Debbie Viguié's Blog, page 20

October marks the 10th anniversary of the publication of my first book! I wanted to do something to celebrate 10 years and to thank my loyal fans for all their support. So, in 2013 I’m going to honor my superfans by giving them special gifts, opportunities, and perks just for being superfans. Over the next couple of months I’m looking for 20 people who want to be superfans and five people who want to be megafans.

Here’s what superfans can look forward to in 2013:

1 free autographed book of their choice from the books coming out in 2013

Special custom designed autographed bookplates for each book coming out in 2013

A thank you in the acknowledgement section of one of my books

Exclusive short Stories about favorite characters from my books

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of a book

Special thank you gift

Exclusive 2013 Christmas ornament designed by me

Release party contests only open to superfans with fantastic prizes

Here’s what megafans can look forward to in 2013:

All of the benefits of superfans PLUS

An extra signed book from the 2013 release schedule

A 2013 Halloween gift

A personal phone call from me

A chance to be a guest on an episode of The Thirteenth Hour podcast

Cool, huh? Now, here’s what you have to do for a chance to be one of the superfans:

Superfans are going to be broken into 2 categories, each with 10 members. One category will be for Superfans of my Christian Fiction and one category will be fore Superfans of my General Fiction. All superfans are expected to talk about my books with family, friends, or coworkers and help spread the word. (Many of you are doing that already!) Below are the requirements for entering your name for consideration as a superfan. You have until midnight EST on New Year’s Eve to submit your name for consideration.

Christian Fiction Superfans – You must have read all 4 Psalm 23 Mysteries, all 4 Sweet Seasons novels, and the first 2 Kiss novels.

General Fiction Superfans – You must have read all 5 Wicked books, all 3 Crusade books, the first Wolf Springs Chronicles book, and the first Witch Hunt book

Those who wish to enter their name for megafan status also have until midnight EST on New Year’s Eve to do so. You must have read all of the books listed above for both categories of superfans PLUS all 3 of my retold fairy tales.

You may enter your name as soon as you qualify! Just email me at [email protected] and tell me which category you’re going for, confirm which books you’ve read, and tell me why you want to be a superfan or a megafan!

It’s my favorite time of year again and this year I’m going to be giving away stuff all through the month of October! So make sure and stop by every day for your chance to go trick-or-treating here and enter to win free prizes!

Happy Halloween!

Welcome to the commentary for Vanquished, the final book in the Crusade trilogy! If you haven’t snagged your copy yet click here to see your buying options and get yours so you can read along!

Make sure to comment on each chapter commentary. At the end of the book one winner will be randomly selected to receive signed copies of two of my books. Good luck everyone!

Now, chapter three!

I wrote almost all of the vampire themed poetry for this series. I did most of the poetry for Wicked as well. I enjoy writing poetry. Poetry was, in fact, the first thing I ever had published.

This actually lends itself well to me explaining a bit how the coauthoring process works. (Nancy and I both get asked that a LOT). What’s great about our relationship is that her strengths are my weaknesses and vice versa. We are able to rely on each other. Also, the ideas are exciting because with the two of us working on a book it morphs into something awesome that isn’t necessarily what either of us would have done if working solo. Being a co-author means you have to put your ego aside and decide together what’s best for the story. Nancy and I have had no problems doing this with each other and the results have been remarkable! We divide chapters up, I usually write the odd ones and she writes the even ones. We swap and edit each other’s chapters. In the end it should seem pretty seemless. Actually, we have a hard time telling who wrote what once the book is finally in print!

Nancy and I love writing for Holgar. We’ve written a werewolf series together called Wolf Springs Chronicles (book 2 comes out in December). In it there are distinct similarities between our werewolves and also distinct differences. In the Crusade universe, werewolves can smell each other while in human form (as Holgar does in this chapter) whereas in WSC they can’t. Also in the Crusade universe those who are born werewolves start changing as infants whereas actually turning into wolves is part of puberty for the werewolves in WSC. For both series, though, the ability to transform at will without the aid of the full moon is something a werewolf achieves after they’re an adult and the age varies from werewolf to werewolf.

In the first book of the series Jenn had to return home and face rejection from her family for fighting for what she believes in. Here in this book the same thing happens to Skye and the experience actually helps her deal with her own conscience over the things she’s being asked to do in the fight. Dealing with your own conscience and matters of right and wrong are something Nancy and I enjoy writing about. Those moments when people do the right thing for the wrong reason and vice versa are always intensely interesting ones to write about. Also those moments that shake a person to their core and make them reevaluate everything they’ve held dear are the most important moments in a person’s life.

Even though Holgar is my favorite character, Jamie is the most fun to write. I have a soft spot in my heart for Jamie who is so deeply broken. I believe that no one is beyond redemption, though. Remember that as you’re reading about Jamie in the book.

Welcome to the commentary for Vanquished, the final book in the Crusade trilogy! If you haven’t snagged your copy yet click here to see your buying options and get yours so you can read along!

Make sure to comment on each chapter commentary. At the end of the book one winner will be randomly selected to receive signed copies of two of my books. Good luck everyone!

Now, chapter two!

