GENRE: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
About Carol Kerry-Green
I have been writing since I was in Junior School, loving English lessons where I got to tell a story. Having grown up reading science fiction and fantasy, my writing has always explored the question of ‘what if’.
After a hiatus of 25 years, I returned to writing and have embraced the independent publishing scene and am looking forward writing more novels. My work recently has been in the paranormal genre.
I live in Yorkshire in the UK with my husband, a fellow author, and our four cats, who rule the house!
***
To get to know the author better, we asked Carol a quick round of questions, and here are her answers:
Q1: What is the first book that made you cry?
This is a hard one, but I think it has to have been Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte – I love that book and have read it so many times – the many different relationships in the book show the whole gamut of human emotions.
Q2: What is your favourite genre to read?
Though science fiction and fantasy are my first love, I have been branching out from there. I’ve always enjoyed historical romance and time slip stories. At the moment I am reading a lot of Paranormal and Urban Fantasy, some of it romance, some not. I read both MM and MF romance and love the stories that combine something a bit different with a love story. I also have a fondness for crime fiction set in the 1920s and 1930s.
Q3: What was the inspiration behind your debut novel?
It was the character of Jerome, the young man that gets caught up in the whole drama of his family and their fight against the blood-crazed Striga. When we first meet him, he has been handed over by his own father to a mysterious man, Fenton. Years later, we meet him again, when he has been recently discharged from the army, having spiralled into depression, he’s at rock bottom when he is rescued by his relatives. It was this scene that came to me first, and I was intrigued by him and wanted to know what his story was.
I love stories that are large family sagas, and being a family historian by profession, I had to include a family tree in this book, so the readers knew who was who and how they fit in to the family. I also like to explore family relationships, both the good and the bad.
Q4: How many hours a day do you write?
This varies. I don’t always get to write every day. I work as a professional genealogist and that takes a lot of my time. But when I do get some free time, I love to go to my local café and put in a couple of hours of writing at a time.
Q5: How do you select the names of your characters?
They usually just come to me! However, if I need a character from a particular background, e.g., Italian, Greek etc., I will look them up on the internet. I found the names for several of my characters that way, but sometimes, they just tell me their names and that’s that.
Q6: Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
LOL, yes! In my current novel, my characters are staying in a small place in Victoria, Australia, near Melbourne. It’s on the beach, and next door is a caravan park with a mixture of accommodation. Cornelius, one of my main characters, has a conversation with a garrulous old man called Eddie. This man is based on my father-in-law and only my husband (or if any of his other family members read it) has/will pick it up. I also used some local knowledge of Yorkshire for where Lacey, Jerome’s baby sister, is at boarding school.
Q7: What was your hardest scene to write?
That’s a hard one, as I don’t want to give anything away! It is a scene between Jerome and his love interest, Persephone.
Q8: As a writer, what would you choose as your mascot/avatar/spirit animal?
Hmm, not sure I could choose, as I’ve already been chosen by my cats. I’m not sure they’d appreciate anything else coming in! They like to ‘help’ me write whenever they get the chance.
Q9: How did you come up with the title of your book?
It went through several permutations before I settled on Of Blood and Shadows. As the Striga, a vampire like race who are extremely blood thirsty are the main enemy in this book, I felt blood had to be in there somewhere. Shadows is a theme throughout the whole trilogy and the next two books are Living in the Shadows and Out of the Shadows, so that’s also an important theme.
Q10: What are you working on next?
I’m currently working on book two, Living in the Shadows. This follows on from Jerome’s story in book one, but also deals with the story of his grandmother, Emmaline, who is literally living in the Shadowlands and can’t return to the world we know. I’m currently researching Florence in Italy, where the next section of the book takes place.
I’m also working on a series about the Vampires in book one, Laertius, Cassius and Rupert who help Jerome and his family in their fight against the Striga. Each vampire will get a story. Laertius is the oldest and is from Ancient Greece. Cassius is from Rome during the Empire, and Rupert was born in Yorkshire, England during the English Civil War.
After that, I’d like to write a series that delves further into the Shadowlands where Emmaline finds herself, but who knows what will come next…
***
Of Blood and Shadows (The Donati Chronicles Book 1)
Will his Donati heritage give Jerome the answers he seeks?
Apathy and depression plague Jerome Rossini after his medical discharge. Worse, memories of his father’s betrayal have returned to haunt him. He’s deep in denial when two Donati, Cornelius and Dastan, offer him salvation.
The Donati are beings who possess unusual gifts of the paranormal kind, and Jerome finds acceptance with his new family. But his father’s treachery pulls Jerome into a fight against the Striga, a species with a thirst for blood.
Now, he and his Donati family must defeat Jerome’s father and his associates. Will their efforts be enough to prevent the coming bloodbath?
EXCERPT:
Dastan rushed down the stairs after Rupert, just catching up with him at the bottom. Putting his hand out on to his shoulder, he found himself being roughly thrown against the wall with Rupert’s right arm across his neck.
“Rupert… stop… think…” he gasped. “They could… Striga.”
Rupert loosened his hold on Dastan. “I’m not crazy.”
“I know.” Dastan leant down and put his hands on his knees, catching his breath. “Look, I know we haven’t always got on, but still… I didn’t want you rushing out into a trap.”
Rupert sneered at Dastan and pulled out his iPad from his jacket pocket. He showed him the view from outside the back of the door. There was no-one around. Cautiously, they opened the back door and stepped out into the car park. There was no movement anywhere.
“I’ve already sent the signal to the other shops to close up and retreat to their safe rooms,” Rupert said as he showed Dastan a view from the front of the parade of shops. Metal shutters were already coming down on them all. “Listen…”
A mechanical voice came over the speaker. “Be aware. Be aware. This parade of shops is closed. This is due to a gas leak. The correct authorities have been informed and the leak is being dealt with. The shops will re-open as soon as they can.”
Dastan watched as a few people who had been milling around the front of the stores shrugged and left the area. Rupert changed the view on the screen to the inside of the surf shop. They couldn’t see if there were any Striga, but it didn’t mean they weren’t there. They could just make out Bill’s body, lying on the floor near the till.
Reaching into the inside of his jacket once more, Rupert pulled out a sharpened wooden stake, and held it in his right hand. Dastan nodded at him, and reaching down to his ankle, pulled out the dagger that he kept in a sheath there.
AMAZON US — AMAZON UK — GOODREADS
***
Are you interested in Paranormal and Urban Fantasy? Want a FREE short story? Then subscribe to Carol’s newsletter HERE…
***
Carol, it was lovely having you as a featured author, thank you so much for participating and we look forward to following you on your writing journey.
If like us, you too want to find out more about what Carol is up to next, you can follow her follow and find her on the links below:
Indie Author's Book Services 