Andrew Q. Gordon

Thank you to Rosemary A Johns for joining us today to Run the Bases with Andrew Q Gordon.  You will want to check out her Rebel Vampires series when you are done with interview.  Links are at the bottom. 

• When you began writing Blood Dragons how much of the Rebel Vampires series was planned out?

Firstly, thanks for having me on Andrew!

I always know the first scene…and the last one. Rebel Vampires is set in a paranormal secret London where vampires are both predator and prey. I knew where the first trilogy was going because this was a redemptive journey for the main British vampire anti-hero.

Blood Dragons – is about a man losing his humanity and then discovering it again – through love. In the secondbook (Blood Shackles) Light – the ultimate rebel – has become a slave to humans. He battles for his species’ freedom, whilst discovering love and family. Blood Renegades is about the difference between freedom and terrorism – and is a passionate thriller, as Light realises the meaning of home.

It’s exciting to see how it develops and builds…

• What is the strangest thing you researched for this series?

There are so many!! I loved researching rude Victorian slang for when Light was first elected into Blood Life…

The weirdest in Blood Renegades was the behaviour of a chimp, which would have been raised by a human child… Say hello to Mr Darwin: the chimp least likely to ever have a tea party and who can use sign language, or (as Light calls him): ‘the hairy wanker’.

• Your Alessandro has many autistic characteristics, was that intentional or a natural evolution?

Rebel Vampires was sparked by my own son who’s an autistic savant (his memory is photographic). The main character – Light – is a savant as well. It made me wonder what it’d be like to live through the centuries, witnessing all the horrors and glories, and remember them with the clarity of a photograph. Whether it’d be a blessing or a curse.

Alessandro is an autistic Blood Lifer, although he was elected before these labels. Blood Lifers only choose the best of each generation, and it was intentional and important to me that it included an autistic person. I wanted a mainstream book to include a range of characters – all different, including their sexuality and backgrounds, not to mention Elizabethan to Rocker – without it being about ‘disability’, for example. Instead, it’s about humanity.

We’re all individuals. My books stand for the rebel inside all of us!

• What can we expect to see from you next?

Blood Renegades releases on June 13^th. It’s out for pre-order now and on paperback.

Blood Renegades is written as an interrogation in a terrorist Inquiry. It’s set on and beneath London Bridge: with the recent London attacks that feels more than real. The Blood Life Council (vampire equivalent of Westminster) believes Light to be the leader of the terrorist Renegades. The idea of fanatics and the line between terrorist and freedom fighter is compelling.

The next series will be Rebel Werewolves! Set in Oxford, it will do what Rebel Vampires does for vampires: reinvent the werewolf myth for the modern-day.

Thanks, this has been fun!

Prepare to escape into Blood Life today…

~Blood Dragons: http://viewbook.at/BloodDragons

~Blood Shackles: http://viewbook.at/BloodShackles

~Blood Renegades: http://viewbook.at/BloodRenegades

Official Trailer for Rebel Vampires:

About the Author

Rosmary A Johns Urban Portraits

WINNER OF SILVER AWARD in the National Wishing Shelf Book Awards.

ROSEMARY A JOHNS is the author of the bestselling Blood Dragons and Blood Shackles – the compelling Rebel Vampires series. Blood Renegades is the thrilling third installment.

ROSEMARY A JOHNS is a music fanatic and a paranormal anti-hero addict who creates spellbinding worlds, thrilling action, gripping suspense and passionate romances, all uniquely told. She wrote her first fantasy novel at the age of ten, when she discovered the weird worlds inside her head were more exciting than double swimming. Since then she’s studied history at Oxford University, run a theatre company (her critically acclaimed plays have been described as “uncomfortable, unsettling and uneasily true to life”), and worked with disability charities.

When Rosemary’s not falling in love with the rebels fighting their way onto the page, she heads the Oxford writing group Dreaming Spires.

Rosemary is a Goodreads Author: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15571684.Rosemary_A_Johns

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