Nancy wrote all the Salamanca Hunter’s Manual entries for the series. I think she did an amazing job making them sound good and ancient.

Heather is the ultimate tragic character in this series. She’s also quite possibly the character that goes through the greatest transformation. Through her we get to see what it’s like to be a newly converted vampire. Her thought process is a lot more animalistic than any of our older vampires. We liked to think that was part of the shock of the transition.

By the time we get to this point in the series, the church has struck a deal with the vampires and officially ordered all vampire hunting teams to stand down. This kind of devil’s deal, partnering with evil and/or making deals with it and allowing it to exist for the sake of peace that is only illusory is exactly how Hitler got as far as he did in WWII. We used WWII as a template for creating this series. The ideas of appeasement, capitulation, and struggling bands of resistance fighters permeate the series. When good men stand aside and do nothing to stop the evil that is flourishing in their sight they as much as condone it. It was a lesson hard learned in humanity’s past and one I fear we will be learning and re-learning until the end of time.

The references in this chapter to internment camps that the vampires are placing humans into and their super soldier programs are also things patterned off of WWII.

When Nancy and I write together we often sprinkle other languages into our books. In the Wicked series there was a lot of French and for Crusade there is a lot of Spanish, and a tiny amount of a few other languages. We set Spain as one of the main locations for the series and several main characters are from Spain. Although I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, and a year of Russian in college, none of those lines are written by me. Nancy loves languages and also has fans and friends around the world who will proof our use of foreign languages. We do enjoy it, though, because we feel it adds even more flavor.

Welcome to the commentary for Vanquished, the final book in the Crusade trilogy! If you haven’t snagged your copy yet click here to see your buying options and get yours so you can read along!

Make sure to comment on each chapter commentary. At the end of the book one winner will be randomly selected to receive signed copies of two of my books. Good luck everyone!

Now, chapter one!

The books are each divided up into three sections (like Nancy and I also did for Wicked). The title of each section (Mórrígan for this one) is a mythological god or goddess of the dead. The vampires in these stories have their own religion and worship gods of the dead or the underworld and that’s why we’ve titled each section this way. The stanza at the beginning of each section that’s attributed to St. John of the Cross is a section from his Dark Night of the Soul.

I don’t like writing first person (for one thing it gives the reader a pretty good idea that the speaker is going to survive the story). However, there are times when first person makes something more real and more poignant. That’s why we use Jenn’s diary entries to start off roughly a third of the chapters. We get to see her personal thoughts and agony up close. But, you’ll notice, this diary was discovered in the ruins or ashes so you don’t know what happened to it or her.

Skye, the white witch, became one of my favorite characters. I felt for her because she truly didn’t want to hurt anyone. It was through her that we had addressed all those issues of how do you stand up and fight when you don’t want to kill. We got to do some complex philosophy with her character while at the same time making her one of the sweeter, more innocent members of Team Salamanca.

While Skye is being tortured by a dark witch, she keeps thinking about Holgar, her fighting partner who is also a werewolf. Holgar is by far my favorite character in the series. He’s a true alpha male type, but much funnier and kinder than you would expect. He is often the comedic humor that breaks up really dark scenes. He has had just as brutal a past as many of the others, but he has chosen to maintain a better outlook on life than say, Antonio. I always like to say that we’ve got a guy for everyone in this series. Funny, strong Holgar, brooding, romantic Antonio, and bad boy Jamie. Add to that mix dedicated, driven and compassionate Noah and you’ve got a fantastic assortment of personalities!

I enjoy writing the villain’s point of view and Aurora is especially interesting to write for. She’s a very evil character but also very tragic. She was a victim in life and in death and in many ways, even in her current vampiric state.

There really is a statue of Lucifer in Retiro Park in Madrid.

I loved the idea of the vampire funeral, seeing how they would mourn one of their own if they so chose to.

The winner has finally been chosen for the Beside Still Waters commentary contest. The winner of signed copies of the first 3 books in the series is: Liz! I have also decided to give runner-up prizes to Natalie C. and Becky! So, Natalie and Becky will each receive a signed copy of one of my books. I am contacting the winners, but join me in congratulating them!!

Starting tomorrow I’m going to be doing a chapter by chapter commentary for my latest release: Vanquished, the third book in the Crusade trilogy. If you haven’t snagged your copy yet click here to see your buying options and get yours so you can read along!

Vanquished, the final novel in the Crusade trilogy, is out today! Starting next week I’ll be doing chapter commentaries on the book. Make sure to get your copy before they start so you can follow along! Click here to see online purchasing options!

I’m finishing up the final book in my Kiss trilogy. Thought you might like to see part of the playlist of music I’m writing to. I’ve provided hyperlinks to the mp3s on Amazon in case you want to grab any of these songs for yourself.

Desire by Yello

Children of the Night by Richard Marx

Dark Side of the Glass by Lori Yates

The Man with the Nail Scars by David Meece

They’ll Know We are Christians by Our Love by Jars of Clay

Veni, Veni Emmanuel by Nox Arcana

Missing by Evanescence

Via Dolorosa by Sandi Patti

Let Me Fall by Josh Groban