Ma Chère Antoinne Novel Location Clues

Vampires in Pop Culture Feature: Moonlight

Moonlight was only on for one season in 2007-2008, but what a season it was. Five years later, I still miss it, and the show still holds up even with time.

Private detective Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) was smouldering in every scene and the chemistry between him and reporter Beth Turner (Sophia Myles) was hot enough to set the screen on fire.

I loved the back and forth "will-they-won't-they" each week, and the tension when Mick's ex-wife Coraline (Shannyn Sossamon) made an appearance kept me on the edge of my seat and desperate for answers. Just when I thought I hated her, I'd see something that made me wonder if she was really so bad as we'd been led to believe. If the show had been continued, I really hoped for more of her story.

But I have to say that my favorite character was none of the three corners of the love triangle but Mick's wisecracking rich sidekick, Josef Kostan (Jason Dohring). The wicked humor of Josef was a delight, and he always seemed to say just what the rest of us in the audience were thinking:

Josef Kostan: So, have you sealed the deal yet?
Mick St. John: It's not about sex.
Josef Kostan: Everything's about sex.
Mick St. John: I'm 52 years older than her, I drink blood bought from the morgue, and I tend to bite down when I...
Josef Kostan: Some women like that.

But Josef also showed a secret heart of gold and over the course of the season, it became clear why he and Mick were such close friends. His story was one I really was begging to hear, and it disappointed me that we only got a glimpse into his backstory.

Each episode of Moonlight was smart, sexy, exciting, and full of mystery. Mick's narration made it feel like an old time detective story, but with a supernatural twist that made it fresh and unpredictable. The writers managed to make a show that was full of surprises, and when I heard that CBS had decided to cancel it before it really had enough time to reach its potential, I was really disappointed. I think they missed out on a great opportunity by not taking a chance on a vampire mystery/romance. The same year, True Blood premiered on HBO, and obviously, audiences were quite willing to watch and keep coming back for more. Moonlight could definitely have given it a run for it's money if CBS had been willing to take a chance on it.

Episodes of Moonlight are available on DVD or can be downloaded from Amazon, Netflix, or iTunes. If you missed it, you're in for a real treat. And if you haven't seen it in a while, it's definitely worth rewatching.

Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery Series: Why Spoilers are Jerks

I've been a Sookie fan from Book One. Some might say I'm a rabid fan.

Fans have been divided into teams:

• Team Bill
• Team Alcide
• Team Eric
• Team Quinn
• Team Sam

The HBO True Blood series only fanned the flames of those factions, with a great deal of online rivalry, sometimes rancor, happening on all sides.

As for myself, however, I've always been Team Sookie. I want whatever is best for HER. She's the character I identified with. She's the one I cared about. She's the one I rooted for. And she's the one that kept me coming back again and again, book after book, wanting more.

Now that the final book in Sookie's saga, Dead Ever After, is set for release, some jerk got hold of a copy early and decided to spoil it for fans around the world by posting the ending on Amazon.

Seriously? If Mrs. Harris' publisher doesn't sue for damages, I will be very much surprised. But more importantly, fans everywhere should be outraged.

You know those people. The ones who have to know it all. They gossip about other people and get a special pride out of knowing the dirt on someone. They like seeing someone else suffer because it makes them feel superior to say "I knew it FIRST!"

I remember waiting in line in 2005 to buy a copy of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and some jerk purchased his copy, flipped to the back of the book, and yelled out "DUMBLEDORE DIES!!!" Children sobbed. Adults wanted to punch him in the face. And the bookstore kicked him out. But the damage was done. All the anticipation was gone. We'd all been robbed of the chance to be surprised, and I will never forgive that person. I don't know his name. I don't know what he looks like. But my anger will always be there.

Giving the spoilers to Dead Ever After is exactly the same. It's bad enough to tell people the ending, but to do it before the book is even released ought to get you a one way ticket to Hades. It's disrespectful to Charlaine Harris. It's disrespectful to the fans. And it's disrespectful to Sookie.

If you wanted to be a know-it-all, well, you got it. But you're always going to be a person I hate, you gossipy ratfink jerk.

My Plot is Doing Double Dutch

I'm driving myself crazy.

I have my outline. I've planned out my chapters. I know exactly what is supposed to happen. I can envision the scene in my mind like a movie. I've done my prewriting. But when I get to my computer, I find myself just staring at the screen and can't seem to start.

Somehow it feels as though I'm just waiting for something to happen. I can't tell what that thing is, unfortunately.

People have asked me if I'm afraid it won't be perfect. I don't think that's it.

