VAMPIRES...THE UNDEAD...NOSFERATU...

Some people love them. Some people hate them. Anne Rice reawakened our fascination with them. Lori Herter gave them a romantic twist. Yes, I'm talking about vampires. Not the blood-sucking fiendish ones who send shivers of fear down our spines, but those dark tortured heroes who give us shivers of another kind.

I can remember how entranced I was when I read Interview With a Vampire, yet how disappointed I was that Anne's vampires were unable to make love. All that charm and charisma, all that raw sexuality, going to waste! Then along came Nancy Gideon's hero in Midnight Kiss. He was everything I wanted in a vampire - he was handsome, mysterious, sexy, lonely, haunted, with just the right blend of danger and tenderness. Oh, yes, I loved him!

Another book that inspired me was Obsession by Lori Herter. Another tortured hero! I loved it.

About the time I was falling in love with children of the night, I reached a point in my career where I felt I needed a break from writing western historicals. As vampires were much on my mind at the time, I wrote my very first vampire romance, a short story titled MASQUERADE for an anthology titled THE TOPAZ MAN PRESENTS SECRETS OF THE HEART, which is now out of print. It was more recently published in a Leisure anthology titled AFTER TWILIGHT.

As it turned out, a short story wasn't enough, and so I wrote EMBRACE THE NIGHT. And thus Amanda Ashley was born. I'm happy to say that EMBRACE THE NIGHT is being reissued in September of 2006.

Frank Langella was my inspiration for Gabriel. If you've seen the movie DRACULA, starring Frank, then you know why.