Please welcome Michele Flagg, author of Retribution! Book I, The Champion Chronicles.

Hi Dayana! Thanks for inviting me as a guest blogger. I’m a Black Rose author with The Wild Rose Press. My first series, The Champion Chronicles includes Book 1: Retribution! and Book 2: Consequences. Book 3: Inheritance is still wrapping up. Please visit my web site, www.Mflagg-author.com to learn more. Since it is paranormal peak season, I’ll offer some words about “good” vampires who leave a lasting impression. So it’s back to the 1960s. We can certainly time-travel, right? If you weren’t around then, think of this as a previous life experience!

I went to a strict, all-girls Catholic high school. Imagine the surprise when one of our assignments was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Required reading!? Good literature aside, it’s a demon! I’ll be saying Hail Marys until 1970! Well, Stoker’s words sent chills down my spine. So much so that I closed the book at page 10 with my heart racing and took a failing grade. Unthinkable if you know me, but true!

A year later, enter Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows. That vamp had mystery, as well as a bit of good in him. Hmmm… After conning my sister Linda into taking me and my best friend into Manhattan, we met the actor who played him, not once but quite a few times. Maybe that’s where the fascination with good vampires starts.

During a particular low point in my life, I stood in a bookstore searching for something to take me away from hideous reality. A woman approached, saying “Read any Anne Rice?” A blank stare and a slow shake of my head was the answer. She thrust a book in my hand, which was over a decade old, whispering, “Trust me…it’s really good.” While watching my children swim like crazy fish in the pool, I devoured Interview with a Vampire. Thank goodness for the pizza delivery man!

Louis intrigued me. That vamp had passion, mystery, and sorrowful good in him. Did the desire to create my own vampire begin here? Nope. Keep reading.

In 1999, my teenage son introduced me to another vampire. Wait a minute? Don’t vamps lose their souls? Zoom to 2005. Laboring through completing a second masters in two years while teaching full-time, I vowed that as soon as this was over, I’d do something different. Call it a whim, but I decided to create my own vampire…and maybe I’d redeem him, just for the heck of it!

My son and I discussed vampire lore. “Write it, Mom,” he said. Okay, I thought, maybe ten pages of run-on sentences. But I had my own surreal drama churning. Linda listened to depressed ramblings as only a loving sister would. “Forget it all…just write,” she said. I did. My daughter echoed the mantra. I got so involved with my paranormal love story that I didn’t even realize I’d given my parents’ names to my main characters. Embarrassing, but totally true! Other people from my life morphed onto the pages. When I stopped, 120,000 words filled a file on my laptop entitled, Retribution!

Michael Malone, my good vampire, is mystically enhanced (Hey…it’s my paranormal world and I can do what I want). He reclaimed his soul in 1890. In 1990, the vampire sees a girl with her father just before dawn. Years later, he realizes that she is his salvation. But Alana’s now a Guardian of Souls who destroys demons that lurk in the night. To further complicate Michael’s undead life, he has fathered a human son, tricked by a dark seer. The newborn is taken away from Michael and raised in safety. Alana turns 21, and Michael cannot contain love for her anymore. He sleeps with the innocent woman, who breaks a timeless vow. But more importantly, the beast within Michael resurfaces. They never speak again until… Michael’s road to redemption turns bumpy. His son is made to pay for the sins of the father. Lukas, at 13, hunts his undead parent. Alana moves to Portofino. Michael makes a deal with Evil on earth to save Lukas. He calculates revenge. When vengeance is served, Michael is thrown into the depths of near-insanity and begins to weave a tale of redemption with the angel Helena. Only Alana can save him. Thus, Retribution! begins.

Why did I write about a vampire? It’s fun! The creation of a paranormal world offers plenty of wiggle room for interesting characters and supernatural twists rooted in reality. Of course, I can also guarantee the happy ending. Book 2: Consequences takes up Michael’s quest for redemption. Book 3: Inheritance reveals Lukas’s destiny. I love a “good” vampire story. Let’s hear it for the vamps that take us out of this world and into theirs!

I am eternally grateful to my editor, Callie Lynn Wolfe, for her guidance and belief in this new writer, and to The Wild Rose Press, for allowing me the chance to share my stories.

So if you know a “good” vamp, let’s hear from you! Leave a comment and it may entitle you to a Wild Rose Gift Certificate, which you can use now—or for the release of Retribution! The Champion Book Chronicles: Book 1. I know…shameless self promotion! Thanks again for having me, Dayana.

It’s been an interesting new “first” for me!

Mickey Flagg