Why Vampire Romances Have Bite by Theresa Meyers

Ever wonder why you never hear of vampires that are thousands of years old? Author Theresa Meyers answers that question with her new book from Silhouette Nocturne Bites, Salvation of the Damned.  Find out what inspired this paranormal romance story and how Theresa gave her vampires some extra bite…

By Theresa Meyers, author of Salvation of the Damned

Vampires have been perhaps one of the most popular characters in recent paranormal fiction. Sure there’s your werefolk, fairies, demons and what not. But vamps? They’ve got a serious following, just ask any girl under 20 about one word, Twilight, and see what happens.

But why? One reason I think people like vampires is that everybody has a fascination with immortality. If people didn’t, why would there be so many religions in the world? As characters, vampires interest me because you have someone who is the total embodiment of irony. They are afraid of death (hence why they want to be immortal – those that chose it anyway), and yet they are in essence dead, and in most mythologies must cause death to “live”. Those that didn’t choose to be changed are always struggling to find a way to live. I also like the fact that they have perspective. Most vampire tales have characters that are hundreds of years old. You can’t live that long without learning a thing or two! It makes them more interesting and galvanizes their character. My introduction to vampires began when I watched the movie The Lost Boys as a tween in the early 80′s. Loved it!

The vampires in my debut Nocturne Bite, Salvation of the Damned, came about for two reasons. First I had this incredibly vivid dream of a man and woman dancing together that later involved a casket with a fanged skeleton that seemed to morph into her, almost as if invisible spiders were weaving a web that filled out to become her body. Weird, I know. I’m still not sure what I ate for dinner that night. But it was so intense that I woke up and had to write it down. Once I wrote it, I started to think about it. Then I asked one simple question. Why is it you never hear of vampires that are thousands of years old? They are always hundreds of years old. If they are immortal, why is that?

The more I thought about it the more it became apparent to me that there had to be some biological reason. Bacteria and viruses can bring down even the most powerful predator. I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with Minoans, Crete, the Etruscans – basically the cultures in the Mediterranean that settled before the Greeks. Their worship of bulls, and the use of blood sacrifice to appease these gods, made me think of vampires. Somehow the two morphed together, and poof, you’ve got Theresa’s Take on Vampires.

My vampires are afflicted with a virus that only becomes activated and deadly to them once every thousand years. Without the sacrifice of the right mortal, they all risk turning their true chronological age in 48 hours. When somebody goes from looking 25 to looking 2,500 years old in 48 hours, it’s not pretty!

Raphael is the designated hunter of the sacrifice. His job seems rather simple. Locate the mortal sacrifice, seduce so thoroughly, that she’ll willingly give up her life and mortal soul, and bring her to the ceremony. But things are hardly ever as simple as they seem. Only once in six thousand years has he ever fallen in love with the sacrifice, and it nearly made him lose his mind and long for death. He vowed never to let it happen again. That is until he meets the reincarnation of his beloved, and has to make the choice to sacrifice her a second time, or risk let his kind become extinct.

Of course the sacrifice alone won’t keep them alive. It only holds back the virus for a thousand years. My vampires still need blood to survive (although a lot of them find alternative sources rather than fresh feed and they often do eat more than just the blood – see spider note below). All their senses are amped up beyond normal human capacity. Their senses, vision, hearing, taste and touch are far more sensitive than the average human, as is their strength, which has certain benefits as well as repercussions.

They can go into the sun, but choose not to, first because their pupils are so sensitive bright light gives them horrible headaches (ever had your eyes dilated at the eye doctor’s?), and their skin is sensitive to light (can you say sunburn with SPF 50)? Not fun. They also can crush things like cannon balls with their bare hands, so having a vampire handle a human in the midst of an intimate moment can get dicey, if you want the human to survive. My vamps also have venom (rather like snakes have in their hollow fangs), which has an almond flavor, and that’s what’s actually deadly to humans. It starts a kind of liquefaction process like spiders do to ingest insects. Again that biology thing.

But I digress. There are so many different kinds of vampires out there today that there’s truly something for everyone (even “vegetarian” vampires!) Vampires in paranormal romance have bite because they are bigger than life. (They are immortal!) They are incredibly sensual. They allow us as readers to do, see and experience things that we only imagine, which can be incredibly entertaining. More than that, they cater to our curiosity about what we could achieve or be if we just had more time.

All in all, I think vamps deserve their place as leaders in the paranormal romance realm, what about you? What’s your favorite paranormal creature and why?

Thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. I hope you enjoy reading about my brand of vampires in Salvation of the Damned. Let me know what you think of it. You can find me online at www.theresameyers.com.

Warm Regards (because I’m not, repeat, not a vampire),
Theresa Meyers

Note from Amy: You can get $5 off our ebook exclusives — including Salvation of the Damned — when you spend $20+ on the eHarlequin eBook Store. Click here for more details and to get the coupon code. Plus, visit Theresa’s blog to learn about her contest to go along with her blog tour.