

Embraced by ambien candlelight, he turned his head toward the fire. His sharp features stood out against the shadows of the room. The fire jumped and lurched suddenly as he put his hands out toward it, as if to warm them. - Lorelei Bell Vampire Legacy 2000

Hello, my pretties. How are you in these hectic days before Christmas? Got the garlic garlands hanging? Crucifixes around your pretty necks?

Good!

I was digging through some of my crap uh-er notes, and came up with a number of interesting facts that I had jotted down years ago, and found an old tabloid clipping worth quoting here. I believe it's from the 1970's at least!

"According to parapsychologist Dr. Stephen Kaplan and author with writer Carole Kane of Vampires Are (ETC Publications, 1983), the nocturnal bloodsuckers are not only real, but they're mulipying rapidly.
" 'I've been fascinated, wooed, mystified, entranced and entertained by them," he wrote. "I've also been threatened, horrified lured,and almost killed by them.'

"A census earlier this year by the Vampire Study Center which Kaplan founded and heads on Long Island, disclosed an alarming 162% increase in their population in the U.S. compare to the first count taken two years earlier.

"Kaplan says most true vampires--who may indeed live several hundred years, but neither turn into bats nor need to sleep in coffins [wow, big news flash here]--do their best to avoid stirringup trouble and attracting notice.
 "Their daily need for human blood however, drives them to do almost anything to obtain it.
Kaplan said they will participate in depraved sadomasochistic rituals that include bloodletting and blood drinking, secually service donors or join blood cults--whatever is necessary..."

Also there was this tidbit from a note I jotted down:
The Vampire Research Society founded in 1970 by Sean Manchester, who feels vampire enthusiasts are playing with fire, and are unwittingly promoting evil--(that's Eeeevilllll)*. He takes vampirism very seriously.
*my input

As you can see, I've been researching vampires for a long while, now. I didn't write down the date on the old news clipping and I didn't have any date on the other note either.

Here was another note I took down from somewhere. Everyone knows who Montague Summers is (1880-1948) wrote "Vampire Kith & Kin"?
~ "Montague Summers was charged with pederasty, but found not guilty." (pederasty: sexual relations between a man and young boy). If it happened today he'd be known as a sexual predator/pedophile and would not be allowed near schools, or where children gather. His face would be up on all sites at facebook and so forth. How time changes things.

Another little note on the same bit of paper:
"Garlic, the crucifix, and sunlight take away the vampire's strength"
Something Buffy Summers would know about, wouldn't she?

The snow outside is falling, and friends are calling... so I shall leave you with this one last quote...

"I am not dreaming. I am not deluded. Nearer to the grave new light streams for me. We shall continue to exist. We shall see each other again." - Goethe

Welcome! Got your Vampires warmed up?

Okay everyone, bring those vampires out of the closet and dust them off. That's right... Wait, put the skeleton away, hon. *chuckles* Oh, and you in the back with the zombie--OUT! 

No zombies PLEEEEZE! This is a zombie-free zone.

This blog is about vampires. And just so you know, I lean heavily toward the URBAN FANTASY, and do not get into the paranormal romance stuff. I mean... what is that but a romance with a vampire or a demon or a werewolf? Or goddess forbid--an effing zombie? Not that there is anything wrong with having a romance thread in the book. But I'll get into this in another post.

I've been into vampires since I was a teenager. That was late 1960-early 1970's. Yes. I'm dating myself. This vampire lover, yours truly, has been around for a long while. It was not "cool" to dig vampires. Usually you met other people into them, and they were far and few between, plus they were a bit on the kookie/weird side (more so than me). Before I get into what I watched or read, let me continue this train of thought. And just so you know, I put full blame on "Dark Shadows" and Barnabas Collins aka Jonathan Frid for my intense interest in vampires.

Johnathan Frid as Barnabas Collins
in "Dark Shadows" the original TV
soap

Well, if I give him mention, I might as well mention a few others...
Bela Lugosi, and Christopher Lee to name a few...

I did everything I could to make sure I either got home in time to watch the soap opera "Dark Shadows", or stayed up long enough to watch the movies with my favorite stars in the infamous roll of Dracula.

But let me make it clear I did NOT like that Dracula wound up being the "heavy" or villain. I wanted him to get the girl in the end. Why not?

