So, a few months ago I'm strolling through Amazon looking for some new material to read when I come across Tim O'Rourke and The Kiera Hudson Series. From book 1 I was immediately hooked and fell in love with the story and the characters. Let's start out with that first book, Vampire Shift....
The Vampire Shift takes place in this sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere and Kiera Hudson's new post. A new police officer and trying to please her follow officers takes this assignment, not knowing the danger that lies ahead of her. With silver crosses and bottles of holy water, she really starts to think that these people have been secluded too long. But Kiera is different. She isn't your average cop. She can see things others can't and the story getting to find out why is amazing. I really thought I had this book figured out but then it just left me with my jaw open. This isn't your normal vampire kind of book. These guys have wings and just when you think the bad guys are the good guys and vice versa, things switch up. It is far beyond 5 stars!!!
Blurb: When twenty-year-old police recruit Kiera Hudson is posted to the remote town of The Ragged Cove, her life is changed forever. Investigating a series of horrific murders, grave desecrations and missing persons, with her unique ability of ‘seeing’, Kiera soon realises her life is in danger. But when Kiera falls in love with Police officer Luke Bishop, not only is her mind and her heart opened to a terrifying new world, she comes to suspect that Luke might be involved in the killings. In a race against time to unearth the truth, Kiera must discover the identity of who or what is behind the gruesome deaths on the ‘Vampire Shift’.
Book 2, Vampire wake picks up after Kiera escapes Ragged Cove and decided that maybe she was just mad. But the men that protected her and the things she saw...they won't leave her mind. Not only does Kiera still see things but her visions have intensified and her eye begins to bleed now. She is hired and sent on a mission, not knowing the real reason behind the whys and what fors.
Blurb: Since escaping from the Ragged Cove and finding herself suspended from the Force, Kiera Hudson is hired by the mysterious Lady Hunt to protect her sixteen-year-old daughter Kayla, from the stranger who lurks on the moors. But little does Kiera know that it is she who is really in need of protection.
Arriving at Hallowed Manor on the desolate Welsh moors, Kiera soon realises that the vampires that she has been ‘seeing’ are not the stuff of her nightmares, but are very real and closing in.
If Kiera is to escape the vampires that hunt her, she will have to discover the true identity of the bandaged man, the secret of the children’s graveyard hidden beneath the weeping willows and who or what is hiding in the ‘forbidden’ wing at Hallowed Manor…
Book 3, Vampire Hunt, digs you in deeper into the world of the Vampyrus and Kiera's part in the world of the Hollows. I could not put the book down. And now that Kiera is being hunted herself, it is up to her group of winged protectors to guard her and ensure her safety. This book was amazing just as the other 2.
Blurb: In search of Kayla and on the run, Kiera and her friends make a race against time across the Cumbria Mountains. With the vampires predicting their every move, the trust amongst Kiera and her friends starts to fade.
From the desolate monastery set high between the mountains, the mysterious lake and the caves beneath the fountain, Kiera must discover the connection between the vampires and her mother, Isidor and Kayla, and resolve her inner feelings for Potter and Luke.
Kiera herself has started to change and this frightens her. So turning to her friends for help, she realises that it is only her mother who can provide the truth. But Kiera has other questions that she needs to have answered. Why did Isidor murder an innocent girl? Who is the person that Murphy has been meeting in secret? But above all, why have they put their lives and trust in the hands of a serial killer?
When I first started reading this I had no idea about the 4.5 book and the fifth and final one. As I got to the last page, I was like are your freaking kidding me? There's no more....how can he do this to me....This has been an awesome series and I was hooked from the first word of the first book. This book will rock you from beginning to end. And will leave you stunned waiting biting your nails impatiently waiting for the next.
