Theresa Meyers The Vampire Who Loved Me Blog Tour with Guest Post

Theresa Meyers Bio:

Raised by a bibliophile who made the dining room into a library, Theresa has always been a lover of books and stories. First a writer for newspapers, then for national magazines, she started her first novel in high school, eventually enrolling in a Writer's Digest course and putting the book under the bed until she joined Romance Writers of America in 1993. In 2005 she was selected as one of eleven finalists for the American Title II contest, the American Idol of books. She is married to the first man she ever went on a real date with (to their high school prom), who she knew was hero material when he suffered through having to let her parents drive, and her brother sit between them in the backseat of the car. They currently live in a Victorian house on a mini farm in the Pacific Northwest with their two children, three cats, an old chestnut Arabian gelding, an energetic mini-Aussie shepherd puppy, several rabbits, a dozen chickens and an out-of-control herb garden. You can find her online on Twitter, Facebook, at her Web site or blogging with the other Lolitas of STEAMED!

http://www.theresameyers.com/

http://www.theresameyers.com/blog/

http://twitter.com/Theresa_Meyers

http://www.facebook.com/TheresaMeyersAuthor

http://www.ageofsteam.wordpress.com/

I am so excited to host Theresa Meyers in a guest post here at Paranormal and Romantic Suspense Reviews.
Theresa is currently touring to promote her new book The Vampire Who Loved Me which explores the world where vampires are created by viruses.

Thanks so much Bewitching Blog Tours for connecting us on this blog tour!

Please take it away Theresa!

Of Vampires and Viruses

There are few things that scare us more than the idea of biological warfare. Dirty bombs. Unstoppable viruses. Which is part of the reason why there’s more than just a good old fashioned vampire romance to sink your teeth into in The Vampire Who Loved Me.

When I started writing in the Sons of Midnight world for Harlequin, I envisioned a place where vampires are created from a virus which mutates the human body into something different (not unlike what happens in real life, because once you have a virus, you can’t ever be rid of it). While it was one thing for vampires to be willingly changed via the virus, it was quite another when it became mixed into the national blood supply and people who had no intention of a vamp-my-lifestyle makeover were being changed.

That’s kind of where the story begins. Dr. Rebecca Chamberlin is a Doogie-Howser style geneticist and biochemical engineer. Everyone she cares about, including her best friend have in one way or another fallen victim to the vampire virus and she’s out to correct this little catastrophe of nature by creating a vaccine that can prevent, or possibly even reverse the effects of the vampire virus. But as in the case of science, it is often a process of trial and error, and the good doctor ends up turning into a vampire herself.
So why did I choose a virus? I wanted the story to have a true biological underpinning. Since vampires are a top predator, what can stop them? The one thing that can stop any predator – the small, microscopic virus.

Sure it involved doing a lot more research for my main character on bioengineering, how vaccines are manufactured, how they manipulated DNA to create vaccines in the first place, but I found it all fascinating. I’m not a science geek. That’s actually my husband who is a chemist and was kind enough to explain some of the material I wasn’t exactly sure I understood. I’m more of a knowledge geek. I love doing the research and learning something new.

The problem is viruses often mutate. It’s part of the whole Darwinian idea of genetic adaptation with the end being survival of the fittest. When the vaccine Vanquish turns from being helpful, into more of a vampire pesticide, Dr. Chamberlin realizes what she’s done is unleash a biological weapon with the potential to eradicate every vampire on earth, including our hero who has been acting as her mentor.

And while I meant the book to be a deeper look at the relationship between these two people, a brain vs. brawn kind of exchange, I also meant to look at what it means to be human. When do we stop thinking in terms of them, and start remembering we’re all us? Just because somebody has been exposed and changed by a virus, does it really make them any different?

You know writers don’t always know when they start where the stories are going to take them. Sometimes it takes us places we didn’t expect. We learn things we didn’t know. But that’s part of the process and why writing isn’t just about putting words on paper, sometimes it’s about looking at our society, our relationships to other people in different ways and realizing the universal truths that are hidden there, including that love is still the most powerful force on the planet.

The Vampire Who Loved Me
Book #2 in the Sons of Midnight mini-series from Harlequin Nocturne
By Theresa Meyers
ISBN: 0373618603
ISBN13: 978-0373618606
Releases: May 24, 2011

FROM SWORN ENEMIES…

Dr. Rebecca Chamberlin hated nothing more than the vampires who had turned her loved ones into creatures of the night … until she became one herself. Now her experimental vaccine has become more urgent than ever, and has made her the target of vampire security chief Achilles Stefanos.

TO FORBIDDEN LOVERS.

Built like a god with golden hair and an irresistible allure, Achilles made her feel passion the way no mortal man had before. Beck could no more deny her craving for him than she could the hated bloodlust in her veins. But when her vaccine fell into the wrong hands, Beck has a difficult choice to make — one that challenged everything she’d always believed …..

Dark and dangerous, the Sons of Midnight are a temptation that few can resist!

Thanks Bewitching Blog Tours and Theresa Meyers for allowing me to join this tour with a Guest Post!