And we're back to the debate! I'm very pleased to have Yolanda here today, fighting the werewolf corner.

Furry, frightening & fascinating

Hi, everyone! Firstly, I'd like to thank Naomi for having me over here today. :)

I'm a huge fan of anything supernatural. I also love a good dose of mythology thrown into my stories. So it's no wonder that I absolutely love reading and writing about creatures of the night.

And I'm not talking about vampires. Although I am a vampire fan from way back--and always will be--lately I've found myself totally fascinated by werewolves.

Werewolves have a lot of appeal. And not even the fact that they can shift into furry wolves is enough to turn me off. I love werewolves.

I mean, they might be slaves to the moon, but it still sounds like a sweet gig to me. They're strong, fast, can live longer than an average human, are frightening, love the hunt, are predators... it doesn't sound so bad to me. Sure, shifting might hurt, their animal side is always buried deep down inside, and it might be hard to think like a human sometimes, but I think the pros outweigh the cons.

This is Joe Manganiello and he plays Alcide Herveaux in the TV series, True Blood. He actually happens to be one of my fave characters in the Sookie Stackhouse series, so I was very excited to see him portrayed this well on screen. ;) I remember meeting him on the page years ago and hoping that things would work out between him and Sookie. He's a fine werewolf specimen, isn't he?

Are you noticing a trend here? :)

It's even managed to spill into my own writing. I have two urban fantasy series that I'm writing at the moment, and werewolves make an appearance in both of them. :)

So, what about you? Are you as intrigued by werewolves as I am?

Thanks for reading,
Yolanda

AUTHOR BIO:

Wife. Mother. Writer. Bibliophile. Dreamer. Animal lover. Intrigued by the supernatural. Horror freak. Zombie enthusiast. Movie & music fan. Slave to her muse.

Yolanda lives in Sydney, Australia with her awesome husband, lovely daughter, and cheeky cat.

She has a new urban fantasy series coming out soon. A PATCH OF DARKNESS will be available from Samhain Publishing on May 15.

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

We will return to the werewolf v vampire debate tomorrow, as I still have lots more guest posts for you! But since today I did the first round of edits on BOUND BY NIGHT, I thought I'd share a sneak peek at the third and final Brides of Darkness novella, The Crow Bride. Mostly because I'm really pleased with the opening chapter for this one.


( Behold! )

Want a glimpse of Daghan, my cursed monk from BOUND BY NIGHT? Then go no further!


( Snippy! )

What do we think? I'm pretty excited about this story being released. Free stuff is always awesome, after all!

We're back to Team Vampire today with Isabella Olivia Ellis. I don't see why everyone is so hung up on werewolf body hair. It only happens once a month, people!


Thank you for having me on your blog today, Naomi.

I am Isabella Olivia Ellis, author of “The Vampire’s Bride” (available April 26th) and “The Vampire’s Second” (available in June).
I hate to seem too predictable, given that my two upcoming Evernight releases are both about vampires, but here goes:

Vampires over werewolves. Anywhere, anytime, and any second of any day. Vampires vastly appeal to me in comparison to wolves on two different levels.

Let’s talk about the physical first. I’m the kind of girl who likes my men lean. I want them to be about six feet of sinewy, lanky man structure (I wanted to say meat there, but it seemed to infer something other than height). When was the last time you saw a husky vampire? Need I say more? Then there is the issue of how hairy werewolves are (helloooo, part-wolf?). I stand up and in my best Valley girl accent I cry “That’s not happening.”

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a plucked, waxed, and totally bare metrosexual of a vamp. However, I also don’t want a guy so hairy that I could get lost in his chest hair and need a rescue team of Navy SEALS. Though, that does bring very interesting erotic scenarios to mind. Mmmm. Navy SEALS.

Whoa there. Let’s keep on topic, Isabella. Onward, shall we?

I suppose we can meander on to the emotional now. Keep your hands inside the car at all times and don’t touch the dendrites and neurons, please.