My story has been in my mind for so long now, I feel as though it's already going. All the balls are in the air, I just have to jump in and juggle them.

Or to put it better, it's like my characters and my plot are doing a furious double dutch, and I have to jump in there and dance with it rather than trip over myself and mess the whole thing up.

 

SFC Double Dutch "Too Much Pressure"

Okay, so maybe it is fear of imperfection that's stopping me after all.

I'm going to take William Faulkner's advice and just write it down, even if it's bad. I can always come back and rework it, right? Right.

Just get it down.

Relatable

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. - Nabakov

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Vampires in Pop Culture Feature: The Vampyre

Vampires have been a part of human mythology since before recorded history. However, they were generally shown as inhuman, ravenous monsters rather than the more mysterious and sexualized creatures of the night as we think of them today. That change is due in large part to a novella entitled The Vampyre written in 1819 by Dr. John Polidori.

Polidori was not originally an author. He was a physician, and a young one at that, earning his degree from the University of Edinburgh at the age of 19. Being an attractive prodigy, he caught the eye of the poet, Lord Byron, who hired him on as his personal physician and took him to Europe.

Byron was by then very famous throughout the continent, and the scandal of his divorce and speculation about his sexuality was rampant. Publisher John Murray offered Polidori 500 pounds to keep a journal of his travels with the poet. This journal became a source of contention between Polidori and Byron, who was on the one hand flattered by the attention and on the other annoyed and angered by the intrusion into his privacy. There has been speculation that Polidori and Byron became romantically entangled. Certainly, Polidori was fascinated with the famous poet, but whether the feeling was mutual is debatable.

During their travels, they spent time in Geneva, Switzerland, and in the summer of 1816 they met the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his soon-to-be-wife, Mary Godwin, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont. Shelley and Byron became fast friends. Due to the explosion of Krakatoa, the weather that year was frigid, and they were forced to stay indoors for much of the time. To entertain themselves, the group told ghost stories, and Byron suggested a writing contest to pass the time. Shelley's story was published posthumously along with a portion of his journal. Mary Godwin began and later published Frankenstein, the first real science fiction story ever written in English. Byron's own story was abandoned, but Polidori took the basic elements of that fragment and wrote what became one of the very first English vampire stories--The Vampyre.

Byron and Polidori quarrelled, partly because Byron felt Polidori had puffed up airs, delusions about becoming a famous author, and was not content with doing the job which he had been hired to do. He found Polidori's personality irritating, and Byron's journal is full of dismissive and acerbic references to Polidori's shortcomings. Byron also feared that Polidori's journal would expose too many of his secrets. Thus, Polidori was dismissed from his position. Devastated, he traveled through Italy and then returned to England, where his book was published two years later.

The main character of The Vampyre, Lord Ruthven, is pretty clearly based on Byron himself. Though Polidori had intended the book as a thinly veiled attack on the poet and a warning about his predatory nature, that intent backfired. In fact, the book was initially credited to Byron, a fact which irritated them both but which surely increased the sales of the story tremendously. The name Ruthven came from a character in a novel by Byron's famously spurned former lover, Lady Caroline Lamb, entitled Glenarvon, and Polidori intended it as a reminder to the readers of the scandal surrounding the poet.

Ruthven, the vampyre, is seductive and deadly. He is strong, masculine, handsome, and sneering at those he feels are beneath him. Readers today will recognize the basis for the English literary vampires which followed, including Dracula. Ruthven is a romantic, alluring, and devastating character who cuts a swath through a room full of women like a hot knife through butter.

On the other hand, the other main character, Aubrey, who finds himself drawn to Ruthven and who observes the terrible effects of being close to him, is meant to be a sympathetic character and most scholars agree that Polidori identified that character as being like himself. There is a clear (at least in my mind as a reader) homosexual subtext to the work, and Aubrey is drawn to Ruthven and seems most angered at the fact that Ruthven chooses young women as his victims rather than noticing him as a potential suitor. Aubrey comes off to me as a sad and bitter man who wishes he were smart enough, handsome enough, strong enough and who fails miserably. In the end, that is the impression which Polidori himself makes as well.

In trying to ruin Byron's reputation, Polidori only added to his fame. The novella was made into a French play the very next year and later into two operas.

As for Polidori himself, he committed suicide in 1821, leaving behind a string of gambling debts. His sister Charlotte transcribed his diary, omitting anything that might embarrass her family (which likely included anything relating to a possible relationship with Byron), and then she destroyed the original.

Whatever you might feel about the author himself, the book itself is a classic. The character of Ruthven is an archetype and serves as a model for all vampire authors who have followed.

The Vampyre is available as a free e-book through Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6087).

