Tagging game! Ooh, fun…
Sorry about the delay, I got this tag from Rebecca Lochlann writer of that riveting series ‘Child of the Erinyes’ ten days ago, and am only just replying now. https://rebeccalochlann.wordpress.com/author/rebeccalochlann/
So, the details about my book.
Q. What is the working title of your book?
A. That Scoundrel Émile Dubois (and isn’t he, just!). The sub-title is (I liked giving it a sub-title, as in the Gothic classics) Or The Light of Other Days.
Q. What genre does your book fall under?
A. Ahem! I’d define it as historical/paranormal/romance or maybe even steampunk. It’s got a lot of comedy in it too, but it’s very sad in places. There’s some erotica in it and there is necessarily violence in it, for which reason I made it Over 18, though with regard to the violence, I read more disturbing accounts in All Quiet on the Western Front at thirteen. It is rather cross genre for sure, and that dismayed literary agents and publishers and was the reason I decided to self-publish.
Q. Where did the idea come from for this book?
A. It evolved gradually (doesn’t it always!) from a children’s story I was writing about a vampire who was inventing both time machines and monster men (he couldn’t keep any servants, so decided to build them). Émile started off as the baddy in that, but oh, so much more interesting than Count Vladimir (the prototype of Lord Ynyr) that he and Sophie took over.
I was also interested in writing about a cheerful, wise cracking vampire by way of a change from the brooding types who seem a little short on humour.
Q. Which actors would you use to play the characters in a movie version?
A. That’s a difficult one! I’d like unknowns, to be honest. But approximately…
Émile is long and lanky, but very muscled up (all that fighting!). He’s got fair hair and slanty green eyes, jutting high cheekbones and of course, those freckles across the bridge of his nose that start to fade as his humanity does.
does have something of the look of him. Try and overlook those modern underpants!
For sweet natured but stubborn, curvaceous Sophie, perhaps
With perhaps Anne Hathaway – looking a bit modern here
for that wicked enchantress, Ceridwen Kenrick…
Q. What is the one sentence synopsis for your book?
A. Young, over romantic Sophie de Courcy doesn’t hesitate to marry her long – time hero, the rascally French émigré Émile Dubois, though through the machinations of their evil neighbours the Kenricks he is in danger of turning into a Man Vampire and is surrounded by a time warp.
Well, love makes fools of us all…
Q. Will your book be self published or represented by an agency?
A. I’ve published it as an ebook. I hope to bring out a paperback version in due course. The cross genre nature made agents very wary. I hope readers’ decisions will prove their forebodings mistaken. I don’t want to make a fortune out of this book, I just want a lot of people to enjoy it.
Q. How long did it take to complete the first draft of your manuscript?
A. One year. But I then did three rewrites, the last on the recommendations of my wonderful writing partner, Jo Danilo. All in all, it took about three years to write.
Q. What other books would you compare your story to within this genre?
A. That’s a difficult one, it being cross genre. I was influenced, of course, by Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire and of course, too, Bram Stocker’s Dracula. There’s some of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park in it, it’s got a lot of ironic glances at Gothic literature and Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa (Sophie is a great reader of both). perhaps, also, The Rocky Horror Show, not a book, but what wonderful, over-the-top Gothic fun!
Q. Who or what inspired you to write this?
A. Most of all Anne Rice’s work. But for the mixing of the comic and the macarbre aspects, a huge influence was the stories that my late father told me when I was small.
Q. What else might pique the reader’s interest?
A. I was very flattered by the reviews on Goodreads, and if anyone’s toying with the idea of reading it, they might well sway her/him. I wrote it to be enjoyable escapism, designed to make you laugh and shudder. It’s got echoes of classic gothic writing, but you don’t have to know anything about them to enjoy it, though I’ve put in notes at the end if anyone’s interested by the allusions. It’s erotic and funny, too. Plus, I know I’m prejudiced, but it’s full of character comedy. Émile is an appealing swaggering scoundrel and Sophie is sweet and naïve, but as she toughens up she proves more than a match for him. She and her maid Agnes may be virtual prisoners in a Gothic household full of Man Vampires and rogues, but we know they’ll put up a determined fight.
I now name the following great writer pals!
Jo Danilo jodanilo.com
Lauryn April laurynapril.blogspot.com
Anne Carlisle http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6464612.Anne_Carlisle/blog
Thomas Cotterill http://thomascotterill.wordpress.com/category/playing-blog-tag-2/
2 Responses
Lucinda, the link to my blog that you have inserted in your post doesn’t work. Try this one – http://thomascotterill.wordpress.com/category/playing-blog-tag-2/
The pingback link is fine.