November 2014
The Paranormal Romance Guild
is proud to present
an interview with
PRG Premium Membership Author
CHARLAYNE ELIZABETH DENNEY
Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a Texan, born and raise. I moved from the Texas panhandle (that part of Texas that sticks up) to Houston in 1991. I’ve been married three times, divorced twice (it’s a lot safer than bigamy but it costs more) and I have been married to my soul mate, Bruce (who looks like Santa Claus) since Halloween 1993 after meeting at a science fiction convention in Houston. We don’t have any kids between us but I have 4, all married and in their 30s, he is the stepfather, all but one of the kids was grown when we married. The kids have been busy, I have 9 grandkids between age 19 and age 5, most of them live nearby so I’m playing Grandma Taxi a lot. I write while watching TV or waiting on one of the kids, I’m reading when I’m not writing, except on Friday and Sunday nights when I’m running around in World of Warcraft doing raid with one of my sons, his wife, his dad (my ex), the ex’s brother and a few others. We learned to play in self-defense, with all of the family playing, we didn’t understand the lingo at Thanksgiving until we started playing. I’m owned by two Shetland Sheepdogs—Isis and Rhiannon (RhiRhi) and a cat, Squeaks, who thinks she’s a Sheltie.
What were your inspirations for writing or becoming an author?
I was rewriting stories from Dark Shadows (original series) and Star Trek when I was young, I kept saying they left out a character, me. I was in 4th grade back then and my teachers were happy that I wrote when I got a spare moment. I made another step when I went into journalism in high school and another when I got to college. I didn’t stay with it but I moved to technical writing while I was working on my history degree. I also know many writers, having been involved in science fiction/fantasy conventions since 1979 and they encouraged me to write.
Tell us about your Book(s)/Series(s).
The Fangs and Halos series is about exactly what you would think it would be: vampires and angels. Lilly Marchantel works in a famous brothel in New Orleans in 1900. Her client ends up biting her and tries to turn her but it doesn’t work and he leaves her dead. The madam, never wanting to miss a chance for a little publicity, holds a big New Orleans Jazz funeral for Lilly and they bury her in a crypt in St. Louis One cemetery. As she would say, one day she woke up dead and was too afraid to leave the crypt. She makes a cat who wandered into the crypt into a vampire and talks to a skull like she would a live person, naming the skull Marcus, the name of the man who bit her. He talks back to her, she thinks, and she seeks his counsel on things that happen. She tried to save someone who landed on her door beat and bleeding by turning him. He was an angel whose wings and ring were taken. Lilly’s Angel is all about how they get to know each other as things in New Orleans after Hurricane Rita.
Book 2, Marcus’s Vampire, picks up where Lilly’s Angel stopped, with Lilly on a boat to Houston to meet the man who turned her into a vampire, Marcus and after ending up in the Astrodome as a refugee from New Orleans, she finds one of his employees, Isobel, and gets taken to his building. All the while, Marcus is looking for her in New Orleans with his gay lover and ghoul, Jesse, who is very jealous that his lover/boss is wanting to have a relationship with this woman. Marcus has a Shetland Sheepdog named Lancelot and Baron, the vampire cat is not fond of him. Lilly finds that Marcus is not everything she had made him out to be in the 105 years since she first met him. With Hurricane Rita bearing down on Houston, she discovers both the light and dark side of Marcus as they escape to San Antonio.
Book 3 is in the works, tentative title is The Vampires Angels and, once again, picks up where Marcus’s Vampire leaves off, with Lilly sick, Marcus in trouble, and Baron chasing rats and female cats on the River Walk. I’m working on this one during November’s Nanowrimo.
Why did you write it?
After I became disabled, I got bored. I started doing reviews and one day just woke up and started working on what I thought was going to be a simple love triangle story with angels and vampires, not knowing that the characters were plotting behind my back to take it out into a series. The more I wrote, the more I knew that this was something that I wanted to share with a lot of other people who love the characters.
Why should people buy it?
I’m a historian by training and if you like history mixed with your romance, vampires, and angels, this one will really give you that, I work hard to make sure the history is right. It’s also a darned good story, with different kinds of vampires, angels working to contain them, and Baron Bast von Samedi, a vampire cat with a very snarky attitude who cares for Lilly. There’s something to love and something to hate in every book and it will leave you wanting to know more.
Where can readers find your book(s)?
All the usual suspects…uh…places.
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Charlayne-Elizabeth-Denney/e/B00EFML0CG
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/charlayne-elizabeth-denney
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Charlayne
Do you have any book trailers, etc.?
No trailers but I’m on Good Reads, Facebook, and sometimes Twitter.
https://www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Charlayne+Elizabeth+Denney
https://www.facebook.com/charlayne.denney
https://www.twitter.com/charlayned
The site address: https://www.charlaynedenney.com
And my nanowrimo name: charlaynec
Do you have any upcoming events such as book signings, speaking engagements, etc.?
My next big signing is at Houston Author’s Bash in February. I’m open to doing signings in and around Houston if you have an event.