Inspiration

"The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before."

~ Neil Gaiman

Sneak Peek from my Work in Progress

The following is a sneak peek from the chapter I was working on yesterday in Part 2 of Ma Chère Antoinne. The narrator in this chapter is my main character, Claire Marie, speaking to Sybill:

I saw her put her elbow on the armrest and begin gnawing at her thumb nail absently, her mind obviously turning over the rapid change of events since our paths met.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I prodded.

“Hmm? I’m just wondering where Raul is and when the hell we’re going to stop long enough for you to tell me what is going on.” She didn’t look at me, but the tone of her voice let me know she was both worried and angry. “I mean, how do I know that anything you’ve told me is true? You could just be lying to me. To Raul too, for that matter.”

Her accusation made me furious, and I jerked the wheel and slammed on the brakes, pulling to a sudden stop by the side of the road, a cloud of dust rising from the gravel shoulder. “Listen to me, right now. I have had enough of you questioning my motives and my intelligence. If I’m going to keep us both safe and somehow manage to save Raul, you’re going to have to shut up and do what I tell you. I’ve been running from these monsters a long, long time. The only way I have survived is with my wits. You’re going to have to trust me or you will find yourself being tortured by them, and believe me when I tell you that the worst that you can imagine does not even begin to describe the horrors they will put you through if you’re caught by them. Am I clear?”

Eyes wide, she stared at me as though I’d slapped her in the face. I saw her gulp and then nod slowly.

“Good. And don’t ask me about what they might or might not be doing to Raul. I don’t want to think about it. If I stop for even a moment to be afraid for him, it will put us both in jeopardy. I’m going to save him. Period. And you are going to help me. Got it?”

“Yes,” she squeaked.

Copyright © 2013, Delia Remington. All Rights Reserved.

Vampires in Pop Culture Feature: Forever Knight

IMDb's listing for Forever Knight describes the show this way:

"A drama about an 800 year old, angst ridden vampire who lives in present day Toronto as a homicide detective in an attempt to repay for his sins and regain his mortality, with the aid of Natalie Lambert, a mortal coroner, while trying to keep his secret from his partner. His quests are hindered by his tormented past and his seductive 2000 year old master, Lucien Lacroix."

I remember watching Forever Knight back in the early 90s, and it was kind of a guilty pleasure for me. During the third and final season, I was in graduate school studying English Literature, and I felt as though I was somehow sneaking around to watch it when no one else would know, as though it were my dirty little secret.

But oh, how I loved that show. How I longed for Nick Knight to be redeemed. And how I longed for him and Natalie to make things work between them. Their romance was heartbreaking, and I loved every minute of it.

Nick: Don't. Don't get too close to me.
Natalie: Why? You want to hurt me? Kill me?
Nick: No. But I might anyway.

When the show went off the air, I was so disappointed. I loved the poignant ache of Nick's character, and I suppose in some ways the way that Geraint Wyn Davies portrayed him informed the way I've written one of my novel Ma Chère Antoinne's main characters, Raul Griffin. They both share a sort of tragic desire to change what cannot be changed, to go back to being human in order to be with the women they love.

Janette, Nick's former vampire lover, struggles to understand why he doesn't appreciate the gift he's been given, and Nick's master, Lucien Lacroix, was devastatingly sinister yet alluring at the same time. Lacroix seemed to have Nick in a trap that he could never escape from, no matter how much he longed to be free. I loved his musings on the meaning of life, and while they were chilling, they also made a great deal of sense, and it was easy to understand how someone like Nick would be persuaded to follow him.

Lucien LaCroix: Life is a gift. As sweet as a ripened peach, as precious as a gilded jewel. I've never understood the logic of willfully surrendering such a treasure. And what is there to gain? How dark can your existence be when compared to an empty void? Unless of course, you have faith that there is something beyond. What do you see from where you stand? A bright light at the end of the tunnel? Is it a ray of hope? A glimmer of something better? Or will it burn you like the rising sun? Is that sound you're hearing the trumpeting of St. Peter's angels, or the screams of Memnoch's tortured souls? You can't answer that, can you, because you will never know the answer, till the deed is done. And is your faith really that strong? I understand the need to move on, it is something that happens, and your time has truly come. I also understand that with the beauty of this life there comes pain and despair. No one is immune. But consider what is in your hands. Don't trade a treasure for an empty box. 

Nick's struggle was so very painful, and yet I could not stop watching. I never let go of my hope for him, even at the last.

If you have never seen the show, I highly recommend it. It's available on DVD and can be downloaded or streamed from iTunes, Netflix, or Amazon.