When I got the idea for my Ashen Twilight Series, I had just come off writing a vampire inspired futuristic sci-fi book called Cimmerian City. This was the first in my proposed series and although I wanted to continue it, I had an inkling to dip my toes into the paranormal genre. Although Cimmerian City offered something a little different, I wanted to write a romance featuring a vampire character true to his nature. I loved the old castles and the seduction of vampires and wanted to create a world where they existed under human eyes yet was modern enough to give it an interesting twist.
My favorite paranormal reads were ones steeped in real history to make the world-building come alive. Keeping this in mind, I researched more about the real life Vlad “Dracul” (Dracula) Tepes II for which Bram Stoker based his title character on. After some grisly details and an inspiration, I had the time period I wanted to focus on before moving forward into the contemporary world. Before I started writing, I knew who my hero and heroine would be: a vampire hero from Scotland and a fairy with roots in West African lore. I wanted a pairing that hadn’t been done before and being a fan of interracial romances, I wanted to explore different cultures coming together despite the odds against them. What I found was interesting in my research: every culture has their unique version of each paranormal legend. Although the Scottish legends of faerie differ from the African fairies, there was still a central point where they converged. Same with vampires. Each had their own origin, myths and legend and thus offered a wonderful contrast along with the cultural differences that my characters share. This coupled with the differing genres I had in mind (Fairies = light fantasy & vampires = dark fantasy) along with the Aziza fairies being assistant to hunters and vampires being hunters themselves, I now had an idea for how my two characters would react.
Thus, the first in my Ashen Twilight Series, A Kiss of Ashen Twilight, was born and so were my hero and heroine: Jacinus Aurelius Archane (also known as Jace) and Ariya.
As I started writing, I had an idea where things where going but yet there are still things that take me by surprise based on occurrences that have happened in earlier books. As I’m currently penning the final follow-up books A Kiss of Ashen Twilight and Within the Shadows of Mortals I'm exciting to round out and tie up all the loose ends that have been building up to the final act. I've introduced new creatures like mermaids and a new mysterious undead group in Book 2 and now everything comes full circle. I've also had fun sprinkling little literary allusions in the text from Vlad Dracul to Angel Polidori (2 points to vampire enthusiasts that make the Polidori connection ;-)).
I’m having a blast realizing my dream and creating worlds that I only imagined when I was a little girl. I hope to do the same for those who read my books and hopefully one day will get to read them as the paranormal genre continues entertaining readers.
Rae's next release within the series is Book 3 'Inheritance of Ashes' which will be the final book ~ Coming 2011
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