If You Were My Vampire (a Shades Below Novel) By: L.J.K. Oliva

If You Were My Vampire

        A Shades Below Novel

              By: L.J.K. Oliva

     Ok, before I begin I do wish to inform because as you will notice in the title, this says that it is ‘A Shades Below Novel’ that this book can also be read as a stand-alone novel, so you don’t have to feel obligated to purchase a prior book, unless of course, you want to. The decision is yours, and you will have no problems following along, if you haven’t read any of Ms. Oliva books. Although I can assure you, once you experience her writing, you will want to. Just a heads up from me. ::grin::

     Grace Alan is very beautiful woman, and as a member of a very intuitive family, she is one of those people who is always aware of her surrounding, in more ways than one. There’s just one thing, she has spent most of her life isolated away from people, because she has a hard time trying to be a normal person. 

     Finally, Grace has found a beau that she can relate to and has captured her heart, and is everything she has ever dreamt of, and he is even quite handsome too. His name is Asher Evans, and he is someone who is and has been haunted by history, because wouldn’t you know it, he had been turned into a vampire in a concentration camp that claimed his entire family. 

     Asher has never been the same since the loss of his humanity. He has forced himself to face his eternity alone, and never planned on meeting someone he could actually love and care for, that is until he met Grace.

     Then the unthinkable happens, and Grace is murdered. 

      Asher accidentally stumbles upon the dying Grace, and find his heart is now in his throat. He knows he should leave well enough alone, but she understood him. She never once seen him as a monster, or a creature of the night. He admires her beauty in her lifeless and still body, and remembers that she reminds him what it is like to be human.

     Asher knows rescuing Grace will have consequences. The World has deemed female Vampires illegal for centuries now, and the choice Asher has made may have caused complications now for both of them.

     Now together Grace and Asher will try and survive the mortal world without trying to get noticed, and creating enemies along the way. Together they hope that their love can protect them, and help them evade other mortal enemies.

     This book is a beautifully written five-star romantic book, that will make you fall in love with romance all over again. Some may think Vampires are always bloody and evil, but not this time. This book is truly a romantic read that shows you, love can come in all different shapes and sizes, and that it doesn’t matter, love will always prevail over all else. I truly enjoyed this book, and am glad I had the opportunity to read it! 

My question for Laura:

1. What made you write this book and how long did it take you?

Hi Deneale! Thanks so much for having me over again. It's always a pleasure!

Basically, I wrote this book for Asher. I introduced him in my last Shades Below novel, The Devil's Disease, and I really enjoyed the glimpse into his character- in particular, the way he interacted with Grace. There was a lot simmering under the surface of their interactions, so it was a real pleasure to dive in and unpack all that in If You Were My Vampire.

2. Do you have any photos or descriptions of your characters?

Absolutely! I'm a bit obsessed with creating companion graphics for my books. Here are a couple that capture how I imagine Asher and Grace would look:

3. Who designed this beautiful cover?

I did, and I'm so glad you like it! I started designing and creating all my own book covers right around the beginning of this year. I had been honing my skill on those graphics I mentioned, and am finally at a point where I feel able to create covers that meet my own standards of professionalism.

4. Do you ever put yourself into your characters?

All. The. Time.

You always hear the classic writing advice to Write What You Know, and different writers have different opinions about just what that means. For me, it means digging down and finding the part of my characters that is true for me, that I know personally. I don't know what it's like to be a vampire, but I know what it's like to be an outsider, to want things that aren't good for me, to have hungers I don't know how to fill. I start with those core kernels of truth, then weave my characters around them.

5. Do you wish-- or are you a Vampire? 🤣😜 or is it a secret?

I admit to nothing ;-) *looks around for Watchmen*

6. What do you hope to be when you grow up?

Living the dream, mama. Living the dream. :-)

7. What led you into writing and how long have you been at it?

Personally, I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I've always loved stories, and before I could write, I acted them out with my dolls. Professionally, I've been writing for about five years now. When my son was born, I wanted a job with flexible hours that I could do from home. I threw all my chips in the writing basket, and have never looked back!

8. What is your upmost favorite book and why?

That's such a hard question, haha! There are so many books that have had a profound influence on me, both as a writer and a person. That said, my favorite book remains Redwall, by Brian Jacques. It's the first book I can remember my mom reading to me when I was a kid, and the book that made me fall in love with words. I even named my son after the main character.

