#VampireBooks4Blood

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Come Hell or High Water, Part 2: RISING, which features Elizabeth the dearg-due, is participating in the 3rd annual VampireBooks4Blood program. More than 40+ authors are participating in the #VampBooks4Blood program and pledge that we will each donate certain % of royalties per book to either the American Red Cross or the Canadian Blood Services (depending on where each of us live).

Scott Burtness, who organizes the VampireBooks4Blood program, says that he created VB4B to support the American Red Cross for a few reasons:
*It’s a great organization whose work is vital to people and communities in need.
*It’s a blood services organization with a giant cross as it’s symbol. What better organization to support with a vampire-themed event? It’s a perfect fit.
*I think it’s important to give back. The world is what we make it, after all.
 
In 2015, he expanded the event to also support Canadian Blood Services.

Many of the #VampBooks4Blood authors will be participating in live online Q&A sessions with readers via the Books and Everything page on Facebook. (I will be answering readers questions on Friday, October 7 at 1 p.m. NYC time. Click here to join the conversation!)

You can get a paperback or Kindle version of Come Hell or High Water, Part 2: Rising on Amazon. You can also find the entire trilogy here; buy the trilogy and support #VampBooks4Blood three times at once! Please also look at the other wonderful #VampBooks4Blood books from a variety of genres that all feature vampires here. HAPPY VAMPIRE READING!

You can also connect with VampireBooks4Blood on Twitter.

Why Estonia?

The historic old town of Estonia's capital Tallinn is included in Unesco's World Heritage List. (Photo from the BBC.)

The historic old town of Estonia’s capital Tallinn is included in Unesco’s World Heritage List. (Photo from the BBC.)

Estonia? Where is it? Who has even heard of it?! Why set a story there, of all the places that you might possibly set a story?

It just so happens that Estonia, although little known to non-Estonians, has a fascinating although difficult-to-trace heritage of folklore and legends that set it apart from not only its Baltic neighbors (Latvia, Lithuania, Russia) but from almost everywhere else; traditional beliefs and practices survived in Estonia for much longer than in other regions of Europe. These traditional Estonian legends and folklore were primarily handed down via oral tradition until very recently; there were occasional references to Estonian beliefs and stories but no systematic attempt to write collect these and write them down until the 19th century. (The Brothers Grimm made their collection of stories, etc. almost 100 years before that.)

I picked up a book one day about folklore as I was researching another project and found a brief reference to the Estonian version of werewolf folklore: in Estonia, werewolves could fly and would drive away the storms that would otherwise devastate the farms and destroy the crops, resulting in starvation when winter came. They killed storm clouds and ate weather devils, not their neighbors. Because of this, werewolves were heroes, not monsters. I was shocked: Werewolves were the Good Guys?!

Because they were heroes, everyone in a village or district knew who the local werewolf was. It was an honored position. (The only other place that had an even slightly similar version of werewolf folklore is a small Italian region northeast of Venice where the werewolves are called “good walkers” and drive away witches that attempt to destroy the crops.) Estonian werewolves were so unlike their more commonly known cousins in other parts of Europe that it almost seems a shame to characterize them all with the same moniker as “werewolves.”

This distinctly Estonian version of flying heroic werewolf folklore set off fireworks in my imagination! Werewolves as heroes? In a traditional pre-modern, non-ironic culture?! This was too good an opportunity to pass by! I grabbed it and Alexei, my werewolf in 1880s Estonia, was born.

Read more about Alexei’s adventures as a werewolf in Estonia in Storm Wolf.

Photos from the Brooklyn Book Festival

"Alexei" and I as the Brooklyn Book Fair is about to open (September 2016)

“Alexei” and I as the Brooklyn Book Fair is about to open (September 2016)

It was humid–but the rain held off! The Brooklyn Book Festival 2016 is now one for the history books! “Alexei” met me at Booth #242 and then proceeded to wander the festival grounds, bringing new readers to share his adventures in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Bohemia.

Missed the festival? You can still get your copy of Storm Wolf — AND read some great new readers’ reviews here!

"Alexei" and I taking a break during the Brooklyn Book Festival (September 2016)

“Alexei” and I taking a break during the Brooklyn Book Festival (September 2016)