Later on, when I began penning my own books, the vampires were not always going to be "evil". There would always have to be a villain, but nothing so cut and dry, not black and white, as with some of the movies, or the books I've read. Back then there were no such genre as "paranormal romance" or "urban fantasy". Vampire books were under the main heading of "horror". At some point, after Anne Rice took the bull by the horns (or vampire by the fangs), things changed drastically. I wasn't paying attention when that happened. I was a little confused as to what the difference between "paranormal romance" and "urban fantasy" was. In the meantime I was writing my own vampire fiction, trying to get an agent (I won't go into details here) *yeah, she was rejected*. Well, it was over 800 pages long...

Let me explain.

This work (Vampire Legacy), has lasted down through the decades whispering to me to re-write it. Yes, it is still with me. In the beginning it was somewhat different, because it was pretty green at writing. And then with time, Vampire Legacy became something of a loose cannon sort of book--I got long-winded. I almost had an agent interested, but alas. She chickened out on me (even when I shortened it in half). She said to me that vampire fiction didn't sell well. Uh.. Huh? At the time Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a big hit, and the movie Interview with a Vampire was out. So, whatever...

I shelved the 300 pound gorilla, thinking that maybe I should try something else. I did. I wrote a lot of other stuff. It was my practicing phase. My learning-to-write phase. Then, I quit writing for a while. But always, that little voice inside me said I had to do my vampire fiction my way.

Eventually I did write something, and a small publisher to took it. Vampire Ascending was born, and it did nicely. Then I wrote the sequel, and published Vampire's Trill. They both had wonderful reviews, and I thought things were going well... then my publisher decided to quit the biz. I went Indie over the summer, which is a good thing, since I have more control over everything, at last. I'm currently working on the fourth book in the Sabrina Strong, and I am currently rewriting Vampire Legacy.

My next post will be more about what I write, and what I like to read. 

What got you interested in vampires? Was it a movie? A book? Which ones?

Carole Gill has left the building!

Yes, my pretties. Carole has left Blogspot for... that other place (in stage whisper) wordpress.
No, I did NOT kill her off. 

Hey! Where'd that come from! Move it, please....

As I was saying, Carole has moved to... that other place. She is a very dear, sweet friend of mine, and we have shared this blog for the past--oh, wow. I think it's been 2 years, now. She still has her books up, and a new blog addy. So it you wish to follow her there, you are encouraged to do so. 

As for me, I'm sticking around, so if you still want vampires, well, we got vampires up the wazoo. Yup. That's why I renamed this blog 

Because, well... I'm a huge fan of vampire anything. And if you are too, you'll want to stop by. I plan on doing a few new posts, the first of which I will re-introduce myself, so that you know exactly what you will get with my posts.

For starters, I am not a new-comer to the vampire scene. 

I will return with another post soon to tell you more about myself, what I enjoy reading, or watching, and what sort of vampire novels I write.

Until then, do let the vampires bite!

Lorelei's Muse: TRICK or... TREAT?

Hey! Get over here if you want a TREAT and not a TRICK!
ALL MY BOOKS ARE NOW $0.99 UNTIL NOV 3RD~check my blog & post out. You need to take advantage of this because I'll be resetting prices back to what they were after that!

Lorelei's Muse: TRICK or... TREAT?: Hello, my pretties. Oh, I see you are all dressed in your Halloween costumes! How wonderful! Well, this calls for a treat, I believe. Just...

Lorelei's Muse: In Search of Dracula (or vampires) in Novels

Lorelei's Muse: In Search of Dracula (or vampires) in Novels: One would think that I would choose Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" as my favorite. It is not. It's not even close to my fav...

Come on over and join the discussion and leave comment if you want a chance to win!

Vampires, Dracula, and giveaway

Hello, my pretties!

Sorry, I've been MIA, but I needed to upgrade my browser and that was looking impossible, but I succeeded! Yay me! Now I can post to my heart's content!

So, now that I'm back I'll being doing a few more posts here, as long as the vampires allow.

Today, I hope you'll go over to my blog Lorelei's Muse and check it out. I have a little contest/giveaway going on, and you may want to join in. If so, do pay attention to instructions at the bottom, once you've read the enjoyable post.

I thank you, and Dracula does too!

WIP Wednesday ~Vasyl's Awakening

I've been busy working on my next book in the Sabrina Strong series, Vampire Interlude. It's currently being read by my beta reader, and when I worked on this one scene my reader said it was the most graphic piece I'd written to date.

This is how Vasyl became a vampire. Have a look. I hope to have this fourth book out at end of the year.

Somewhere in France 1000 A.D.

