Blood
Diva
VM
Gautier
Genre: Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 9781620154663
Number of pages: approx 450.
Word Count: 120,000
Book Description:
The 19th century's most infamous
party-girl is undead and on the loose in the Big Apple.
When 23 year-old Parisian courtesan,
Marie Duplessis succumbed to consumption in 1847, Charles Dickens showed up for
the funeral and reported the city mourned as though Joan of Arc had fallen.
Marie was not only a celebrity in in her own right, but her list of lovers
included Franz Liszt – the first international music superstar, and Alexandre
Dumas fils, son of the creator of The Three Musketeers. Dumas fils wrote the
novel The Lady of the Camellias based on their time together. The book became a
play, and the play became the opera La Traviata. Later came the film versions,
and the legend never died.
But what if when offered the
chance for eternal life and youth, Marie grabbed it, even when the price was
the regular death of mortals at her lovely hand?
In 2014, Marie wonders if perhaps
nearly two centuries of murder, mayhem, and debauchery is enough, especially
when she falls hard for a rising star she believes may be the reincarnation of
the only man she ever truly loved. But is it too late for her to change? Can a
soul be redeemed like a diamond necklace in hock? And even if it can, have men
evolved since the 1800′s? Or does a girl’s past still mark her?
Blood
Diva is a sometimes humorous, often dark and erotic look at sex, celebrity,
love, death, destiny, and the arts of both self-invention and seduction. It’s a
story that asks a simple question – Can a one hundred ninety year-old
demimondaine find happiness in 21st century Brooklyn without regular infusions
of fresh blood?
Excerpt:
Her bathroom was
en-suite, but could be accessed through a second door from the living room.
Rosa, who came in the mornings to clean, routinely filled the bath. There was a
timed heater that kept the water warm. Alphonsine slipped into the oversized
tub.
She dove under
the bubbles. While her kind needed to breathe, they could control respiration
and stay under for hours. She enjoyed soaking this way in very hot water,
allowing herself to think and dream. Her morning kill had been so unusual, so
exciting, she wanted to relive every detail.
She hadn’t been
planning to feed that night, though it had been almost four weeks. She could go
five, even six in a pinch, but after that long she felt so fatigued it was hard
to distinguish day from night. Pierre and she were planning to get out of town
to feast together. He often chided her for her recklessness, pointing out it
was not like the old days. Trains, planes, and automobiles made it easy to
place distance between oneself and one’s prey. No reason to kill where one
lived, but sometimes, one couldn’t help oneself.
She had left the
party feeling a particular restlessness. At first believing sex alone might be
enough to stave off the hunger, her plan had been to head downtown or back to
Brooklyn to find some pretty thing to hook up with. Then she caught a scent, felt
something unique was waiting. Violent images flooded her mind as she entered
the bar. It was coming into focus – a mortal who killed, not in war, but for
fun. While her telepathic powers were weak – she was after all still quite
young, she could sense emotions, especially strong ones, and he had been a
seething caldron of barely suppressed rage.
Under the warm
water, she could still taste it on her tongue, his blood, his essence – all of
that delicious hate, and yet in the intimacy of the death-grip, she felt more,
his humanity, as though they both were spiraling backwards in time to a moment
when even he was innocent.
She’d given him
peace. It had been a good death for him. True, she had frightened him when she
jumped out. They said in the best hunts the prey never suspected, never felt a
moment of unease, but allowances had to be made. After all, he believed he had
killed her. She couldn’t let him go to his grave thinking that.
Blood was more
than nourishment. It was a sacrament. Some said the blood itself contained the
very soul. She doubted such a thing existed. She only knew it had something – a
power, a magic like nothing else. Strange how easily satisfied beings like her
were, hardly the monsters depicted in myth. As pleasurable as it might be to hunt
and feast every night, like the noble lion, they only did so when hungry.
No two people
tasted the same – not father and son, nor brother and sister, not even twins.
This she knew from her own experience. Children’s blood had a sweetness like
the candied grapes young men once brought her as tokens between acts at the
opera. There was a freshness to young blood, like apples picked in the summer
at a perfect moment of ripeness. Teenaged girls tasted of secrets, and boys of
lust. Women, pretty ones, whose hearts had been broken had a certain tenderness
and resignation, especially if you came to them when their looks were fading,
and there wasn’t much hope. There were men who had an edge like a wine with a
bitter after taste, while others were warm and smooth. The old, whom she wasn’t
fond of, tasted of sadness, disappointment, and defeat, though they would
certainly do when convenient. Human blood, like the human voice, had different
timbres. Some had the richness and depth of a bass-baritone while others were
light but agile like a coloratura soprano.
A killer,
however, especially one who dispatched his own so remorselessly, this was a
rare treat indeed. The essence would hold within it all whom he had taken. For
her to act so boldly, to take so many chances to have him, was a risk, but what
would be the point of immortality without gambles? And she had always loved
games of chance.