The basic idea of werewolves is that they uncontrollably morph at a certain time (usually a full moon), right? They become hairy and are seized with hunger. I imagine there is some moodiness. In fact, probably a lot of moodiness. Doesn’t sound fun to me. It’s like the male version of the worst period you could imagine.

Vampires, even dating far back, have always struck me as elegant and debonair. The kind of man you could take to a dinner party. Sure, he might end up talking a bit too long with a flirty phlembotomist, but he wouldn’t embarrass you by crawling onto the table on all fours and baying at the moon. How does one even begin to explain that?

“Sorry, my boyfriend has a strange allergic reaction to shellfish?”

Imagine the money spent on a tuxedo that is only going to end up ripped once his bulging wolf muscles emerge. Even if he doesn’t morph, the smell alone would probably never Febreeze out. Thanks a lot, Fluffy, Men’s Wearhouse is never going to give me my deposit back.

You know, I simply do not have time for men who act like dogs.
Again, thank you for inviting me on your blog, Naomi.


For all interested:
My website is isabellaoliviaellis.blogspot.com
Facebook: facebook.com/bellaoliviaellis

Okay, we need to werewolf it up a bit here. I'm not letting these pro-vampire writers just march in and have it all their own way, and neither is Larry C Kerr. Onwards!

Which do I prefer: shapeshifter or vampire?

I have to say the shapeshifter, or more specifically, the werewolf. Perhaps I should say I like the vampire less. The reason is the vampire has lost his effectiveness in contemporary media. He’s been homogenized, romanticized and pacified so that he’s become a ghost of his former self. The vamp is no longer the terrifying creature of the night.

We now have day-dwelling vampires, funny vampires and brooding vamps filled with teen angst who actually attend school. And not just to pick out fresh pink meat. Come on! What can a vampire learn in school that he hasn’t learned just by existing for centuries? For God’s sake, he could teach history because he’s lived it.

As for teen angst, do the fanged ones really have emotions? They are dead, you know. They don’t have souls. Are they motivated by anything except the need to feed?

Romantic? Don’t get me started. Can anything cold as ice that sleeps in a coffin and smells like dirt be romantic? Do women truly find that attractive? If so, I’ve been using the wrong approach. Yes, vampires have learned the methods of seduction, but to what end? We know true vamps only want to slake their thirst and are not looking to spend eternity sleeping the same coffin with a mate. It’s just not how they operate.

Perhaps the creators of such wanna-be vampires think making the unattainable become attainable makes them attractive.
We know how all this got started. The need to be different. The urge to shake things up. Authors and movie-makers didn’t want to portray the same old cliché creatures, so they felt free to take literary liberties with them. Anything that fits their needs is fair game. Now we have vamps who wear special decoder rings or lotions that allow them to walk the earth in broad daylight. It just doesn’t seem right. Dark creatures should be confined to the dark.

However, by doing such things, they weakened the brand. Previously, we could tell that if the next-door neighbor kept his blinds pulled and only came out at night, he was a vampire. The only reason a vamp hung out with teens was for young blood. He didn’t study for a test with the cheerleader. He wanted to suck her dry.

Of course, authors and movie-makers do mess with other characters. Zombies are an example, but there has been limited change forced on them. So far, the major modifications have been speed and intelligence. The traditional zombie shuffles along aimlessly until he detects a meal. However, that wasn’t good enough, so we got fast zombies, which ratcheted up the danger. We’ve also seen zombies showing signs of intelligence, though supposedly the brain stops working at death.

It is easy to understand why nobody tried to romanticize zombies. It is hard to do that with a rotting corpse. Where is the vamp is perfect in death, the zombie is not. If one is to walk the earth after death, certainly the vampire is the more attractive choice.
While there also have been attempts to change shapeshifters, especially the most fearsome of those, the werewolf, we haven’t seen the onslaught of modifications like those applied to vampires. Mainly, those attempts have centered around allowing the werewolf to transform at will instead of under the moon.