He was not dead. He was sure of it.

A heartbeat resounded. It came as a hard knock on Vasyl's chest wall. But there was only the one. That's strange.

While waiting to hear the next one, he lay in darkness, the scent of soil, loam and molding leaves sharp in his nose. Underground? He wiggled his fingers. Yes. He moved his feet. He existed. I am alive!

Another heartbeat came. One singular thu-thump in his chest. Then again, nothing.

He languished in the darkness thinking what a fool he was to have asked for this. As if it would be better than being killed by his arch enemies, the Nephilim, who wanted to take the Dagger of Delphi from him and destroy it. They did not want to be killed by it once the sibyl appeared again in the world.

Where was Camerlengo? He must come for him. He was somewhere in the woods. Possibly near the cemetery. Certainly he would come for him soon! He must!

Panic rushed through him like weighted doom. This only brought on an ache which throbbed in his head. Pain built and surged down through his body, and throughout his limbs. He groaned with these changes to his body. His insides churned, as though a beast were eating at him from the inside out. He thought it felt like the worst hunger pains he'd ever known. But even as a priest, he had readily been able to ask for food wherever he went, and appease this meager needs. This was beyond hunger. But what was it? Illness? A warmth filled him, becoming hot, then he became chilled once again. He gripped at his stomach, shuddered and moaned, trying to keep his sounds to a minimum.

No. This was not mere hunger in the sense that he was used to. It hurt. His head pounded, and a strange sensation tickled his groin. Arousal? He could not understand this. He was virginal, and had never had this overpowering need before.

The terrible gnawing in his stomach, pared with his pounding head, and his sexual desires coming full bore was more than he could handle. He wanted to stop it all, now! Make it stop! But how?

He shifted his shoulders, using his hands to roll over onto his side. His movement caused loud crackling all around him—as loud as cannon fire to his ears. Whatever it was covering him was not heavy, and not dirt. Right before the vampire, Camerlengo, had agreed to turn him Vasyl had made him promises to not bury or put him in a coffin. Oddly, he remembered nothing of the transition, or the moments after the initial bite at his wrist. All the rest of it was gone. No memory of what happened. His friend had said he would not die.

The vampire had not lied to him. But the pain was more than he could bare.

Deep woodsy earth scents of worms, centipedes, pill bugs and other small creatures which lived in the soil filled his nose.

Movements came slow, weakness in his limbs limited his ability to move quickly. The pounding in his head felt like someone taking a hammer and hitting him repeatedly. When finally he struggled to push the something that covered him away, it came away like a crash of cymbals, accompanied by the smell of decaying leaves.

Opening his eyes, he blinked at his surroundings. Everything looked oddly cold and alien. Objects, such as trees and bushes were in varying degrees of grays and deep blues, and black. Above him a network of bare oak tree limbs laced across his vision of the stars above him. The stars glowed strangely, too. Some were yellow, some red and others brilliant blue, and some with halos around them, and yet they looked different. He thought he could actually reach out and touch them, they seemed so close. For a moment he was mesmerized by everything he saw. Until the pounding resumed in his head, and he couldn't ignore it.

Working to push to his feet—despite the fact his legs felt like ropes, rather than flesh and bone—he stumbled once and then rose unsteadily. Wobbling, he gained his feet, ungainly, like a new born foal.

Shooting pain seared through his head. He cried out, seizing it with his hands. His voice reverberated and then was lost in the immense wood. The strange sensations traveled through his body once again and ended with an unbearable throbbing at his groin. His needs were confusing, but equal in intensity. If he did not satisfy both, he was certain to go mad, or perhaps die.

Harsh crackling and rushing filled his ears. The noise was too loud, and he had to cover his ears. Despite the all-consuming pain, he was hyper-aware of someone's approach, and growled a warning.

“Father Françios! It is I, Camerlengo.” The threat he had felt eased from him.

“Here, Camerlengo!” Wetness slid down his cheeks. He wiped the tears with the back of his hand.

“Father. Here I am, my friend!” A large man appeared through a gap in the trees, he could see him clearly as though it were mid-day.

“This pain! I hurt!” Françios said holding one hand to his stomach, another to his head. “What is this terrible pain I endure? Am I sick?”

“No. You have just ascended. The changes are taking place in your body. Everything changes; your needs change,” he explained, drawing up along side him in his tattered robes, his dark hair hanging in ringlets around his ears and over his brow.

