He brings with him a fabulous tale"
Sex. Money. Power. Blood.
Grief-stricken by his wife's untimely death, a wealthy New York banker turns to sexual abandon in the bordellos of 1907 New York City. Then one fateful night, after a mysterious attack, he dies to his old life and is reborn a Vampyre.
Once obsessed solely with making money and social advancement, he's now driven by a new, perverse hunger for blood. Written in a period voice, this deeply erotic work takes you into dark corners of the psyche as it explores a secret world of obsession.
Here’s a snippet from the first chapter:
In the evening, Rosedale dismissed his valet and dressed himself with dispatch for the opera, though intent on a different kind of spectacle. He eschewed his shiny new brougham with the sable lap robes and even his new motor-car. Rather than let his liveried driver know what he intended, Rosedale hailed a hansom outside The Dakota near Central Park where he lived in spacious apartments. Asking the driver to proceed without dawdling to West Thirty-ninth Street, he closed his eyes and lolled back against the worn cushions, withdrawing from the city’s nocturnal clamor, anticipating the pleasures ahead down town. He was abroad in the dark marketplace that was nighttime New York where nothing could be easier to purchase than oblivion.
As he had been doing for months since losing his beloved Florence, he intended to purchase brief extinction of his grief by drowning himself in flesh. His destination was in the Tenderloin, a notorious, welcoming seat of vice. Thirty-ninth Street was known these twenty years as Soubrette Row, where houses of prostitution far outnumbered buildings whose citizens earned their living with less abandon. This street was home to French parlor-houses where delights some considered unspeakable and perverse were easily obtained. Tonight, he longed to have a woman on her knees to him, tenderly drinking deep, swallowing as he gave way.
A Little Facetime With The Author
K.S. Hello and welcome to the blog. I am very excited to have you here. Why don’t we start off with a small introduction? Tell us a little about yourself.
Thanks for your hospitality, and the snack tray was very thoughtful!
I’m a Taurus with an Aries ascendant, have green eyes and reddish-brown hair. Oh, and I was born in NYC but got over it and have spent more than half my life in Michigan. I currently teach creative writing at Michigan State University as a guest author and write full-time. I used to do a lot of print reviewing for half a dozen newspapers and magazines including The Washington Post, but found it was cutting into my writing time, even though I kept discovering amazing books thanks to editors who’d send stuff to me out of the blue. The next best thing about being a reviewer was getting two free vacations at Club Meds in the Bahamas.
K.S. Any interesting writing quirks or stories you would like to share with my readers?
In the old days, on paper, I was really fussy about what color flare pen I wrote with, changing from green to blue to black at different periods in my life. Now I’m just tapping away at keyboards, which doesn’t seem so colorful. Except when my youngest West Highland White Terrier jumps onto my lap and wants to do edits.
K.S. When did you realize you wanted to be a writer? What sparked the desire to pen your first novel?
I fell in love with story-telling in second grade through several books: The Three Musketeers, The Wizard of Oz, Cheaper by the Dozen, and I, Robot. I wanted to have a book on the shelves just like those authors did. And all these years later, it’s come true again and again. I am living my dream. So please don’t pinch me, I really do not want to wake up!
K.S. What genre do you write?
I’ve published in these genres: mystery, vampire, historical fiction, literary novels, short story collections, memoir, essay collections, psychology/self-help, a children's book, a teacher's guide, a guide for wannabe and published authors, belles-lettres, biography, literary criticism, a Jane Austen mashup--and I’m currently finishing a suspense novel. I’ve always read widely, and that’s how I write, across genres. That’s the title of my blog: Writing Across Genres [http://www.levraphael.com/blog/].
K.S. What would you say has inspired you most in your writing career? Or, who is your favorite author and why?
Being the child of immigrants, specifically Holocaust survivors. I wanted to put something good into the world that would make people happy. And in college I had an amazing writing professor who kept saying I would be published someday if I wrote something real, by which she meant emotionally real (the genre didn’t matter). I did, finally, in senior year and that’s when I decided to apply to a graduate writing program which I discovered was a mix between a giant writer’s group and a rolling dinner.
K.S. What does your family think of your writing?
Does any family really like having a spy in their midst? Seriously, writers reveal secrets, sometimes without knowing it, and that makes their families nervous (even if they won’t admit it).
K.S. What was one of the most surprising things you learned while creating your book/s?
That writing is a business as well as an art and that you have to master both sides to be successful. That’s one reason I wrote the publishing and career guide Writer’s Block is Bunk [http://www.levraphael.com/writersblock.html], to educate people about what a career is really like. I am not a writer who suffers and complains about the agonies of art, and I also am not going to gripe about promotion. I actually love book tours and have done hundreds of readings across the US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Israel. I’ve even had groupies.
K.S. What inspires you?
Life. Movies. Other books. European Travel. Dreams of revenge (just kidding!) Sometimes I’ll overhear a conversation that gets me going, sometimes I’ll be watching a play and that will suggest an idea for a book. I never know where inspiration will come from, but it never stops. I’ve published 24 books and would have published more if I could type faster. Or had a clone.
K.S Tell us the story behind the story. What inspired you to write this novel?
I grew up in a Gilded Age apartment house and went to a Gilded Age public library, so the period's in my blood. And researching a longer novel, I got drawn into reading Edwardian horror and also about brothels of the era, and the idea just hit me.
K.S. Tell us about the book cover. How does it represent your book? How did you choose the artwork?
The best thing about an indie book is that you pick your own cover art and cover artist. I wanted something that suggested the period and my protagonist without being too literal, and thought this had just the right amount of menace and sex appeal.
K.S. Where can readers find out more about you and your work?
My web site http://www.levraphael.com has info on all my books in many genres, as well as a blog on writing and publishing.
K.S. Thank you again for stopping by and giving us a taste of your work and some background on you as well! Please feel free to come back and visit us again anytime.
And for all the readers out there, here's that link once again.