Interview and Giveaway with Colleen Gleason!

Hi Maidens! We got another great post for your today! We hope you are enjoying all the special features, interviews and guest posts we have been bringing you lately. Now without further ado, let's welcome our latest guest, Colleen Gleason to Under the Covers!

Thanks so much for being a part of A SCANDALOUS AFFAIR, Colleen! Let's get down to business, shall we? What made you choose to write about vampires? What is it about them that fascinates you?

Vampires are creatures of the night, sensual and mysterious. What’s not to be fascinated about?  My first series, though (the Gardella Vampire Chronicles) is about a more evil set of vampires. They aren’t redeemable, and they aren’t sympathetic. The series is more about the Venators who hunt them.

So when I wanted to write a new series about vampires, I wanted to look at them from a different perspective. Yet, as they are creatures of the night and since they must take from others in order to live, I knew they had to have a dark side, even though the Draculia are redeemable. Part of the pleasure of writing the Draculia was determining how and if a particular vampire was redeemable.

Have any books or authors inspired you?

Many! I’ve taken inspiration from many authors, most of whom don’t even write vampire or paranormal books. My inspiration comes from those who continue to write long-standing series without getting stale (J. D. Robb), who write deftly and with subtlety (Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters), and who write real, real people (Robyn Carr)….just to name a few.

If you had your choice to go back in time to any era, where would like to visit?

As long as I could come back  I’d like to visit the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II of England, as well as Paris in the 1890s.

Tell us 5 things that readers would be surprised to know about you.

1. I never read Dracula until four months ago and I’ve never read Twilight.
2. I have a geek crush on Gabriel Mann (Nolan from the TV show Revenge)…although anyone who follows me on Facebook would know that!
3. I’ve been to Tahiti but never to Hawaii.
4. The first book I wrote was a medieval historical romance (now published as A Whisper of Rosemary).
5. My favorite thing to drink is hot tea (green, white, or herbal).

Name 4 things you need in order to write a book.

1. A quiet place.
2. A sexy man in mind for the main hero.
3. A cup of hot tea.
4. My headphones and the soundtrack to the Harry Potter movies.
5. Many naps.

3 books have been released in your Regency Draculia series. Can you tell us a bit about how this series came to be?

 
I’d written the Gardella Vampire Chronicles, which, as I mentioned above, were more about the vampire hunters than the vampires themselves. Then my publisher suggested that I think about writing a series in which the vampires were sympathetic and heroic.

At that point, I had to rewire my brain to think about the undead in a different way. I had to rework the entire mythology I’d built in the Gardella books to make vampires—which I will always think of as dark, demonic creatures—somehow redeemable and compelling.

The idea of most of the vampires being men came to me first, and then I had to think about what sort of women would be worthy of these jaded, old, sometimes tortured men. That was how I came up with the idea of the Woodmore sisters and their special gifts. They had to be something special in order to capture the hearts of their vampire heroes.

Name 2 authors you'd like to collaborate with one day.

Jeaniene Frost and Robyn Carr.

What is your number 1 favourite scene from your Regency Draculia books?
The scene in The Vampire Dimitri when Maia rescues Dimitri from being tied up.

What is next for Colleen Gleason?

I’m working on a variety of different projects, but the one I’m most excited about right now is my new series to be launched in 2013. It’s a steampunk series for teens, set in an alternate Victorian London, starring Sherlock Holmes’s niece and Bram Stoker’s sister! I’m having a blast with it.

Updates and new releases are announced via my Facebook page  and through my newsletter (sign up at http://www.colleengleason.com).

Colleen is giving away winner's choice of her backlist (except Gardellas since they are out of print). US residents get print copy but ebooks are international.

To enter, please:
1. Be a follower
2. Fill out the form below