He bent over, hands covering his ears. “I am going mad! Make it stop! Make it stop!” Françios cried. A new scent stopped him. Something wonderful. Something he must have. Where is it? Françios rose to look for the source of this scent.

“You must take sustenance,” Camerlengo said. “I have brought you something that will help your change along.” With that, he drew up a small woman from behind him. Because Camerlengo was a large man he hadn't seen her. Blonde, and young, wearing a blue dress, or was it a night rail? He must have been pulling her along. He pushed the woman forward. She stood between the two of them. A look of confusion wrinkled her forehead when she looked from Camerlengo and himself. Odd little noises leaked from her lips. He noticed she shivered and the starlight cast fascinating shadows over her fair features. Fear. He could practically taste it on the air. It had a sweet, coppery essence that seemed to magnify his needs all the more. His finger tips itched, his mouth burned in torment until he opened his mouth to allow the prickle of agony at his gum-line to ease the ache there. He let out an in-human sound, like a beast, aware of the fangs that had drawn down out of his upper mouth. Thus equipped instinctively he moved forward, toward the small woman. Barely a woman, she must have been fifteen or sixteen.

“I will keep her thralled for you. Take what you need of her,” Camerlengo encouraged.

A deep anticipation came over Françios. With a growl, he fell upon the small, young woman. Fingers grasping her by the shoulders, he made a quick movement to twirl her around. Her blonde hair fell away from one side of her neck and he plunged his fangs into her flesh. Her coppery-sweet essence slid into his mouth and he drew on the wound he'd made to drink more deeply. But it did not come fast enough. Not fast enough to ease the torment inside him.

“Ease up, Françios,” Camerlengo said. But his words had no effect on him.

Françios held the girl tightly to himself, finding the small mounds of her breasts pleasant to hold. They fit into his palms perfectly.

That's when the fire in him slammed his insides, and he could no longer stand it. He pressed the girl down to the ground, threw up her skirts, and with much fumbling entered her roughly.

She screamed at first, but was so weakened by the loss of blood, she could do nothing to thwart his fiendish and cruel enjoyment of her. When he was done, he covered her throat with his mouth, bit hard, and tugged. A gush of crimson flowed and he buried his face into the gore.

Satiated, he drew back and looked at the blood soaked dress, her legs spread from his taking her. His horrific attack on her pricked whatever humanity he had left.

“Mon Deu! What have I done?” he cried out and jumped to his feet. “I can't stand this abomination! This-this evil thing I've become!” He crumpled, buried his face into his hands and wept. After a moment, his sire touched him on the shoulder.

“Enough, Françios. We must bury her. Hide our evidence.”

“I cannot. No! I must take her to her parents and admit my sins. I deserve punishment of the harshest degree for what I have done!”

“No. Come away. Understand me, my friend. You are not human. Nothing they can do to you short of burning or decapitation will kill you, and nothing they do will harm you. You are basically indestructible.” He paused a moment. “This was your first night. Your first feeding. It always goes badly for the soul we take. Almost always someone is killed by our feeding lust.”

“No! I cannot do this! I must destroy myself somehow!”

“You cannot. A vampire has too strong a will to exist.”

Françios shot to his feet again. “I am an abomination! I killed! How can I live with that on my conscious?”

Camerlengo grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard and said, “You came to me, telling me why you needed to complete your mission to keep the dagger safe and find the sibyl, because if you did not the Nephilim would take over the world. You said you would risk everything—everything—for her. Everything, including your own soul! This is what you said to me!” They stared at one another for long moments.

Finally Françios relented. His muscles relaxed. “Of course, my friend. You are right.” He drew his hand to his forehead. “I'd forgotten my mission. Thank you for reminding me.”

“Tomorrow it will go better. I will show you.” He grasped him by the arm and drew him along the forest of oaks. “You must now choose a name.”

“But I have a name.”

“No. That was your human name. You will no longer go by that.” He drew him along. “Come, into the cemetery. You can choose a name from a marker, if you wish.”

They stepped out of the woods into a partial clearing where grave markers lined the field. They walked quietly through the cemetery.

“Here is one,” Camerlengo said, pointing to a fine marble one chiseled recently.

But Françios looked to another. “This is a fine name.” he moved before a marker and Camerlengo joined him.

“Vasyl Datsyuk?”

“No. Just Vasyl. It's perfect.”

“It is Ukranian, I think,” he said. “Ancient Greek it would be pronounced Basileios.”

“Just Vasyl.”

