Howdy, folks and welcome to another awesome blog tour!
Personally, I love books with vampires in, and this one won't leave until it's had a bite.
So I'm kicking off the tour with some exciting stuff happening.
Stay tuned for a guest post from the author, and you can win some goodies in the giveaway mentioned.
But first, let's talk about the book shall we?
Author: Chele Cooke
Title: Teeth (Teeth #1)
Genre: Paranormal Horror
Publisher: Self-Published
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
Published: 8th January 2015
Medical intern Thomas awakes in a blood-drenched basement and the realisation that his life must change forever. After all, how can he practise medicine when the smell of blood turns him into a vicious killer?
Spencer thinks being a vampire is better than any teen movie made it out to be. Now he must train Thomas and make his mentor proud.
One mistake risks more than either are willing to lose, and a single broken law could turn them from predators to prey.
Spencer thinks being a vampire is better than any teen movie made it out to be. Now he must train Thomas and make his mentor proud.
One mistake risks more than either are willing to lose, and a single broken law could turn them from predators to prey.
Amazon UK Buy Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Teeth-First-Bite-Chele-Cooke-ebook/dp/B00QHK4UBW/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Amazon US Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QHK4UBW
Kobo Books: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/teeth-7
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/508832
About the author
Part time author and full time fantacist, Chele Cooke is a sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal author living in London, UK. While some know they want to write stories since childhood,
Chele first started writing as a teenager writing fanfiction and roleplaying.
Before long playing in other people's worlds wasn't enough and she started creating her own. living in San Francisco at the time, she found a lot of inspiration in her favourite city, some of which can be found in her books.
With a degree in Creative Writing, Chele's first novel was published in 2013. She currently has three books published: two books in a sci-fi series,
Out of Orbit, and the first book of a vampire serial, Teeth.
Author Links
Twitter: http://twitter.com/CheleCooke
Website: www.chelecooke.com
And now let's see what Chele has to say about vampires in stories...
The Vampire Stories that Inspired Me
A few days ago I had a crisis.
After being asked to rate my top vampire stories, I realised… holy malony, I don't think I have any.
But don't sharpen your stakes or reach for the garlic just yet. It took twenty minutes of furiously
searching my bookcase for a hint of the undead when I spotted a boxset of True Blood in amongst
my DVDs and realised something: 90% of my vampire interest comes from television and movies,
a medium that, when done well, can have just as much story telling as a book.
I took another couple of days thinking before I sat down to write this post and share my love of
vampire stories, not because I was deciding, but because I was wondering why I didn't read more
modern vampire books. The answer: because the majority of vampire books released these days are
romance. Not that I'm not a fan of romance books. I've read some wonderful vampire romance, but they don't inspire me the way action books do. I like my romance to be a side plot, not the main event.
I thought, why share books I'm only half passionate about when I can share the stories that really inspired
me, even if they happen to be in a different medium. So, here they are.
Buffy & Angel
Apart from occasionally quoting Count Dracula on Sesame Street, the television show Buffy the Vampire
Slayer was my first foray into vampires. I'd heard of the classics, but it wasn't until Joss Whedon brought
Buffy to our screens that I really got into the idea of the undead.
I could ramble for days about why Buffy is epic, from the amazing cast of characters to the witty dialogue,
etc. However, when it comes to inspiring me to write, the thing I love best about Joss Whedon's writing is
the moral ambiguity. Very few characters in any Joss Whedon show are truly good or evil, even when they
claim they are.
"Now, I know you haven't been in the game for a while, mate, but we still do kill people. Sort of our raison
d'etre, you know." - Spike
One of my favourite characters of the show was Spike, followed closely by Angelus. Yes, Angelus, not Angel,
and this is an important point because it's the reason I love this show. Joss Whedon's vampires are interesting
because, let's face it, they're having fun! The only time they're really tortured and mopey is when they have
souls shoved into them, at which point they lose my interest. They're funny and sarcastic, they have lives
outside of killing, and even when they are being their most evil, we love them.
But then, let's face it: Joss Whedon has a habit of creating characters we want to love forever. I've still not
forgiven Fox for cancelling Firefly.
