Vampires, mortals and forbidden love sound juicy when it comes to R.E. Mullins’ delectable yet thrilling series, Blautsaugers of Amber Heights. With her latest debut, Vampire in the Scrying Glass, just released on Halloween, vampire lovers will eat up the action, romance and secrets that abound in this fantasy tale of the living and the undead.
Interviewer: Christy Campbell
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Let’s start by telling readers about how your creative journey as a writer first began.
I’ve lived most of my life inside my head. Even as a young child I was always daydreaming and weaving fantasies to entertain myself. I would tell my mother bizarre stories—always with me as the lead doing something outrageous and heroic—as if they’d really happened. In an effort to make sure I understood the difference between fantasy and reality, she’d always bring me back to earth by asking, “Is this something that really happened or something you’d like to have happen?”
I was faced with this wild imagination in my second child. Once he came home from preschool and told me there’d been a fire but he’d put it out using water from a puddle and saved everyone. It was then I understood how my mother must have felt when listening to me.
When I got a little older, I started making up episodes for my favorite TV shows and characters. I think the very first ones were for The Partridge Family and The Mod Squad.
Where did you get the ideas for your novels?
I worked as a phlebotomist for ten years. Consequently, I’ve been called a vampire, bloodsucker, and, my personal favorite, a tick. I’ve heard about every vampire joke ever written and it got me to thinking… What would happen if a phlebotomist was turned into a vampire? That story turned into the first novel I ever wrote called: It’s a Wonderful Undead Life. It’s the story of Cailey Kantor and how she meets the Blautsauger family and gets turned into a vampire.
My second novel: Vampire In The Scrying Glass which came out on Halloween 2014 can be read as a standalone but also deals with the Blautsauger family. It is the romance between Cailey’s friend, Morgan Maguire and the youngest Blautsauger son, Rafe.
Did you start with an outline or simply wing it as you went along?
Ha! I always try to start with some type of outline but it never lasts long. The characters in my head (which I call my voices) are too demanding and obstinate. They go their own way.
Is there a lot of research involved during the writing process?
Yes, I must say research is one of my favorite things to do. I can get lost in researching names, Wiccan philosophy, magical tools, demonology, and poisons. In Vampire in the Scrying Glass, I tried my hand at doing some scientific research while trying to devise the artificial blood formula Michaela and Morgan are working on. Hopefully, it sounds convincing enough—though I’m sure it’ll make a real scientist cringe.
I also do a lot of research on historical timelines and style. Whenever I refer to the one of my vampire’s past, I want to make sure they dress and act accordingly.
Was anyone in your circle of family and friends allowed to read chapters in progress or did you make them wait until the whole thing was done?
Ah, poor Melanie. She was one of my co-workers and I chose her (okay blindsided her) as my very first reader because I thought she’d give me an honest opinion. I was afraid closer friends or family members might be too worried about hurting my feelings. Let me say, Melanie turned out to be a great choice. She was a real trooper, read it all, constantly encouraged me, and corrected a lot of punctuation.
I heard you like to include names with hidden meanings and other trivia in your books?
Yes, I’m guilty of that. I use the term Nosferatu to refer to vampires of European descent and Toltec for the vampires coming out of Mexico and South America. Of course Nosferatu is a 1922 German Expressionist horror film and the Toltecs were a bloodthirsty and warring ancient tribe from central Mexico.
Blautsauger is the Bavarian word for bloodsucker. I named the vampire siblings: Gabe, Michaela, Metta, and Rafe based on the angels of prayer: Gabriel, Michael, Metatron, and Raphael.
Ixchel is the Mayan Moon Goddess, and Eztli gets her name from the Nahuatl dialect word for blood. At the back of Vampire in the Scrying Glass my editor put in a short glossary of how to pronounce several of the names and their meanings.
Since I always like to learn new things when I’m reading, I also try to include something my readers might not know. For instance, the actual name for a blood pressure cuff is a sphygmomanometer.
In Vampire in the Scrying Glass, I also include an account of one of my more disastrous blind dates.
Swapping to the personal side of things, we live in a world where technology is abundant. Readers have become addicted to electronic means so they can devour their favorite books. What is your preference – an old fashioned hardback, paperback or eBooks?
I love books. I like holding them. As my daughter once put it, it’s nice to physically feel and watch as one side of the book decreases and the other side increases as you progress through the chapters. I like the sturdiness of a hardback and the slickness of a paperback. I held out against eBooks and then my children sent me a Kindle for mother’s day… Now it goes with me everywhere. I love how I can adjust the font size when my eyes are tired and how I can carry hundreds of books in one compact package. It makes it ideal for travel and I appreciate how my suitcase no longer weighs a ton with everything I want to read while on vacation.
As an adolescent and teen reader, what were some of your favorite titles and authors that had the most influence on your personal style as a storyteller?
I have always been a voracious reader. Books opened up a whole new world for me starting with See Spot Run. I graduated from Dick and Jane to Dr. Seuss, Little House on the Prairie series, the Boxcar kids, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Moby Dick, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and My Side of the Mountain. I always had a book in my hands. I still do.
I read most of the classics starting in Junior High: The Scarlet Letter, Stoker’s Dracula, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Gone with the Wind, and Hunchback of Notre Dame to name a few. I went through a period where I read every biography I could get my hands on. I loved the ones on Henry the VIII and each of his wives, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Marilyn Monroe. Then I read Harwood’s So Merciful a Queen So Cruel a Woman about Queen Elizabeth the first. I read it right after reading Good Queen Bess by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema. This was an eye opener for me. One book portrayed the Monarch as all sweetness and light while the other painted a much darker picture of her motives. It was at this time I began to understand that everyone, even our most revered heroes, are flawed. These differing viewpoints presented an uncomfortable and challenging dichotomy for my young mind.
I know I’m forgetting many wonderful of the wonderful books I read during my adolescent and teen years but I’ll stop here. I will say that as an adult I mainly read romances and want my “happily ever after”. These days I rarely read anything too weighty and want my escapism.
Last but not least, give us the scoop on where readers can find out more about you and your series.
Twitter handle: #REMullins
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/…
Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/REMullins
Go to Goodreads and enter the drawing for a free copy of VAMPIRE IN THE SCRYING GLASS
Buy links:
Amazon link: amzn.to/ZQ8n5Y
Wild Rose Press: http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=195&products_id=5867
Blog: http://remullins.blogspot.com/
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