Tuesday, October 02, 2007

PC Cast Vampire Guest Blogging AND Giveaways!

October—Halloween month!--is a great month for vampire books, don’t you think? Well, obviously publishers agree, too. In fact, today marks the release of at least 3 teen vampire books!! Girls that Growl is mine, obviously. But we’ve also got the third book in the Morganville Vampire series by Rachel Caine and PC Cast’s second book in her House of the Night series.

So for the next couple of days, Rachel, PC, and I are going to be guest blogging on each other’s sites, talking about our own “rules” for vampires and celebrating the releases of our latest books. Oh and we’ll all be giving away free books, too. I’m on PC’s blog today and she’s on mine.

So without further ado, here’s PC. Make sure you comment – she’ll be giving away a set of her vampire books to a lucky commenter!

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When sixteen year old Zoey gets Marked by the vampyre Tracker and the outline of a sapphire colored crescent moon appears on her forehead the good news is she won’t have to take her geometry test the next day.

The bad news is she has to pack her bags that night and move to the House of Night, a private boarding school in Tulsa’s Midtown, commonly known in the ‘real’ world as Vampyre Finishing School or Hell High, where she’ll spend the next four years going through bizarre and unnamable physical changes, as well as a total religious and social shake-up. And that’s only if the whole process doesn’t kill her.

The Change from human teenager to adult vampyre kills at least one in every ten Marked kids.

So the vampyres my co-author and daughter Kristin and I have created are based on biology and then enriched with culture and magic. We came up with the physiological versus mystical basis of our vamps by working with our dad/granddad, who is a biologist. Here are our world rules:

The setting for the House of Night is in a world much like our own, except in Zoey’s world vampyres have always existed. Religion and superstition were all that could explain the phenomena of how perfectly healthy teenagers suddenly began Changing into powerful beings who drank blood and walked the night until modern medicine developed enough to discover that during the hormone surge of teenage years a junk DNA strand sometimes activated, causing an irreversible and incurable physiological chain reaction. During this Change recessive pheromones begin to secrete a trail that only a Tracker vampyre (one with highly developed scent senses) could detect. Once the pheromones become active the fledgling vampyre must be brought within an adult vampyre fold so that the physiological Change can be controlled and slowed, but even when surrounded by the power of mature vampyres, not all human teens survive the transition to become mature vampyres.

Vampyre society is strongly matriarchal. They worship the Goddess Nyx, who the personification of Night, as their main deity. A secondary deity is her consort, the God Erebus, who is the personification of Darkness. Adult vampyres have enhanced human abilities, which means that women are stronger psychically, and over the centuries have evolved into the majority of the leadership roles. Male adult vampyres are warriors, protectors and consorts.

There are five House of Night vampyre finishing schools in the United States, each in a different region of the country. They each have a sister school in Europe. The vampyre society is close-knit and because they are virtually immortal the culture has amassed an enormous amount of wealth, which the Priestesses of Nxy control and the Warriors of Erebus protect.

Vampyres do age and die, but their lifespan normally reaches several hundred years. They have amazing regenerative abilities, but can be killed if their heads are removed, their hearts are pierced, or their bodies are burned.

So take a stroll over to our world and discover the House of Night and our version of the timeless myth of vampyres. Book 1, MARKED, was released May 2007 (and has recently been nominated YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers List). Book 2, BETRAYED, will be released October 2nd. Book 2, CHOSEN, will be out March 2008. Check out: http://www.pccast.net/, and coming in October, http://www.houseofnightseries.com/

23 comments:

Homemom3 said...

The book sounds really interesting, you got me wanting to read it. I have a link on my Tuesday giveaway which will be up in an hour. Would love to win.

The (Mis)Adventures of a Single City Chick said...

I got your first in the series at National's publisher booksigning in Dallas a few months back and am very much looking forward to digging in to it. Sadly, I'm a bit behind with my to-be-read pile. Love the concept of this series!

Christina Arbini

Kat said...

I absolutely love vampire novels. There's something about them that makes you want to be near them, know them, it's romance and violence in a pale package.

Adding it to my buy book list in case I don't win.

Pendragon Inman said...

how funny. I caught your blog-site from your publisher's blog on your new-release (Pub Rants), and when it came up, i suddenly realized you're also "Moongazer"s autor! How weird... i just bought that book, knowing nothing more about you than the back-cover. And then your new book caught my attention too! Dude, you must be doing something right; i look forward to reading them now. :) Laters

Unknown said...

Interesting promotional idea (the guest-blogging and book giveaway).

And the books sould like something I need to track down to buy.

Good luck with your book sales numbers :-)

Unknown said...

Interesting promotional idea (the guest-blogging and book giveaway).

The book sounds interesting - I'm going to have to look that one up for my collection.

Good luck with your book sales numbers :-)

Anonymous said...

This sounds great. I LOVE the cover!

LadyVampire2u said...

I definitely need to read this series. Congratulations on the new release!

Unknown said...

Wow! These books sound awesome! i think it is so neat that your daughter co-authored these books with you. Please enter me in the contest!

Karen Mahoney said...

I heard good things about this series after the first book came out... They sound fang-tastic! ;) I'm really happy to see that vampire-books are still Big News (at least in YA!).

Anonymous said...

The covers for both House of Night books are fantastic and the trailer for Betrayed is awesome too! :)

Wendy said...

Wow! The book sounds great, and the cover's so pretty. :)

Trish Milburn said...

I can't wait to read this book. I read the first House of Night book not long ago and loved it!

Kiki said...

That's a great cover. And I love the detailed world you've created. Definitely looking forward to these now!

Meljprincess said...

P.C. I'd love to read your series!
You have some of the most beautiful book covers I've ever seen.

Kalayna Price said...

Oh this is definitely going on my wish list for the next pay check! I love the idea/mythology/world building with the biological vampires and vampire boarding schools!

(very cool promo idea! I'm over here visiting from Rachel's blog. I'd never head of your Boys that Bite trilogy before, but it's on my wish list now!)

CrystalGB said...

This book sounds great. :) I would love to read it.

Anonymous said...

I am going to give this link to my friend. She is hooked on Vampire books.
yardsaleprincess1@yahoo.com

mary said...

Sounds very cool. I'd love to read it. :)

BrigidsBlest said...

Absolutely nifty sounding, and I *LOVE* the cover.

PC Cast said...

Thanks for all the wonderful comments guys! The covers are completely awesome - FYI the intricate design is the heroine's tattoo, part of being Marked to begin the Change into becoming a vampyre.

Please let me know what you think after you read the new book. Oh, better keep kleenex handy...

EternallyMaroon said...

Wow. I just read the description, and now I really wanna read these books! I hope I made it in time for the drawing. Thanks for this awesome offer =D.

EternallyMaroon said...

Wow! I just read the descriptions, and now I really want the read the books themselves. Hopefully I entered the drawing in time. =X. Thanks for offering this awesome contest =D.