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The Case of the Haunted Chapel (Sisters of the Last Straw) by Karen Kelly Boyce
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vampire fiction
Vampires, fairy tales, & more: an interview with author & editor Karen Ullo
It’s been a while since I’ve read Twilight, but Jennifer the Damned seems to be almost its opposite. The romanticism of immortal love is traded for the dangers of disposable liaisons, as just one example. Where do you position Jennifer the Damned in terms of classic and modern vampire tales?
My editor likes to refer to Jennifer the Damned as the antidote to Twilight. The absolute inanity of modern vampire tales was certainly one of my inspirations, in the sense that I wanted to combat it with something more substantive, and I drew from those modern stories in terms of setting and tone to try to appeal to the same readers. But of course there’s a lot of Dracula in my book, too, going back to the idea that vampires pose a threat to both body and soul that only the pure of heart who are armed with Christ can defeat. The story itself is really taken from Crime and Punishment. Jennifer is Raskolnikov, testing the limits of human law and morality because she perceives herself as existing outside them. So where does Jennifer the Damned fit? I think that’s a question for readers and critics more than for me. I like to think it’s a literary novel masquerading as a teen vampire story, but maybe it’s the other way around.
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Shadows of the Sun #1
About the Book:
Mara the Huntress resides in the sunny little town of Archangel, California, the location of the Gate of the Underworld—a fact unknown to the general populace. Most people don’t even know that vampires exist. As Huntress, Mara does know, and it is her job to kill those that dare venture forth to the Upperworld to prey on the humans living there. She is well-suited to this purpose, gifted with skills and talents far surpassing those of ordinary mortals. Though some vampires manage to evade her, she has so far managed to prevent the unleashing of a full-scale infestation. She has been at this job for a good portion of her not-quite twenty years, and it seems she has everything in hand. Then one day she gets a chill of foreboding, a feeling that things are about to change . . .
For she stands in the way of the master vampire’s plan for world domination, and, he fears, may be a key player in the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy foretelling his destruction. One dark night he sends the mighty Prince (his second in command) to put an end to this Huntress, this bane of vampires, once and for all. Mara confidently goes out to face him, but finds she has met her match at last. Just as all hope seems lost, this powerful vampire turns from the “dark side” to become Mara’s ally in the battle against his own kind.