Interview with the Vampire
I had a bit of a crush on Christian Slater as a young teen. I think it was Robin Hood Prince of Thieves that did
it but that isn't the point. I enjoyed Interview with the Vampire a lot, though mainly it was for Kirsten Dunst's
character, Claudia. I really connected with her and the horror at being young forever.
It's one of those questions that has constantly bugged me and that I wanted to at least have an answer for
when it came to writing Teeth. If turned as a child, you obviously stay looking young, but mentally young?
Will a vampire turned at ten still be throwing temper tantrums when they're one hundred and fifty?
Luckily, I don't have a ten year old vampire in my stories yet, but when I do… oh you'll know it.
True Blood
Come on, who doesn't like it when a vampire is staked and they explode in a torrent of blood?
True Blood was one of those shows that I kept hearing about but didn't get into until they were on series
3 or 4. I marathoned through the episodes and loved it more every minute. Like Buffy, True Blood had
some great vampires that were the epitome of moral ambiguity. They killed, they had fun, but they were also sometimes pretty decent people.
Yes, there was a lot of romance in the show, but that always ran alongside the bigger, more exciting plots.
True Blood also did something new and interesting in bringing vampires truly into the present with the
creation of synthesised blood. No more 'good vampires feed on rats' storylines, which was important
for me. For me, for the first time since the conclusion of Buffy, Vampires were truly back on my radar
as an interesting group of characters to explore.
Twilight
Did you just look at that title twice? Maybe three times wondering if I could truly be serious? After
everything I've mentioned above, Twilight couldn't possibly be a book series that inspired me to write
vampires.
When talking about books and inspiration I try to stick to the positives, (O-Positive to be precise.) I look
for books that inspire me for their great stories and characters. However, I didn't want to leave out one
of my biggest inspirations just because the way it inspired me is by doing everything I hated and making
me want to change almost everything.
Twilight is a romance story. Everything that happens comes back to how much Bella loves Edward and I
won't even get started on how creepy their relationship is.
What annoyed me most about Twilight, however, is that there is absolutely no downside to being a vampire
past an oh so melodramatic tortured soul. They get these powerful psychic gifts that never seem to cause
any problems, they're not affected by sunlight except to sparkle, their bodies are so strong they can only
be hurt by other supernatural beings, you become more attractive, and they don't drink human blood to
survive. It was all so perfect that it made me wonder why the hell vampires weren't populating the earth.
The only really interesting part about Twilight for me was the story of the civil war and the warring
vampires of the south, a tale that was brushed over in all of two pages.
So, though it's surprising, Twilight did inspire me. It inspired me to take everything I felt disillusioned
with in vampire fiction and flip it around. It pushed me to come up with my own lore, my own stories,
and tell them the way I wanted to. Yes, I would have romance, but it would be a side line to other plots.
There would be special abilities like speed and strength, but they would come with serious downsides.
I would go back to the tradition of vampires not being allowed in the sun.
Most importantly, I would make them killers, and God be damned (because the vampires are certainly
damned already) they would be happy about it.
I could go on, probably for a very long time, but for today, I'm going to leave it there and ask what
inspires you in vampire fiction? Whether books, television, or movies, what draws you to the lives of
the undead? And perhaps, if you want a little something different, you can check out exactly what these
stories inspired me to create in 'Teeth'.
Gotta love vampires!
Giveaway Time!!
The prizes include;
Three sets of all Chele Cooke’s books as e-books
Seven e-books of Teeth
If you are having trouble with seeing the rafflecopter, please click here to be directed to the page.
Don't forget to follow the tour and check all the other stops out!!
And now this stop has come to an end for me.
A massive thank you to Faye for asking me to participate.
Of course I will help you out any time, Faye - don't you worry ;)
Keep smiling, keep reading & be happy!
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Until next time!
~Katie~
Thank you so much for having me, Katie. Writing this post for you was so much fun, and probably could have been about three times longer for how much I wanted to gush about Spike and Angelus.
ReplyDeleteChele
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