Yes, there have been efforts to romanticize the werewolf, but not as many as with the vamp. You might think having a big furry friend with whom you could cuddle would be more fun than getting close to a cold, soulless body, but apparently not. Perhaps it’s because one of these furry guys would just as soon rip your head off.

Maybe it’s my age showing, but I prefer my monsters to be traditional and not rewritten to fit someone’s whims.

You can find out more about Larry C Kerr and his writing here. BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON is available now from Amazon.

This week is a very good week. I only have two days of work, and then I'm off for a long weekend, a reunion with an old university friend, and much rejoicing. Huzzahs!

The weekend was also very good. I finished the first round of edits for an Eternal Press author, which clears my editing queue for the immediate future and means I can catch up on all the beta reading I haven't had time for since October (naeko, I'm so excited!).

I finished up BOUND BY NIGHT, a short story set in the Brides of Darkness world, and submitted it to Evernight. This morning I signed the contract and returned it, so it's official: BOUND BY NIGHT is coming soon and it'll be a free read! I'm pretty excited about this - if you've not read any of my paranormal romance and aren't sure what to expect from the Brides of Darkness, this will be your chance to try it for free. And look, there's a cursed abbey, a mysterious monk, and a woman fleeing an arranged marriage. It'll be awesome!


( Cut for rambling )
And that brings us to today. Since I finished BOUND BY NIGHT, I haven't been sure what to work on next. I have an Ethan short story in the works, as well as Chimera's Awakening and that damn naga novella that I'm still trying to work out how to save. But I didn't really fancy any of them. So this morning I opened up the file for Halflife and read through it to see what the hell I was doing with that. It's probably been over a year since I last worked on it, and I'd forgotten where I'd got to. And now I'm just like, hell yeah, Shoregrave! I totally want to finish this now! Afterall, it's been, what? Four years since AFTERLIFE was released? I probably need to get the sequel done.

I currently have just over 18k and I'm shooting for 70-80k for a first draft. So the rest of May is officially being turned over to Halflife and Yasmin Stoker. Huzzahs!

Linda Hayes-Gibbs is with me today, giving her view on the werewolf v vampire conflict. The battle lines are being drawn! We're talking sex, people. Sex. Vampire sex. Look, I'm just going to say it: how do vampires even get erections?


Vampires are something we think of as sexual creatures. Who doesn’t like their neck sucked on, just a little bit. It seems that is much more erotic and enticing than having to wade through all that hair that can be on a dog, or a werewolf. Oh, I am not knocking a werewolf all that much just wondering how you can get excited about someone that can eat you whole, literally.

Vampires suck a little blood, maybe a little too much sometimes but if you are a beautiful lady you have the chance of becoming his all time favorite for all time. Of course, you could get a little sick of him after the first three or four hundred years. I know I think a little variety is essential, but if he were devastatingly handsome, maybe the attachment would last longer.
You have the problem of him being cold though, as opposed to a nice warm hairy wolf to keep your bed warm, but think girls when you have to look at him.

Is he changing to his hairy form or is he a handsome toothy sort? Even wolves have some toothy problems with which to contend. There are few loves that don’t have problems but my vote is for the tall toothy guy with the cold hands.

I get a little giggly just thinking about cold hands and long teeth. You really have to be there, I guess. Most girls want someone to stay in their beds to keep them warm but few get them to stay at all. Werewolves hunt all night long.

A vampire has his hunt over with in a matter of minutes and comes right back to his ladylove, at least from what I’ve been told. I could not possible be more inclined to a vampire.

Just think of the stories of vampires as opposed to werewolves. Vampires always have a love, some woman they want or maybe even two or three but he is a very sexual fellow. Now, think about werewolves, they are supposed to mate for life as wolves but are any of the stories about his ladylove? No, they are all about him.

