After the Eclipse – the night vampires began openly slaughtering human victims – everything changed. Out of fear, the government salvaged what remained of the human population and enclosed them in massive, security-laden cities called White Sectors, while marking the vampire infested territory as Red Sectors.
When seventeen-year-old Sloane McAllister’s twin brother disappears, she seems to be the only one who thinks he isn’t dead, and she vows to stop at nothing to find him. Gathering her courage, she braves the Red Sector to search for clues to his whereabouts. By chance, she encounters Aden, a handsome, charismatic vampire with a hidden agenda. He turns Sloane against her will and whisks her away to his underground city. Enemies quickly become friends as Sloane struggles against her attraction to Aden, and resists her growing loyalties to the creatures that ruined her life.
But the vampires themselves are the least of her problems. A war is brewing between the humans and vampires, along with a growing web of deceit and betrayal. And before it’s all over, loyalties will be tested, hearts will be broken, and no one’s lives will ever be the same.
** Includes all three books in The Red Sector Chronicles: The Scarlet Dagger, Dark Horizons, & Cross My Heart. Also includes bonus story: Dark Knight, a Red Sector Chronicles novelette, and an excerpt from Smile So Dark, Book One of The Wicked Wings Trilogy. **
Excerpt 4 – The
Scarlet Dagger *free download!* Or get the whole trilogy for
$5.99. *Offer valid through November 25th.*
I opened the door
and flipped on the light. At first, I thought it was the smallest
closet ever. Then I looked to my right, and my eyes nearly popped out
of my head. The closet ran behind the entire length of the TV wall,
lined with racks, cubbies for shoes, and drawers. For the most part,
the racks were empty, save for a few pairs of jeans and some plain
shirts.
“All this” – I
motioned around the room – “is for me?”
Aden nodded. “Yep.
If you don’t like the color –”
“It’s amazing. I
wouldn’t change a thing.”
Mrs. Knight’s
voice floated up the stairs. “Guess I’ll go claim that aspirin,”
Aden said. “There are clean towels in the bathroom if you want to
shower.” He turned to leave.
“Hey,” I said.
He paused, quirking
a brow in that quizzical way of his.
“Sorry I punched
you in the face,” I mumbled, shifting my weight.
He tried to grin and
then winced, touching his jaw. It was swollen, but I could tell it
was already starting to heal. As he looked at me, something in his
eyes shifted. “You can make it up to me.”
My brows furrowed.
He walked back,
stopping a few inches in front of me. “Go on a date with me.”
I blinked in
surprise. That wasn’t what I had expected him to say. “I just
punched you in the face, and you want to go out with me?”
“Eh, it’s all
relative. The way I see it, it’s not every day I find a girl who
can kick my ass. It’s kind of hot.” The non-bruised side of his
face lifted into a wry smile.
I flushed. No one
had ever called me “hot” before. My best friends were a bunch of
guys, and they treated me like one of the boys. Then again, “hot”
wasn’t exactly a compliment in my book. It usually meant
“bang-able,” not exactly something a respectable girl wanted to
be called.
“So what do you
think?” he asked softly.
“No.”
“No?”
I firmly shook my
head. “No way. Not in your wildest dreams.”
The look on his face
said he clearly wasn’t used to being blown off. His eyes held mine
as he reached up to cradle my cheek. “Then I guess I’ll have to
change your mind.”
I swatted his hand
away and turned around before he could see me blush anymore. He
chuckled, and I was afraid he’d push the topic, but a few seconds
later I heard the door close.
My heart beat
wildly. What was the matter with me? This was the guy who ruined my
life, so shouldn’t I hate him? I tried to make sense of my
feelings.
“All right, sure,”
I said to myself, pacing. “You’re attracted to him. It’s
perfectly natural. He’s handsome, he’s surprisingly sweet, he’s…”
He had been very
kind to me, which was the exact opposite of the picture the
government and my memories had painted for us. Vampires should be
wild, feral creatures whose sole purpose was to prey on humans. But
Aden and his mother, Paris, Rook and Angel, this place… they seemed
normal, almost human, with the exception of the charming General
Frost.
I groaned and rubbed
my eyes, more confused than when I’d started.
1. Are you anything
like your heroines? Oh, no! Sloane is the exact opposite of me,
actually. She’s very outspoken and reckless, and I tend to be very
soft-spoken (on certain things), and quiet. We’re nothing alike.
I’m actually probably a little bit more similar to Valerie, the
heroine in my faery series. She’s not as much of a live-wire as
Sloane. But that’s the fun part about writing – you get to be
anybody you want to be. And the sassy characters are always a lot of
fun.
2. Why did you
decide to write about vampires? Vampires are one of my favorite
paranormal creatures. (And I think a lot of people would agree with
me!) They’re alluring, sexy, dark, mysterious. There’s also a
certain romanticism that goes along with them, which lends itself
well to paranormal romance.