9. What are you working on now?

I have a few projects simmering at the moment. First up is a short story that features my vampire constable Seneca Lynch and Grace's friend, Tonio Ramirez. The interplay and innuendo between them in If You Were My Vampire was a lot of fun to write, so I'm going to go behind the scenes and let them have some fun ;-)

Next up, I'll be writing the second novella in my Shades Below Shorts series: Thicker Than Water. I had initially planned to write it before If You Were My Vampire, but Emil and Puzzle weren't ready to talk to me yet. Now they are, and I'm really excited for their new adventure!

After that, I'm writing Shades Below, #3: Ghost In The Machine. In it, Lena is still reeling from Grace's death when a freak accident at The Wayfare Hotel sets her adrift in space and time.  MacMillian has to race the clock and the cosmos, and must decide just how far he's willing to go to bring her home.

10. Have you ever regretted ending a book or character?

Not yet, however, there are a few characters in the Shades Below series who might not make it to the end. If and when their time comes, I'll definitely be sad to say goodbye.

11. What do you do for writers block? If you have never had it what do you suggest?

I definitely struggle with slumps, as I think everyone does. I generally don't label it "writers block" though. Being a bit of a hippie, I believe naming something gives it power over me, which only makes things worse.

When I'm in a slump, I've found the only way through it is, well, through it. I sit down and set my timer, and write like a madwoman for solid twenty-five minute increments, with five minute brain breaks in between. I give myself permission to suck. I accept that the words I'm putting down probably won't be my best, and allow myself to be okay with that. After all, this is why God made editing.

Usually, my slumps only last for a scene, maybe a chapter. Once I've written myself out of whatever rut I was in, I keep going through the story. Later, once I have some distance, I go back and go over what I came up with. If it needs tweaking or finessing, I do that.

Above all, I just keep writing.

12. Please share with us your social media and book links::

Sure! You can find me all over the place. Here are my current haunts:

Website: http://ljkolivabooks.com

Amazon- http://www.amazon.com/author/lauraoliva

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/ljk.oliva (friend me!)

Goodreads- https://www.goodreads.com/LauraOlivaBooks

Pinterest- http://www.pinterest.com/authorljkoliva/

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/lauraolivabooks/

If you're interested in a no-risk, all-reward introduction to my books, I offer a free Shades Below Starter Library when you sign up for my mailing list. You can claim yours by signing up here: http://eepurl.com/cF3H_5

And finally, here is where my books currently live:

A WORLD APART (Shades Below, #1)

https://ljkolivabooks.com/shades-below-series-2/shades-below-novels/book-1-a-world-apart/

PTOLEMY'S TABLET (Shades Below Shorts, #1)

https://ljkolivabooks.com/shades-below-series-2/the-shades-below-shorts/shades-below-short-1-ptolemys-tablet/

SEASON OF THE WITCH (Shades Below, #1.5)

https://ljkolivabooks.com/shades-below-series-2/shades-below-novels/book-1-5-season-of-the-witch/

THE DEVIL'S DISEASE (Shades Below, #2)

https://ljkolivabooks.com/shades-below-series-2/shades-below-novels/book-2-the-devils-disease/

IF YOU WERE MY VAMPIRE (Shades Below, #2.5)

https://ljkolivabooks.com/shades-below-series-2/shades-below-novels/book-2-5-if-you-were-my-vampire/

13. Anything to add...

Nothing besides thank you again for the interview! It's been a blast :-)

    

If You Were My Vampire by L.J.K. Oliva
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ok, before I begin I do wish to inform because as you will notice in the title, this says that it is ‘A Shades Below Novel’ that this book can also be read as a stand-alone novel, so you don’t have to feel obligated to purchase a prior book, unless of course, you want to. The decision is yours, and you will have no problems following along, if you haven’t read any of Ms. Oliva books. Although I can assure you, once you experience her writing, you will want to. Just a heads up from me. ::grin::

Grace Alan is very beautiful woman, and as a member of a very intuitive family, she is one of those people who is always aware of her surrounding, in more ways than one. There’s just one thing, she has spent most of her life isolated away from people, because she has a hard time trying to be a normal person.

Finally, Grace has found a beau that she can relate to and has captured her heart, and is everything she has ever dreamt of, and he is even quite handsome too. His name is Asher Evans, and he is someone who is and has been haunted by history, because wouldn’t you know it, he had been turned into a vampire in a concentration camp that claimed his entire family.

Asher has never been the same since the loss of his humanity. He has forced himself to face his eternity alone, and never planned on meeting someone he could actually love and care for, that is until he met Grace.

Then the unthinkable happens, and Grace is murdered.

