I am so excited to have my dear friend Linda Parisi here with me today to talk about her new release BLOOD ROGUE! Linda is a long-time friend and this is a great book. Please welcome Linda and check out her book at https://books2read.com/u/47X6Rj. And now, here’s Linda!
All About Linda
I’d like to take a moment to thank my wonderful friend and author, Caridad Pineiro, for asking me to join her for a few moments. You see, not only do Caridad and I go back a way, we also share a love—writing about vampires. And guess what? HONOR CALLS, the second book in her vampire series, just re-released. That means my newest book, BLOOD ROGUE, has some damned good company on the bookshelves.
Why do I write about vampires? Simple question, not so simple answer. I guess the first answer is that I fell in love with these sexy, dark, angsty characters. There is pathos in the way vampires are portrayed, they’re evil, they drink blood, they kill people. And yet, they yearn to be loved, they yearn to be human again. And, of course, there’s always redemption. For an author, redemption is so much fun to write. No matter how bad they are, I can make my vampires better, even lovable. And so, so HOT!
For the BLOOD ROGUE series, I wanted to combine my day and night jobs. During the day, I’m a clinical research scientist. Fun fact, my first job was in a blood bank. Not kidding! Right out of college. Fun fact! The New York cell is a mansion and estate on the banks of the Hudson River and houses a blood donation center with banks of refrigerators housed right in the bedrock of the Palisades. Run by humans but overseen by vampires!
At night, I write. My books are character-driven first, then I build my world around them. In my vampire world, humans aren’t supposed to know vampires exist. Each time a vampire feeds, he/she enthralls the human with Lethe so they won’t remember what happened. So I asked, what if I create a human that doesn’t become enthralled, and whose very existence threatens vampire anonymity? What if I created a drug that made vampires sick and that sickness meant they could drain human after human, yet not be sated? Could my heroine, Stacy Morgan, a forensic chemist and blood banker, find out what it was before the High Council decided she was no longer of use? Could my hero, vampire Charles Tower, find out who was using it to create these rogue vampires? Could I create a vampire world, complete with vampire politics, that’s being threatened by human and rogue alike?
If you’d like to find out more, please stop by my website at www.lindajparisi.com or you can purchase BLOOD ROGUE on Amazon at https://books2read.com/u/47X6Rj.
Thank you for spending time with me. If you enjoy reading about BLOOD ROGUE, the second book in the ROGUE series, HONORABLE ROGUE, will be available from City Owl Press in July 2021.
Teaser
There is the blood and can only ever be the blood.
Vampire Charles Tower never knew anything sweeter than the taste of Stacy Morgan’s lips. He never imagined anything crueler than her being marked for death by the only father he’s ever known. Mikhail reared him. Taught him how to survive. Now he’s gone rogue and it’s up to Charles to put the man down.
But can Chaz convince himself and Stacy that love between them is impossible?
That’s hard to do with a woman like Stacy Morgan, especially when she offers herself up as bait. Now they must fight against the centuries-old customs that bar them from being together and the rogue vampire who wants every last drop of Stacy’s blood before they can discover why Mikhail isn’t the only BLOOD ROGUE they’ll have to face.
Excerpt
Something was wrong. Stacy couldn’t right herself. The world kept spinning out of control.
“I’m sorry, Stacy.”
Her body still pulsed with the aftershocks of an amazing orgasm, but she couldn’t get the room to balance, she felt drunk, higher than a kite. Damn him, he’d used the thrall.
“I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for something you should never have been involved in.”
“You won’t what?” Stacy tried to lift her head. The room tilted when she did. “You bastard,” she cried, realizing what he’d done. “You…you didn’t…”
Such sadness. After such pleasure. “Not exactly.”
Stacy tried to gather her thoughts. As she did, he covered her with a sheet and rose. She’d never seen such steely determination in his face before. “You’re going after him by yourself.”
“To keep you safe.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“It is now. I drank enough of your blood so you won’t get out of this bed and try to be a hero.”
“Did you really think that was my only motivation? That I was doing this to be a hero?”
He stared down at her, his gaze unchanged. “You’ll be all right after you sleep it off. Go to sleep.”
“No, I won’t.”
She struggled to sit up and fell back onto the bed, too weak to get up. She tried again, only to have the room spin out of control.
“Why?” she asked, her thoughts a mass of contradictions.
“Because I love you.”
She watched Chaz turn on his heel and leave the room. She had to close her eyes again to get the room to stop spinning. She could hear him throwing his clothes on in the other room. Then she heard him stop in the doorway.
“I’ll never forgive you,” she said, her tone flat and her stare hard as she opened them. He was leaning against the doorjamb. He looked anything but nonchalant.
“I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you. So we’re even.”
Loved “Blood Rogue”, Linda. Great story with lots of twists and turns. Looking forward to the next installment of Chaz and Stacy. Congratulations on a great story!