3. Tell us a little
about The Red Sector Chronicles. In a nutshell,
it’s the story about a teenage vampire-hunter-turned-vampire and
her adventures. =P That’s the super-short version. It’s a young
adult trilogy that’s a mash-up of dystopia, paranormal romance, and
urban fantasy, some of my favorite genres. There are laughs, gasps,
and swooning-over-book-boyfriends to be had. If you’re a fan of
Vampire Academy or Jeaniene Frost’s Night Huntress
series, you’ll probably like this series.
4. Are you a
pantster or a plotter? Both. Tried pantsting once. The book was a
trainwreck and took about four complete rewrites to get right. Never
again. *shudders* I plan things a lot more now that I’ve studied
story structure, and I’ve tried really detailed outlines. They tend
to make the whole writing process not as much fun for me. Things are
“too” planned out, so it takes the fun out of writing. I do make
notes about major plot points, as well as some sparse notes about how
my scenes go. Then I just let my imagination do the rest.
5. What do you think
is more important to the novel, characters or plot? I’d say
both are important, though I will say I’ve watched plenty of movies
and read plenty of books where there was almost no plot to be found,
but the characters were so captivating that I immensely enjoyed
myself anyway.
6.
What are some of your favorite movies? I love Victorian
romances, so I’m a sucker for almost any Jane Austen film. I also
love fairy tales and films with strong female leads. Gotta love a
kickass girl. I also LOVE scary movies and anything that makes me
laugh. Some favorites that come to mind are Ever After,
Underworld, The Conjuring, and Tropic Thunder.
7. Do you think
you’ll ever write about vampires again? *smiles* Oh, yes. I
already have a lot of stories in mind. I just love them too much!
8. Do you have any
advice for new writers? Read. A lot. And not just within your
genre, but outside your genre. Also read as many writing references
as you can, and practice what you learn. That’s the key. And
speaking of practicing, write every day. Not edit. Write. Pour new
words onto the page. That’s how you perfect your craft.
Walking in
a Vampire Hunter’s Shoes
By
Krystle
Jones
I didn’t know my MC, Sloane, was going to be a vampire hunter when
I came up with the idea for The Red Sector Chronicles. I just
saw a dark-haired girl, standing in a cityscape painted in shades of
red. (Random aside: I think red moons look so cool. Naturally, I had
to find an excuse to have one in my novel. =)
A lot of my character ideas start like this, as pictures in my head,
and then I flesh them out on paper during my brainstorming process.
At first, I was just going to have Sloane be a vampire, because I
thought, “Writing as a vampire would be fun!” Then I got to
playing the “what if…?” game and thought, “What if Sloane was
a vampire hunter who became a vampire, and vampires are what she
hates more than anything on this earth?”
That made for a much more compelling character and plotline,
so I rolled with it.
Thus, Sloane the Vampire Hunter was born.
I wanted her to be tough. I wanted her to be sassy. Most of all, I
wanted her to kick a lot of ass. But kicking said ass was a lot
harder to write about than I thought it would be!
In my original draft of the first book in my trilogy, The Scarlet
Dagger, I knew she would have to “prove herself” to the
audience if she was going to be perceived as a femme fatale. So I had
her run-up on a vampire straight-away – and she got her butt
kicked. My hubby, when I shoved the manuscript in his face
he lovingly agreed to see my baby book, I said, “So, she’s pretty
cool, huh?”
“Not really.”
Now, my husband isn’t known for beating around the bush. He just
says what he means.
“What?” I asked. “Why not?”
“She gets beat-up right away,” he said, pointing to the
manuscript. “She needs to kill this thing. Then I’d be
impressed.”
“Huh.”
“Oh, and make her more like Blade, ‘cuz that’d be cool.”
(No kidding on that last part.)
I did make her more like Blade, in the sense of her being a
lot tougher to tango with. And that was part of the challenge. She
couldn’t be so awesomely badass that no one could beat her, because
that gets old. Plus, it’s unbelievable. She needed to have some
kryptonite. And she gets that, in the form of a hot vampire, some
acidic metal called Scarlet Steel, and a whole slew of other
problems.
One of my favorite parts of writing from Sloane’s perspective were
all the fighting scenes. I didn’t want to drag them out, but I
wanted readers to feel like they were there with her, so I put as
many details as I could in them instead of saying, “She punched
him. He punched her. Sloane goes flying through a cement wall.” I
took karate lessons for many years when I was a kid, and it was fun
reliving those years through Sloane, because all of a sudden, I had
someplace to use my knowledge. (Never had to get in a fight yet,
thankfully!)
When she becomes a vampire, I also had to think about how that
affected her psychologically, since she despised vampires. I mean,
they did ruin the world. Sloane was very complex and fun to
write about while she was in the “figuring-things-out” stage of
being a vampire. She sort of wants to like vampires, but she knows
she’s supposed to hate them – and she really does – so she’s
kind of stuck.
I’d like to keep writing about tough chicks. Not that I have
anything against softer heroines (the Bella’s of the literary
world), but writing about a girl who can protect herself is a lot of
fun.
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