Giveaway & Guest post: Ellis Carrington’s Romancing the Monster

I’m happy and honored to have the wonderful Ellis Carrington at my blog today. She’s the author of Amor Prohibido and a couple of short stories. Coming February 12 her newest novella, Immortal Valentine, will be released. And to celebrate this happy event Ellis will be giving away an ecopy of this story at the end of this post. But first she’ll tell us about her fascination with vampires and how they also need romance. Take it away, Ellis!

Romance and Monsters

by Ellis Carrington

I remember being utterly fascinated one night at a high school sleepover when amidst Cheetos and hair braiding somebody pulled out a copy of The Lost Boys. The (at the time) modern portrayal of vampires was intriguing and cool, and a little bit campy…but what really got me was the part where Michael and Star made love. Two vampires making love. Wow. It was totally hot, too.

Unlike the other monsters in their gang they hadn’t embraced what they were. They were supposed to kill each other but because of their desire for each other and the fact that they hadn’t yet shed all of their pesky humanity, they couldn’t bring themselves to. It was an eye-opening first for me, this realization that monsters could be sensual and have emotion.

I liked it.

Vampires don’t have to be pasty, undead, creeps who lurch around and sleep in coffins anymore. They can be a warm-blooded supernatural species. They can be just as alive as us humans and experience a host of complex of emotions, including guilt and love. The fact that they need to drink someone else’s blood to survive, in my view, makes for an interesting plot point: it creates a literal connection with their lover.

It’s more than falling in love, it’s bonding on a very basic, very primal, very physical level.

In my upcoming novella, Immortal Valentine, Angelo is a vampire who feeds once a year: on Valentine’s Day. He’s the last remaining of his kind. His race died out suddenly, and he suffers a weird kind of survivor’s guilt because of that. He can’t feed from another vampire to sustain himself, so he has to live off of humans, and he doesn’t like it.

So he lives a lonely existence, and when he must come out to feed, he makes it as special as he can. He makes it romantic. He finds himself a valentine. For one night, he and some lonely human have a romantic evening, and after they’ve done the Horizontal Mambo and Angelo’s had his fill of the blood he needs to survive, he blurs that human’s memories so he’ll be none the wiser.

But then Angelo meets Caleb. On what should be a Valentine’s Day like any other, plans go awry when Caleb falls ill. Angelo can’t drink Caleb’s blood. That guilt thing, again. And then next thing he knows, he finds himself caring for Caleb a little more than he should… He puts his own health at risk as a result.

Like Michael and Star from The Lost Boys, Angelo in Immortal Valentine is a creature who in a way doesn’t want to be what he is. All living things have a basic drive to endure, but feelings make us do funny things. Deep down he craves connection, and his inability to drain Caleb’s blood and walk away nearly costs him everything.

Or gains him things he needs and didn’t know he was looking for.

Because in my little fantasy land, sometimes even monsters need more than just survival...sometimes they also need romance. Even vampires deserve a happily ever after. Right?

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Giveaway:

Ellis has generously offered an ebook copy of Immortal Valentine to give away. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post for a chance to win.

This giveaway is open internationally, I will announce the winner on Sunday, February 12, so be sure to leave your comment before that and don’t forget to check back then or leave a way for me to contact you in your comment or profile.

Good luck to you all!

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Backblurb Immortal Valentine (releases 2/12 from Amber Allure):
After a heart-pounding brush with danger on Valentine’s Day, Caleb runs into a handsome stranger and decides to roll the dice on a one-night stand. But things don’t work out the way anyone intended when Caleb gets sick unexpectedly. He wakes up alone the next day, extremely confused and utterly embarrassed.
Angelo is an insomniac vampire who leads a solitary existence. He comes out of hiding once a year—on Valentine’s Day—to soothe one lonely human soul while drinking the blood he needs to survive. But when Caleb falls ill he winds up connecting with a human as he never has before, and putting his own life at risk when he does.

Find out more at EllisCarrington.com, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

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