Asher accidentally stumbles upon the dying Grace, and find his heart is now in his throat. He knows he should leave well enough alone, but she understood him. She never once seen him as a monster, or a creature of the night. He admires her beauty in her lifeless and still body, and remembers that she reminds him what it is like to be human.

Asher knows rescuing Grace will have consequences. The World has deemed female Vampires illegal for centuries now, and the choice Asher has made may have caused complications now for both of them.

Now together Grace and Asher will try and survive the mortal world without trying to get noticed, and creating enemies along the way. Together they hope that their love can protect them, and help them evade other mortal enemies.

This book is a beautifully written five-star romantic book, that will make you fall in love with romance all over again. Some may think Vampires are always bloody and evil, but not this time. This book is truly a romantic read that shows you, love can come in all different shapes and sizes, and that it doesn’t matter, love will always prevail over all else. I truly enjoyed this book, and am glad I had the opportunity to read it!

View all my reviews

The Spirus By: JB Trepagnier

The Spirus

By: JB Trepagnier

Belisarus was the person who had raised Soryn, as well as her tutor.  He explained to her, that she was different, and everything about her needed to be kept hidden. 

There were the Farkhi, Tarks, Theran, and the Tempris. Four different types of tribes that these people could change into four different forms, and Soryn could do everything each one of them could do. Belisarus never told Soryn why she was able to change into all the forms.

Soryn had questions, always. And no one ever had any answers for her. She had heard stories, knew of routines, and how things were done, but the thing is, it was always different for her, but why?

Soryn had a best friend, whom she created while playing her flute. The animals would gather around her while she would play it, and she adored them. And she longed for a friend, therefore she created: Frog. But she is uncertain as to how she created him, except that it happened when she played her flute. Belsarus told her to get rid of him, but she didn’t. Frog protected her, and she him.

There is a castle, which Soryn makes her way up to because Belsarus is much too old and he needs to tell Esylle something. He had once been her tutor as well. When Soryn revealed herself to Esylle, from a swan to herself, she used the call to your blood method. This startled Esylle. Immediately, Esylle thought that Soryn was her missing or stolen daughter: Lisana. And not just because Soryn could call to her blood, but because Soryn even looked like her. 
 

Please note the swan has frogs on it!

When Leodos, a human had people from the other tribes look at Soryn, they seen something in her, and kissed her hand. This shocked him, and he then knew she was something far different from what he had expected. But he was still certain that Soryn was not Esylle’s daughter. However, Esylle, missing and needing, and wanting her long-lost daughter, felt differently, and she wanted it to be true more than anything. 

The four tribes had always heard about a girl who would have all of the abilities, the true Spirus, but they just thought it was a myth. A myth until Leodos exposed it. Now she could be in danger, and even Leodos knew this.

But Soryn delivered her message, a message to learn who she was, and in order to have it completely fulfilled to learn who she is, Esylle must come back to see and meet with Belsarus. Fortunately, with much argument from Leodos and many other of Esylle’s guards, eventually she agrees, because she is just as curious as Soryn is. 

Now in order for you to know all of the secrets, you must read this fabulous five-star book, and see for yourself. I don’t want to tell you everything and have you know from cover to cover because that just isn’t fair. But what I will tell you is this: I loved how the chapters were foretold by each person. That made it much easier to follow along. I loved that part, I wish more writers would do that, it makes it a lot less confusing. This book would make for an excellent movie, like a fairy tale kind of mystery. I really enjoyed every bit of this, and I think I found myself a new favorite writer!

My questions for JB:

1. What made you write this book and how long did it take? I have sleep disorders and most of my ideas come from my dreams. I have a basic idea and just take it from there. I usually stick to literary fiction, but I had this idea for fantasy kicking around the back of my head from a drea. The Spirus took about 4 months to write, then I wrote a prequel for it, that took about 2 months to complete.


2. Who designed this amazing cover? I do all my covers, from photos, to design, unless I lack the props I need. The cover for the Spirus, the model essentially stood against a solid wall with a spotlight, then I hand painted the background because the wall was a dark color and didn't fit with what I wanted. Then it went through several filters until it looked the way I wanted. I probably have at least 10 other alternate covers for this book that didn't make it in a folder on my computer where covers go to die


3. Do you have photos or descriptions of Tempris or Spirus? I don't have any photos other than what I see in my head. The Tempris are all pale skinned with red hair and violet eyes. The Spirus is also pale skinned with violet eyes, but her eyes are slightly slanted because her father was part Tark. The Tarks are generally very tall with black hair that they keep short with slanted eyes. The Theran are all blonde with green eyes. The Farkhi have ebony skin and eyes and they paint their skin.


