Book Chick City: All Hallow's Eve: A Chat with Love Vampires

All Hallow's Eve: A Chat with Love Vampires

Saturday, October 10, 2009 | Posted by Book Chick City |

For my All Hallows Eve event, I have invited a couple bloggers to guest post, who have a passion for all things beastly. This week's guest is Amanda from Love Vampires, who has a love for the fanged variety.

BCC: Hi Amanda, welcome. When and why did you start your website, Love Vampires?

LoveVampires is actually a web design project that got way out of control! In 2005 I retrained to become a web designer and I needed a web project to work on while doing my training course. LV went live with 10 pages and that should have been the end of it but I just kept tinkering with it. Somewhere along the way I discovered that I enjoyed reviewing books and now, nearly 300 book reviews later, it’s become a resource for fellow vampire fiction fans.

One of the reasons I started a vampire fiction review site is that I have always enjoyed reading vampire stories but found that getting information and informative reviews of books that I wanted to read was not always easy on the internet. In particular, vampire romance novels used to be poorly represented on the web and I wanted to change that.

BCC: Please tell us a little about your website?

LoveVampires is dedicated to vampire fiction. In addition to myself, there are two other book reviewers who have recently joined the site and regularly submit reviews. Between us we review a range of urban fantasy, paranormal romances, horror novels, literary classics and teen reads that feature vampires. Occasionally, the odd review slips in for a book that doesn’t feature vampires but the book will still be paranormal romance or urban fantasy because we only review genre fiction. We also feature regular interviews with authors of vampire novels and run book giveaways too.

BCC: What's been the highlight of blogging so far?

Being able to interview my favourite authors, J.R. Ward and Charlaine Harris.

BCC: What's your process for reviewing a book?

Since I am editor of the website as a book reviewer the first part of the review process is to pick what books get reviewed on the site. There is far more demand for reviews than time available to do the reviewing so each book chosen for review needs to be in someway special. I always try to pick books that are widely available from most book stores and I try to promote new authors where possible, as well as reviewing books by popular authors and semi-forgotten old favourites.

There is an element of research involved before writing the review, most of which is conducted by looking at authors’ websites on the internet. Then the book is read and the review written, usually within 24 hours of finishing the book. This is a personal habit of mine because I like to write the review while my impressions about the book are freshest in my mind. The review will then be published onto the website. This can happen on the day it’s written or months later depending on the review schedule.

BCC: What was the last book you bought and why?

THE NAMING OF THE BEASTS by Mike Carey. I saw it in the shop and I couldn’t resist getting it because it is the latest part of the Felix Castor series and I’d just finished reading Mike Carey’s previous book at the time I saw it. Being unable to resist buying books happens to me a lot and is why I currently have 54, sorry 55 (I forgot the one that just arrived by post today) books in my to-be-read pile. My life’s ambition is to get to the bottom of the pile…

BCC: What's your favourite book of all time?

This is hard to answer because different books have meant different things to me through out my life. When I was 14 the answer would have been Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Ten years ago, anything by Linda Howard. Five years ago, Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Today, Lover Awakened by J.R. Ward.

BCC: What is it about vampires and the vampire genre that you love so much?

I was really scared by watching a horror film of Dracula when I was about 8 years old. Nothing has frightened me like that since because as I got older I realised that horror films are not real. But the original thrill of fear has never been forgotten.

As fictional devices vampires are great in that they can be so versatile. They can be irresistible lovers, diabolically evil villains or heroic characters who want to redeem their souls. The only limits with vampires appear to be the author’s imagination and reader’s abilities to suspend disbelief.

BCC: Who are your favourite authors?

J.R. Ward wins that accolade hands down. Her Black Dagger Brotherhood novels are addictive reading. I’m seriously hooked. Other favourites include Kresley Cole for her Immortals After Dark series, Charlaine Harris for the Sookie Stackhouse books, Patricia Briggs, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong, Jim Butcher, Stephenie Meyer and Sergei Lukyanenko.

BCC: How do you celebrate Halloween?

I’ve been know to carve a mean jack-o’-lantern on occasion.

BCC: Have you had a scary experience or a ghostly encounter?

Plenty of scary experiences but they have all been of the mundane variety that present themselves occasionally in daily life. And while I’m convinced that my boss at a previous job had to have escaped from at least the fifth circle of Hell I’m not sure that counts!

So, sadly no supernatural encounters yet but I’m always open to new experiences…

Thanks, Amanda for taking the time to chat!

Labels: All Hallow's Eve 2009, Guest Blogger

8 comments:

Kate said...: Great interview =D; 10 October 2009 08:48
Nina said...: Loved reading the interview! :P Great questions.; 10 October 2009 13:11
Mandi said...: I heart JR Ward too :) Nice interview!; 10 October 2009 13:25
elnice said...: this is a great site.; 10 October 2009 13:27
April said...: Awesome interview, special interest blogs are so intriguing. I'm a bit jealous that she got to interview Charlaine Harris LOL :-D; 10 October 2009 15:13
Mishel said...: I love visiting Love Vampires!! It's an awesome site =) With some great contests too.

I really enjoyed the interview!; 13 October 2009 21:25
Serena said...: wow, another new-to-me site and all about vampires! Hello where have I been>?

Love the interview.; 14 October 2009 15:50
elnice said...: I enjoy this site.; 26 October 2009 12:14