Vamp in The Big Easy

My first full length book for Avon will be Into the Darkness, which won't release until April 2007. I've been writing vampires for a while now for Ellora's Cave, so when I decided to strike out and tackle Avon, I went with a genre I love. ITD is the first in what I hope will be a series of stories about vampires and other creatures of the night. The book has gone through copy edits and is pretty much "in the can" now, so I'm working on the sequel at the moment. I've had a great time building my world for this story. I set it in New Orleans (I know, another vamp in The Big Easy!), but from there I've built a very distinct world with a rich history and an over-arching evil my heroes and heroines must battle. This is the premise for the story: Natalie Lambert's life has changed in the space of weeks—and she has no idea why. Her parents were murdered, she has her first taste of sexual desire—and she feels out of control, afraid, desperate to understand her changing world. She flees to New Orleans, hoping to lure the murderer out of the dark and bring to an end the trail of dead loved ones. Instead, she's attacked by crazed birds, swarmed by locusts, and saved by a Cajun cop who awakens all her latent desires. When Rene Broussard rescues a virgin vampire, he ends up in her bed and becomes hers for life in one lusty bite. Rene awakens the vampire within Natalie, and she awakes the passion within him. Together, they fight the evil threatening to destroy The Born vampires while they discover a treasure of love they can share for all eternity. [note: beta blogger is being goofy if you have issues posting use the option 'other' and type in your name... if you use anon, make sure you type your name in the post]