You also get the picture that making love to a vampire is the best sex ever. Of course, I only have been told but it is supposed to be super duper. I really think there is no comparison as writers we have to take the road of the vampire. He is erotic, sexual, mysterious, and charming. He has super strength and he can shape shift, if necessary into bats and smoke etc. He has a way to hypnotize women with his gaze. Vampires can do without humans and go to the local blood bank or use animals in the forest. They have metamorphic creature skills that we can give all kinds of endearing traits or make more horrific tales. Sometimes, he is a count or we can make him an angel, or an advertising agent as in “Halo of the Damned” by Dina Rae, or a victim of another vampire that inspires our motherly instincts. Well, maybe not our motherly instincts but we definitely want to smother him with kisses if he will just bite our necks and make passionate love to us. Isn’t that true?

In my book, “My Angel, My Light As Darkness Falls” I have him lost and alone but clinging to his lady. Pru’s love is the only thing that matters to him all through my story. He is smitten and can’t help himself. That is a vampire’s fate.

In other words, there is no contest when it is between vampires and werewolves because vampires are the kinkiest and the most erotic creatures not alive. I cannot begin to extol all the properties, or tendencies they possess, or the multiple qualities yet to be extolled on these creatures for our dreams, or for our nightmares, but definitely in our books.

Find out more about Linda and her writing:

Today I've got Kathryn Meyer Griffith here talking about the vampire/werewolf debate. Turns out it's not such an easy decision, picking sides...


I’ve written two vampire novels, Vampire Blood-Revised Author’s Edition and The Last Vampire-Revised Author’s Edition. Most people consider me a horror writer, though I’ve written books in other genres such as romance, time travel, suspense and murder mysteries. Most of them have, at least, a touch of the paranormal.

Ah, vampires. In my Vampire Blood they’re a theater-managing family of the powerful, enigmatic up-to-no-good, old-fashioned blood-thirsty variety and not those sparkly romantic vamps that teenagers fall so inappropriately in love with. I mean, really, love a walking corpse? Make out with a corpse? Marry a corpse? Ech.

My vampires are our adversaries; humankind’s eternal enemies. I love writing about blood suckers because I can turn them into symbols of all that’s evil in our lives and world and then defeat them, usually with faith or love. But defeat and destroy them I do. We, the good guys, win.

But I also love werewolves and shape shifters. I remember being terrified and fascinated with Lon Chaney Jr. in the 1941’s The Wolf Man; I howled at 1981’s The Howling and felt sorry and then jubilant for Jack Nicholson in 1994’s The Wolf. 2003’s Underworld made me want to be a wolf in the worse way. All that power. Those teeth! Those sharp claws! Expressive soul reflecting puppy-dog eyes. They could run fast, too.

So in my The Last Vampire-Revised Author’s Edition (originally written in 1992 for Zebra paperbacks and now rereleased from Damnation Books) I actually created as the main character, Emma Bloodworth, a deadly hybrid of vampire and werewolf shape shifter who isn’t totally good or totally evil…but, as most humans, a mutation of both. Emma has the pull of the vampire’s craving for blood as well as the feral call of the wolf. She drinks blood (animal blood) to survive but, like the wolf, must run and be free. Howl at the full moon. In 1992, when I first wrote the book, I thought it would be an interesting combination. I saw nothing weird about having a vampire also be a werewolf. Wasn’t Bela Lugosi’s Count Dracula able to transform into a bat and heaven knows what other animals? So why not a wolf? It makes them a double threat. Most werewolves change only when the moon is full, yet I allow Emma and the other vampire/wolves of the story to metamorphose whenever they want to. What freedom and power.

I once did try writing a straight werewolf tale but didn’t finish it. Maybe I’ll dig it out of the drawer and give it another try. It keeps growling at me through the wood. Grin. I’ve recently finished, though, a werewolf short story called Running With The Train, about a pack of werewolves that live around the Grand Canyon and selectively add to the pack by hand picking canyon visitors that can hear the call. Wolf call, that is. The pack shadows the Grand Canyon train from the Rim and lures the candidates from the last car. In this case, it’s a lonely woman who has nothing to lose if she answers it. She’s never fit in anywhere and hasn’t found the passionate love she so desperately desires and has searched for her whole life. Eternal love. That’s another good thing about werewolves. Everyone knows that wolves mate for life. Werewolves must, too, then. Right? So there’s the romance angle for you. Big time. A werewolf is loyal, loving, possessive and…will love and be your mate until you both die. Talk about a forever love. That’s always appealed to the romantic in me. I imagine it does to many readers as well.