4. Do you ever put yourself into your characters? Several things that have happened to me in real life end up in my books. The Special Agent Mauve series is meant to be funny and half the things that go wrong on her missions actually happened to me in real life. Totally once thought it was a good idea to eat an eggroll at a gas station and ended up with food poisoning while on a road trip


5. How long have you been writing AND what gives you the desire to write? I've been writing since I was 14. I write because it's better to get it out on paper than have these ideas screaming at me at 2am when I'm trying to sleep


6. What all education have you had? Education where I live is actually really bad. I grew up going to school in a special program that you have to test to get into, then you have to keep a certain GPA or you get kicked out and have to go to a regular school. I mentioned this program in one of my books. I have a major and 3 minors in art related field, though none of them are creative writing. My minors were all writing heavy and I had to write critiques of plays, dance performances, and works of art. I think the paper I'm most proud of is the fact that I managed to BS my way through an 8 page paper on the importance of dogs in Northern Dutch Renaissance Paintings before Facebook, dog shaming, and cat memes existed



7. Have you ever had writers block? If yes or not, what do you suggest to get through it? Oh, god yes, They need to make a pill for that. If it hits me, I try to have an alternate book in the background to work on or I start making test covers. I've recently decided to make audio versions of my books, so if it hits again, I'm going to retreat to a blanket fort and record



8. What are your hobbies? I play a few instruments and recently decided I wanted to teach myself guitar. I like performing with the local community theatre when my work schedule isn't totally horrible and I can commit to rehearsals. I'll drop in to dance classes when I have the time. I haven't popped into a dance class recently because my knees have decided they hate me



9. What is your favorite book of all time and why? Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. This was the first book I ever read where I was sitting there like David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor. WHAT? What?



10. Please share with us your social media and book links:

Amazon is here-

amazon.com/author/jbtrepagnier

Pronoun is here-https://books.pronoun.com/jbtrepagnier/

Everything else is slowly being uploaded to ibooks, kobo, Barnes and Noble, Page Foundry, and Scribd. Salome is not on Scribd because I was told it's too naughty

The Spirus by J.B. Trepagnier
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Belisarus was the person who had raised Soryn, as well as her tutor. He explained to her, that she was different, and everything about her needed to be kept hidden.

There were the Farkhi, Tarks, Theran, and the Tempris. Four different types of tribes that these people could change into four different forms, and Soryn could do everything each one of them could do. Belisarus never told Soryn why she was able to change into all the forms.

Soryn had questions, always. And no one ever had any answers for her. She had heard stories, knew of routines, and how things were done, but the thing is, it was always different for her, but why?

Soryn had a best friend, whom she created while playing her flute. The animals would gather around her while she would play it, and she adored them. And she longed for a friend, therefore she created: Frog. But she is uncertain as to how she created him, except that it happened when she played her flute. Belsarus told her to get rid of him, but she didn’t. Frog protected her, and she him.

There is a castle, which Soryn makes her way up to because Belsarus is much too old and he needs to tell Esylle something. He had once been her tutor as well. When Soryn revealed herself to Esylle, from a swan to herself, she used the call to your blood method. This startled Esylle. Immediately, Esylle thought that Soryn was her missing or stolen daughter: Lisana. And not just because Soryn could call to her blood, but because Soryn even looked like her.

When Leodos, a human had people from the other tribes look at Soryn, they seen something in her, and kissed her hand. This shocked him, and he then knew she was something far different from what he had expected. But he was still certain that Soryn was not Esylle’s daughter. However, Esylle, missing and needing, and wanting her long-lost daughter, felt differently, and she wanted it to be true more than anything.

The four tribes had always heard about a girl who would have all of the abilities, the true Spirus, but they just thought it was a myth. A myth until Leodos exposed it. Now she could be in danger, and even Leodos knew this.

But Soryn delivered her message, a message to learn who she was, and in order to have it completely fulfilled to learn who she is, Esylle must come back to see and meet with Belsarus. Fortunately, with much argument from Leodos and many other of Esylle’s guards, eventually she agrees, because she is just as curious as Soryn is.

Now in order for you to know all of the secrets, you must read this fabulous five-star book, and see for yourself. I don’t want to tell you everything and have you know from cover to cover because that just isn’t fair. But what I will tell you is this: I loved how the chapters were foretold by each person. That made it much easier to follow along. I loved that part, I wish more writers would do that, it makes it a lot less confusing. This book would make for an excellent movie, like a fairy tale kind of mystery. I really enjoyed every bit of this, and I think I found myself a new favorite writer!

View all my reviews