Susannah Sandlin: The Sci-Fi-Paranormal-Apocalyptic-Vampire-Urban-Fantasy Romance

“What’s your genre?” Chances are, if you are published or trying to get there, you’ve had to answer that question a time or three. “Genre” is a topic dear to agents and editors and publishers and booksellers. How should the book be marketed? Where will it get shelved in a bookstore? Is it urban fantasy or paranormal romance? Where does it get categorized with online booksellers? Which book reviewers should it be sent to?

They need a clear definition, an easy fit.

For authors, sometimes—maybe a lot of the time—the stories we want to write aren’t an easy fit. Sometimes they straddle two categories, or more.

When I first wrote Redemption and Absolution, the first two books in my Penton Vampire Legacy series, they sat firmly on the fence between paranormal romance and urban fantasy.

A global pandemic has led to the development of a vaccine that caused a slight change in human blood chemistry—which has made the blood of a vaccinated human deadly to vampires. Suddenly, vampires are starving, fighting over unvaccinated humans, fanning into rural areas in search of feeders, threatening a civil war.

Sounds like urban fantasy, right? Maybe with a science-fiction twist? Maybe a little apocalyptic (at least for the vampires)?

Well, except that each book is told from the viewpoint of a vampire who finds his or her perfect mate in the midst of chaos and rebellion. In Redemption, Aidan Murphy has avoided relationships because of something that happened to his human wife and child in Ireland back in 1601—something that comes back to haunt him in the form of his murderous brother. He meets Krys, a human doctor who shows him how to accept his past, forgive himself for his own bad decisions, and look to the future.

In the new book, Absolution, former mercenary Mirren Kincaid has known nothing but killing since his training as a gallowglass warrior in 16^th-century Scotland and Ireland. He carries an ancient sword, and knows how to use it—thus his nickname, spoken in fear, of the Slayer. But Mirren’s tired of killing, and punishes himself for every life taken. Until a woman he’s charged with keeping safe burrows under his armor and shows him the man he could be.

Uh…sounds like paranormal romance, right?

You see the issue with the Sci-Fi-Paranormal-Apocalyptic-Vampire-Urban-Fantasy Romance. Do your favorite books fit neatly into a category? Leave a comment to win a signed print copy of either Redemption or Absolution—winner’s choice. Open internationally through October 23.

Blurb for Absolution:

Following a worldwide pandemic whose vaccine left human blood deadly to vampires, the vampire community is on the verge of starvation and panic. Some have fanned into rural areas, where the vaccine was less prevalent, and are taking unsuspecting humans as blood slaves. Others are simply starving, which for a vampire is worse than death—a raging hunger in a creature too weak to feed.

            Immune to these struggles—at first—is Penton, a tiny community in rural Chambers County, Alabama, an abandoned cotton mill town that has been repopulated by charismatic vampire Aidan Murphy, his scathe of 50 vampires, and their willingly bonded humans.

            Aidan’s second-in-command, Mirren Kincaid once served the tribunal as their most creative and ruthless executioner—a time when he was known as the Slayer. But when assigned a killing he found questionable, Mirren abandoned the tribunal’s political machinations and disappeared—only to resurface two centuries later as the protector and second-in-command of Penton. Now the tribunal wants him back on their side. 
            To break their rogue agent, they capture Glory Cummings, the descendant of a shaman, and send her to restore Mirren’s bloodthirsty nature. But instead of a monster, Glory sees a man burdened by the weight of his past. Could her magic touch—meant by the tribunal to bring out a violent killer—actually help Mirren break his bonds and discover the love he doesn’t believe he deserves?

 

Susannah Sandlin is the author of paranormal romance set in the Deep South, where there are always things that go bump in the night. A journalist by day, Susannah grew up in Alabama reading the gothic novels of Susan Howatch and the horror fantasy of Stephen King. (Um…it is fantasy, right?) The combination of Howatch and King probably explains a lot. Suzanne lives in Auburn, Alabama, about thirty miles from Penton and its vampires.

***Susannah's winner is Molly Frenzel!  Please email totebag@authorsoundrelations.com with your mailing details!***