Check out the cover reveal for Betrayal - the Season Two finale of In Darkness We Must Abide by Rhiannon Frater. I love the colors and eeriness. I haven't started Season Two yet; have you? Season One was epic, so I'm looking forward to Season Two!
In Darkness We Must Abide Season 2
Rhiannon Frater
Publication date: December 16th 2013
Genres: Adult, Horror, Paranormal
Cover reveal/blitz organized by: Xpresso Book Tours
~ Synopsis ~
In Darkness We Must Abide is the epic saga of one young woman caught in the dangerous world of the creatures of the night.
Vanora is haunted by the night her faith in those she loved was shattered. After fleeing Houston, she takes refuge in Austin and creates a normal life with her roommate Rhonda. Despite her newfound happiness, Vanora is tormented by dreams and visions of an enigmatic and dangerous albino vampire.
When her world starts to fall apart and Armando comes back into her life to warn her that her brother is in danger, Vanora realizes that she can't escape her destiny. Evil threatens her family, and she must venture into the darkness to save everyone she cares about.
As she seeks to uncover the truth about the terrifying albino vampire and her purpose in his schemes, Vanora starts to realize that the man she loves most may be her greatest enemy. Rhiannon Frater delivers a chilling adventure once again with this multi-part epic serial with a dynamic cast, old school vampires, bloody action, a smoldering forbidden love, and a terrifying villain set against the backdrop of a modern day vampire war.
This book includes all five episodes of the second season of the serial.
~ Purchase Links ~
In Darkness We Must Abide
Season One
~ Guest Post by Rhiannon Frater ~
In Darkness We Must Abide
The Origin of a Supernatural Serial
At the end of last year, I stumbled across an old manuscript lurking in the badlands of my hard drive. I was shocked to unearth the story, having forgotten I had it converted to Word years ago from my old word processing format. For years I had considered it trunked and lost somewhere in the storage in the garage. Opening the file, I rediscovered a story I had sank most of my heart and soul into a very long time ago when I was just starting to write horror novels.
In Darkness We Must Abide was my first full-length original work. I spent hours at my old typewriter creating the first draft of the manuscript. Later, I bought a word processor and retyped the entire manuscript, saving it onto floppy discs. Yes, this was a long time ago!
As I read over my old work, I realized several things. One, I still absolutely loved the two primary leads, Armando and Vanora; and two, the story was solid, but needed some revision. I was very young when I wrote the story, inexperienced in life, love, and long lasting relationships, and this clearly showed. Also, I was under immense pressure from people in my life to write something "nice and normal," so I struggled quite a bit with certain themes in the story. Reading over the manuscript, I saw exactly the changes I needed to implement to make it a stronger, vibrant read. I set it aside, considering reworking it into a trilogy at a later date.
At the beginning of this year, I began toying with the idea of doing a serial. As The World Dies was originally written as an online serial, and I'd missed the immediate feedback that came with the release of each new part. I had an idea for a whole new fresh work, but was intimidating by having to fit it into my already overloaded writing schedule. Then I saw an article about taking an old manuscript and converting it into a serial. Instantaneously, I knew that In Darkness We Must Abide was the perfect story to be converted into a serial. It was already divided into three distinct parts and it was huge! In fact, one of the reasons I couldn't sell the book in its old form was that it was one massive book that far exceeded the word count limits of most publishers.
I instantly divided the first third of the story into the five episodes that make up season one. Extremely nervous, I started the revision process with the intention of each part reading like a television show in the reader's mind. I was shocked at how easily the story fell into an episodic format, but was thrilled at the same time. Also, the voices of the characters readily reawakened in my mind, much to my relief.
In my youth, I had made several big mistakes. When a test reader had an adverse reaction to my lead character being an albino, I altered her appearance. I even changed her name to something I thought sounded fancier. When I started revising, the first thing I did was give Vanora her name back and restore her albinism. I had robbed my lead character of an important part of not only her physical appearance, but her life experience as an albino. I also embraced all the themes I had skirted around in the earlier drafts, out of fear of criticism.
Side note: Humorously, I spent a lot of time trying to avoid overt sexual themes out of fear of offending my mother. This is the same woman who would later call me up to tell me how much she loved the sex scenes in Pretty When She Dies because they were "hot."
When I finally sent the first episode off to my beta readers, I was terrified. How would they react to a gothic horror novel I had conceived so long ago? When the rave reviews started flowing in, I was so relieved. My story had officially risen from the grave.
Since the release of the first episode of In Darkness We Must Abide, I've been having a great time discussing the story with readers. A serial feels much different from a trilogy or series because the installments come out much quicker and there is less waiting for the readers. As a writer, it's a challenge to give the readers something they can enjoy in small increments, but also instills in them the desire to read the next episode. The immediate feedback is also a great way for me to gauge what is working, and what's not. Though the fan reaction will not affect the overall story arc, to some degree it does affect the presentation of it. Because of the mad love for Armando, I have expanded his role significantly in the first season.
I have enjoyed my serial experience so much. I'm already anticipating doing one next year! This time it will be a whole new writing project, but it was definitely worthwhile digging up In Darkness We Must Abide and sharing it with my readership.
~ About the Author: Rhiannon Frater ~
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor), as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog), and other horror novels. Her next novel for Tor, Dead Spots, will be published in 2014.
She was born and raised a Texan and presently lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and furry children (a.k.a. pets). She loves scary movies, sci-fi and horror shows, playing video games, cooking, dyeing her hair weird colors, and shopping for Betsey Johnson purses and shoes.
You can find her online at:
Website: rhiannonfrater.com & astheworlddies.com
Email: rhiannonfrater at gmail.com
~ Giveaway ~
Paperback of both Season 1 & Season 2
(US & CAN only)
Thanks for the review and for introducing Rhiannon Frater. I understand that most writers take a fictional name because they are afraid of offending their family members in case there are sexy scenes etc. I guess we do have to worry about what er write after all. huh?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading what makes an author tick, and Rhiannon Frater's guest posts and interviews are always interesting and give great insight into her thought process behind her writing. I'm glad she changed the character's name back to Vanora and back to her albinism. It makes the character.
DeleteI hope when I become a writer, my family will just skip over sex scenes, lol!