And people who love wolves must love werewolves, too. They’re wild and majestic beasts that are strong, fast and clever. Who wouldn’t want to be a wolf running through the night woods kicking up its furry paws and howling to the moon? Better than being a walking corpse that sleeps in a coffin, hey?

So, I cannot tell a lie, I love both traditional evil vampires and werewolves. Evil vampires because I can let my human (or vampire) characters show their inner strength and goodness by fighting and beating them–and werewolves…well, for the same reasons. They both can represent what’s benevolent or malevolent in our human natures and how there are shades of gray in both the walking dead and beasts.

Both genres allow a writer to show different facets of human nature beneath the guise of a blood-sucker or a shape shifter.
But, hey, if this is a contest between the two, which one would you want tracking, stalking, you on a dark stormy night through the city’s backstreets or the country’s wet woods? Which one do you think you could escape from? Over come? Tame? Become? Me, again I can’t choose…it’s about those shades of gray again. Or which supernatural being you’re most afraid of.
Unless you’re a witch and spell them both away. Or a ghost and vanish. A zombie and eat them. Or a…well, you get the idea. Just don’t be out alone on a stormy haunted night, that’s my advice. You never know who or what is behind you.
Unless you hear the call.

About Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Since childhood I’ve always been an artist and worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. I began writing novels at 21, over forty years ago now, and have had fourteen (nine romantic horror, one historical romance, one romantic suspense, one romantic time travel and two murder mysteries) previous novels and eight short stories published from Zebra Books, Leisure Books, Avalon Books, The Wild Rose Press, Damnation Books and Eternal Press.

I’ve been married to Russell for thirty-four years; have a son, James, and two grandchildren, Joshua and Caitlyn, and I live in a small quaint town in Illinois called Columbia, which is right across the JB Bridge from St. Louis, Mo. We have two quirky cats, ghost cat Sasha and live cat Cleo, and the four of us live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk singer in my youth with my brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die. ***

My Websites
Myspace (to see all my book trailers with original music by my singer/songwriter brother JS Meyer)
Bebo
Facebook
AuthorsDen

My books (most revised and out again from Damnation Books and Eternal Press): Evil Stalks the Night; The Heart of the Rose; Blood Forge; Vampire Blood; The Last Vampire; Witches; The Nameless One short story; The Calling; Scraps of Paper; All Things Slip Away; Egyptian Heart; Winter's Journey; The Ice Bridge; Don't Look Back, Agnes novella; In This House short story; The Nameless One, erotic short story; Always & Forever, erotic contemporary novella; BEFORE THE END: A Time of Demons; The Woman in Crimson; The Guide to Writing Paranormal Fiction: Volume 1 (I did the Introduction)

Apologies for no blog post yesterday - I had an unexpected no-internet day. I'll have a new guest post on the werewolf versus vampire debate a bit later.

But first! THE WOLF WITCH IS OUT RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE NOW! You can pick it up at Evernight Publishing, All Romance Ebooks, and Amazon US and UK. Huzzahs!

I am very excited and I have a bag of 96% cocoa chocolate waiting for me at home to celebrate with. In the mean time, I'm working on a short story set in the Brides of Darkness world called Bound by Night, and I'm planning to finish that up this evening. I'm just really loving this world at the moment, and I don't really want to work on much else, so hopefully I'll soon be writing the next novella in the series, The Crow Bride.

Anyway! THE WOLF WITCH! If you love alpha males, werewolves, and gypsy girls with red hair and big knife collections, you may very well love this. ^_^