The Night the Vampires Came

Chapter 1.2 - Bonus Content - Writer Reveal

Vampires & Blight Rain

The vampires in "The Night the Vampires Came" are the same vampires that are in "Darkly Devoted." The only difference is that "Darkly Devoted" is a paranormal romance, and "The Night the Vampires Came" is horror.

It's funny, for many years, as I wrote "Darkly Devoted," my readers never understood that the Dark Waters was turning people into vampires and not the act of being bitten or having a blood transfusion. I stated this over and over, and very few people understood that my vampires were different. I decided to write a book where I clarified this principle on the first page.

The idea for "The Night the Vampires Came" came from a dream I had while I was writing "Darkly Devoted." I suppose I see the world in a certain way. Sometimes it's hard for me to write romance because my mind just naturally leans toward horror.

While writing about Remin in "Darkly Devoted," I had a nightmare one night that the Black Waters was falling from the skies. I was trapped on a bus and couldn't convince the bus driver to move. I ran around the bus screaming that we would all die if we didn't move.

In a way, I'm grateful for that dream. I think in writing "Night the Vampires Came," people finally started to understand that my vampires were different.

As for the idea that people became vampires through Dark Waters, I really can't say where that idea came from. I've told myself stories about Manna City for so long that I don't remember where that idea originated.

Amusingly, I think I gave Blake in "Darkly Devoted" my irrational fear of vampires. Funny story, you give a male character a fear of vampires, and the readers cheer for him as he learns to harness his fears. You give a female character a fear of vampires, and people call her stupid for not falling into the arms of every vampire that glances at her twice.

A lot of vampire writers probably had some fear of vampires as a child. I remember growing up, for some reason, I was absolutely terrified of vampires. I used to sleep with garlic under my pillow, and I was certain my stuffed animals with their beady eyes turned into vampires at night. It didn't help that my playroom was in the attic, and I had to climb up this small narrow stairwell to get there. The lighting wasn't the greatest at night, and it was hard to get out of there quickly.

I wanted my characters to confront their fear during the course of this series. I've struggled constantly to write about this journey in Vivienne, but for some reason, few people ever took her fear seriously. I'm constantly defending why she's afraid and why she can't just go running to Blake, who can make everything okay again.

When I gave this fear to Blake, suddenly, it was accepted as a real issue. His fear is an acceptable motivating factor to propel the story forward. No one ever comments on Blake's POV and says, "Well, maybe if he just went to his mom or Vivienne, they'll make all his problems go away."

It's funny because later in the series when he's afraid, he sometimes reaches out to her in his imagination.

I think out of all the emotions of human existence, I enjoy writing about fear the most. I enjoy writing about fear because it's the emotion I feel the most. I love writing about all the ways humans try to delude themselves out of fear, but my favorite thing to do as a writer is to force the character to face their fears and to see that it is really as bad as they thought it was.

It's fear that motivates his character to do everything that he does. In "Darkly Devoted," he makes his fortune and becomes a vampire because he's afraid she won't love him without both of those things. In the end of that part of the series, he drives her away because he's terrified she won't love him for who he is underneath it all. He's scared to share his work with her, and he's even more scared that she can't love a man who isn't effortlessly charismatic and handsome like Julian.