When she walked
in and saw him, saw those thick arms, the sandy hair, could already feel what
it would be like to fuck him, to take him perhaps when he was inside her, she
knew she had to go through with it. The combination of lust and hunger made her
almost giddy, barely able to contain herself.
Still immersed,
Alphonsine began to touch her thighs, working up to her pussy, replaying the
night.
As soon as she
sat down at the bar it became clear he had picked her, imagined her as his next
victim. It was too delicious! A chance for play-acting. Something different and
rough.
Alphonsine
lifted her head above the water, feeling the urge to breathe. Her breaths
became quick as she felt her release, the first taste of his blood a vivid
memory. Her kind not only felt everything more strongly than mortals, but could
recall in full sensory detail.
It had been
everything she hoped. Feeling him draining, feeling his life force leaving his
body, merging into hers. That final beat of his cruel heart. A rush of
something – all his anger, perhaps? It overwhelmed her for a second and then
was gone. And he had looked so tranquil – transformed by death – beyond the
desire to hurt and kill, beyond it all, finally at rest – a gift she had
bestowed on him.
She had closed
his eyes, and kissed him once softly on the lips before beginning the task of
clean up.
The act of
remembering left her not hungry for more blood, but still unsatisfied.
About
the Author:
VM Gautier is a pseudonym. This
is not the author's first book, but it is his or her first book in this genre.
You haven't heard of him or her.
Interview:
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
What inspired you to write Blood Diva?
Interview:
Where are you from?
I've written books under my
real name, but VM Gautier is a pen name. I'll probably merge the identities
some time soon, and explain the reasons why I decided to try this. It's
actually been a lot of fun. There are tons of books, plays, and movies where
characters are never freer or more themselves as when they put on a mask. I'm
nobody you've heard of, but I don't want to give too many details or to make
stuff up. Readers could probably make an educated guess about where I'm from by
reading Blood Diva.
Tell us your latest news?
Blood Diva has been released. It's a
vampire novel with emphasis on the “vamp.” The premise is simple: What if 19th
century Paris' favorite party-girl was undead and on the loose in the Big
Apple? The main character is a vampire-version of Marie Duplessis. She was a
real person – a courtesan who died in 1847 a few weeks after her 23rd
birthday. Alexandre Dumas fils, whose
famous father wrote The Three Musketeers,
had been in love with her. He wrote The
Lady of the Camellias about her. It was a bestseller and became a play,
then an opera – La Traviata – which
is still performed today. (It was the opera that Richard Gere takes Julia
Roberts to in Pretty Woman.)
The story in Dumas' novel and
the opera is basically “bad girl” falls in love, reforms, sacrifices everything
for her lover and dies. In Blood Diva,
the main character falls in love with a mortal, who reminds her a lot of an old
love. She is willing to sacrifice everything to be with him – even her
immortality.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think fiction writers –
like musicians – are born. I've been telling stories in my head since before I
can remember. If you write, you are writer. You might not be a writer who makes
money at it, or a writer who makes enough money to quit your day job. You might
not even show your work to other people, let alone publish it, but you are
still a writer. Whether or not you are any good at it is another matter. That
takes work as well as talent.
What inspired you to write Blood Diva?
Marie Duplessis inspired
me. She lived for such a short time. She didn't rule a country. She didn't
invent anything. She wasn't a singer, or an actress or a painter. Yet, she
became a muse who inspired writers, musicians, and artists, and continues to do
so long after her death.
I wanted to tell her story
in a different way. I also wanted to write something that would appeal to a
wide audience including people who maybe don't read a lot of history. I was
thinking about experimenting with genres I hadn't written in before –
historical romance, erotica, horror. I was thinking about how a lot of the
current popular novels borrow from old stories. Fifty Shades may have started as Twilight fan fiction, but the idea of the virtuous woman reforming
and taming the damaged man, sounds like Jane
Eyre. (Both Jane and Ana have to deal with the crazy exes of their lovers.)
What I attempted to do was tell a modern version of The Lady of the Camellias, but one that has some different twists.
For one, the impediment to true love in Dumas' novel was social class and the
fact that the main character had a scandalous past. In Blood Diva, it's that she's an immortal who preys on humans.
Do you have a specific writing style?
I try to get into the head
of my characters and see the world from their point of view, so sometimes the
style seems different depending on the character. The prologue of Blood Diva is from the viewpoint of a
very dark character and is more noirish than the rest of the book. Most of the
book is through the main character's eyes. She's not exactly unreliable as a
narrator, but being a cold-blooded, immortal bloodsucker, her viewpoint can be
a bit disturbing at times. Readers who enjoy seeing the world through very
different eyes will enjoy that.
How did you come up with the title?
