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!

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Chapter Five:

This scene we really wanted to show what Jamie was capable of in a fight by himself. When the fighting team consists of a vampire, a witch, and a werewolf, it’s important and often difficult to let the human fighters shine. Unlike Jenn, Jamie has been a warrior pretty much his whole life. More of his Catholic roots also come out while we see him fighting against impossible numbers here. That’s something that’s going to play a major role in the end for Jamie.

Jamie carries the deaths of a lot of people on his shoulders. We thought it was important to show how he uses that anger and sorrow when he’s killing the vampires, blaming them all for each person he’s lost.

Given the social importance of pubs in that part of the world, we figured having vampires take them over would definitely be a blow to the morale of the Brits, Scots, and Irishmen. Here Jamie gets to find out for the first time and his reaction is priceless.

For a long while we actually considered having Kate be a love interest for Jamie. When it came time to write this section of the book, though, our plans for Jamie had just changed.

We were excited to be able to have Father Juan and Grandma Esther team up. As soon as we started writing scenes with the two of them together it became clear that she was the one person he would truly be able to confide in.

We give a shout out in this chapter to Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. Nancy and I are both fans.