“Basil is another form of this name,” Camerlengo said. “Would you not like that, instead?”

“No. I like this one. No one would know who Vasyl is, if they heard it. I will be able to stay hidden from those devils for years to come.” He drew up looking into the heavens. “Yes. From now on, my name will be known as Vasyl!”

©Lorelei Bell 2013

Sabrina Strong on Killing Demons

Hi. My name is Sabrina Strong, I'm a touch clairvoyant, and that's not all. I'm now a sibyl. My job? I'm supposed to take out demons, vampires and off-spring of Nephilim. But you know, it's a bit hard when your friends are vampires. Well, not all my friends are vampires, of course. And a few vampires have become my enemies. And one certain off-spring of of Nephilim is trying to hit  on me. But I'm here to talk about demons and vampires today.

No. You won't find me carrying a wooden stake and punching it into a vampire's heart, and then they turn to dust. Please. I think that's been over done, for one thing. For another, it's just so messy. And plus--how the hell do you find the right place to puncture the chest to get to the heart when the vampire might not want to sit still for that?

Nope. I got something better, anyway. I happen to have the only thing that kills on it's own and it's made of pure silver. It's called the Dagger of Delphi. It's ancient--at least 2,000 years old, wielded by one of the first sibyls. It will kill a demon right now. It will also kill any off-spring of Nephilim. And really when you get down to tacks, if anything is stabbed in the heart you've pretty much got a funeral to go to. Right?

But vampires are a bit tricky. They are the hardest buggers to kill. You see, the dagger won't kill them right away. It poisons them from the inside out--so I've been told--and it's a slow death for the vampire. So, if I stab a vampire with this dagger of mine--or if it does it for me (because it has a mind of its own), the vampire lives long enough to send his minions after me. Not fun.

But demons, yeah, that's another thing entirely. They die right away. In this latest book, however, I have no idea what these "Dreadfuls" are who stand in the corner of a room, making the person they're hovering over until they become very ill, bed-ridden and die. You see, I'm on a different planet in Vampire Nocturne. And the vampires here are at least half human. Well, I don't want to go into an explanation on how that happens here. You'll just have to believe me. So when I stab them, it's quite possible they don't stay down very long.

But the Dreadfuls do. In fact they sort of implode upon themselves and it takes me a little while to figure out they are not actually demons, but manifestations of someone who is sending these things out in order to kill off people they don't happen to like.

So, when the human population of Wallachia (where the king of vampires dwells--yes, it's Drakulya aka The Impaler who has somehow managed to get his head back on his shoulders and becomes a vampire after his battle with the Turks), learns I can kill these Dreadfuls, they want me to come to their homes and take them out. I'd become an exterminator, in that sense. But I've got a sneaky suspicion who is sending these things out and I've got to find a way to prove it, or I might not live to see tomorrow.

But I don't have time for this! I have to find my cousin, Lindee, who was sucked through a portal, into this other world. I have to find her before Drakulya, or some other vampire does, because a human's destiny on this world where vampires rule is either of two things: become a Blood Dame, or Brood Mare--women who allow vampires to mate with them in order to have more off-spring (that's what they call them there).

So, I've got my hands full. Not only that I've got the son of Drakulya, Jett, who is into me. As well as his cousin, Drachen--who is a dreamboat, but really too young for me. Jett is handsome, older and a sexual vampire. While Drachen would rather have my blood, I'd rather jump Jett's bones. Really. I can say that here, can't I?

Well, I had a great time visiting here on Bloody Good Vampires today. You guys rock and I mean that. While you're here, do check out the newest and third installment of my series.

Here it is, Vampire Nocturne:

Vampire Nocturne, third in my Series

AMAZON 


And if you haven't started the first one, you also might want to check them all out. At Amazon.

Vampire Ascending, first in the Series

Amazon

Vampire's Trill, second in the Series

Amazon 

Are You Going To The Victorian Ball?

I suggest you pick something nice out, if you are. Something in pink or maybe in blue? Or daring black.


Why sould you choose a ball gown you might ask? Yes. Ask!
Because you might be eligable to win a free book.
Like this:


This is the third book (yes, I know that it says it on the cover), of the Sabrina Strong series by Lorelei Bell (that's me).
I'm giving away not just one, not just two, NOT JUST THREE, BUT FOUR BOOKS! Swing by Lorelei's Muse from March 9rh - 11th and follow the instructions. In order to be eleigable you must live inside the US.