The title came to me pretty early “Diva” is another word for
goddess. Before we started calling all women with difficult temperaments divas,
it was used to describe opera stars. Marie Duplessis was associated with the
opera, so I thought the word “diva” could describe her. Also in a sense, she is
always performing. She's been used
since her death as kind of a honeypot – a trap to bring wealth into the vampire
community. In Blood Diva, the
vampires think of themselves as “gods,” divine beings above humanity. But they
don't create. They only destroy, and they are sustained by human blood, hence “blood diva.”
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Any good novel will have some kind of message, perhaps several. If
the writer needs to explain what it is, he or she probably hasn't done a great
job. I'll leave it to readers to find and interpret the message or messages for
themselves.
How much of the book is based on reality or real events?
Regarding the historical
Marie Duplessis, I tried to stick to some of what we actually know about her.
She was born Alphonsin e Plessis. In Blood Diva, she still thinks of herself as
Alphonsine. She had an awful childhood. Her mother abandoned the family and
died when she was still very young. Her father probably abused her sexually,
and almost certainly sold her to men who did. She arrived in Paris when she was
fourteen and worked for a short time as a laundress until she realized that
pretty girls had other options. There's a lot we don't know because she lied a
lot. She didn't keep a journal and we don't have many of her letters. In
creating a fictionalized version of her, I speculated on what we don't know and
can't know – her true feelings. In the historical scenes, I tried to mix the
real and the fictitious in a way where a reader who hadn't just read a
biography wouldn't be able to tell which was which. None of the contemporary
characters are based on real people. However, I hope that they behave like real people – that readers
find them realistic.
What books have most influenced you?
I read a lot and I read in different genres. For Blood Diva, I'd have to credit Anne Rice
as a big influence. I think anyone writing vampire fiction after Interview With a Vampire owes her a
great deal – even if they've never read a word she wrote. Interview changed everything we thought we knew about vampires. It
also allowed authors to explore the genre and create their own versions of the
vampire myth. Mostly, it allowed vampires to become protagonists, full-bodied
characters, and not just personifications of evil that must be destroyed. It
challenged us as readers, to think about vampirism seriously. Who wouldn't want
to be young and beautiful for eternity? But would we still want that if the
price was .taking human life to survive?
What writer has taught you the most about writing? Who are your
literary mentors?
There are lots of writers
who offer useful information and guidelines. Elmore Leonard's much-quoted Ten Rules for Good Writing is a great
common-sense starting out point. You can also learn a lot from readers and
other writers – even if they aren't the best or most famous writers in the
world. If you work with a group of people, and they ALL think there's something
off about your beginning, then there is something off about your beginning.
It's great if you get to meet one of your idols or take a workshop or a class,
but most of us will never have those opportunities. Besides, I'm not convinced
that the best writers necessarily make the best teachers.
If you are working on
developing yourself as a writer, you can learn from the books you love most.
Let them be your teachers. The trick is to begin to read them with a writer's
eye, to think about what the writer is doing and try to figure out how he or she is doing it. You can read
advice like: “Start where the story is,” but I guarantee this will make much
more sense if you open five of your favorite books and study how each one starts.
Once you figure out what
good writing looks like (to you), it's easier to begin to recognize when it's
working in your own writing, to the point where you may have some “Eureka”
moments and know when something is right. You may also learn to recognize when
it isn't working, and the only thing to do is try again and again till it is.
Some writers have written
great books about developing yourself as a writer. Stephen King's On Writing, is a wonderful investment,
and many are now offering so much on websites absolutely free.
So the answer to the first
question is, I have learned from every writer I've ever read, and to the second
– I have a lot of mentors.
What book are you reading now?
I'm reading The Good Lord
Bird by James McBride. It's historical fiction – no vampires or
supernatural beings. Like Blood Diva,
it uses real historical characters fictitiously. It takes place prior to the
civil war, and involves a completely fictional character – Henry who orphaned
at age ten, winds up under the care of abolitionist John Brown. It's dark and
funny, with a body count that would make my vampires blush. If you like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and/or Little Big Man, you will like
this.
Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest? The Guardian recently started a
“Self-Published Book of the Month” feature, running on their blog.
Unfortunately, it's only open to residents of the UK, but I think it's an
enormous step for self-publishing. I have all of the winners so far on my
to-be-read list (and their works loaded onto my kindle.) They are Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers by Tom
Moran, The Right of the Subjects by
Jude Starling, The Gift of Looking
Closely by Al Brookes, and Shoot the
Savage by LM Latham.
What are your current projects?
I have a blog – www.blooddiva.com that I post on
frequently. I'm also interacting a lot with readers on facebook and twitter.
I'm not working on anything new right now, but people have started asking about
a sequel. Blood Diva was written as a
stand alone, but you never know.
I'd like all readers to know how much they are
appreciated by writers. Writers don't write for money. They write to be read.
I'd love to hear from you on facebook or twitter or to read your comments on my
blog. If you've got questions about the book, I'd love to answer them.
Tour Giveaway
5 signed paperbacks (to US ONLY)
2 Gorgeous Blood Diva mugs (US only)
3 Amazon Gift Certificates for $3.99
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