Blurb: Kiera Hudson wakes to find herself imprisoned. Experiencing nightmares and visions, she slowly realises that she has been subjected to a series of sinister tests and operations. Addicted to blood and in pain, Kiera knows that if she is to survive she will need to escape from her cage. But who is the werewolf that secretly visits her during the night and can Kiera trust him? Where are her friends and why hasn’t Potter come to rescue her as he promised? With no word or message from Luke and Potter, she fears that they might be dead.
Wolf House is book 4.5 and all about Potter....ahhh Potter my guilty pleasure. He is a smart ass and I love when he says Sweet Cheeks or Easy Tiger...Wolf House takes you into Potter's world and tells you the reason he is the way he is. It will show you a side of Potter that no one would probably have guessed her had. I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for the last book. I cannot wait to see how this series wraps up and what is instore for this cast of characters, just know nothing is as it seems and just when you think you have it figured out, you get a shock of your life!!
Blurb: As Potter leaves Kiera and his friends to go in search of Luke, he makes a lonely journey across the snow-capped mountains of Cumbria. Haunted by the death of Murphy, the capture of Luke and the love that he feels for Kiera, Potter reflects on his past life and the disturbing events that took place at the Wolf House.
He remembers his first encounter with the werewolves, how he had to save Murphy and Luke, and capture the serial killer who was murdering the children from the town of Little Hope.
Now, that I'm off my soap box let's hear from the man himself.
I was fourteen when I knew that I wanted to be a writer. But before then, I’d had problems with reading and writing - I guess you can say I was a slow starter. In fact if it didn’t involve painting, drawing or making things with my hands, I wasn’t very good at it. The problem was my head was always filled with ideas and stories. I would always be telling my friends and family my stories, but I was frustrated as I couldn’t write them down.
Then one summer – I was about thirteen I think – I was bought a book to read while on holiday and everything seemed to click into place. Once I had the knack of reading the writing soon followed.
I read anything that I could lay my hands on but I was most inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, James Herbert and Dr. Seuss.
Although I love reading a good vampire novel, it was never my intention that I should write one myself, let alone a whole series of them. But last summer, my wife suggested that I write a vampire book. I said no straight away, stating that there were so many vampire books out there, why write another one. But my wife kept on at me and on at me and on at me…you get the idea. So in the end I relented and said that if she gave me an idea to work with than I would give it a try. My previous two books prior to the Kiera Hudson series had been ‘Black Hill Farm’ and ‘Black Hill Farm - Andy’s Dairy’. Both were supernatural thrillers with a deadly twist at the end and both are told via twelve police interviews.
So my wife suggested that because I enjoyed writing police-type things then perhaps I should set my story in a police station where the night shift is a bunch of blood thirsty vampires who are killing off the residents of a small town.
With that in mind, I sat down and wrote the first line - “My name is Kiera Hudson…” and fifteen days later I had completed ‘Vampire Shift’.
About halfway through writing ‘Vampire Shift’ I knew that they story I wanted to tell wouldn’t fit into just one book, so I decided to make it a series. I also wanted to make my vampires different. Some people have said in reviews and on blogs that my vampires are more like zombies. But I have created another race of vampire called the Vampyrus who are more like vampire bats. My werewolves are different too and are a race of serial killers. I just wanted to move away from the traditional and invent something new if I could.
My favourite characters that I love writing about in the ‘Kiera Hudson Series’ are Kiera and Potter. I have so much fun with them and their relationship. They spark off one another and that gives me the chance to create some interesting dialogue between them.
When I started to write ‘Vampire Shift’ it just felt right to write from Kiera’s POV but I wanted her to be different from the other female leads I read in other vampire books. I wanted her to be clever, I want her to be smarter than the guys that she worked with, someone who was independant and able to look after herself - I also wanted her to be able to see things that others around her missed. I think that’s why I like writing about Kiera so much - she’s smart and funny.
But if I’m to be honest, the character that I enjoyed writing the most and the one that I miss the most is Andrea (Andy) Black from my ‘Black Hill Farm’ books. I had so much fun writing about her - she was a joy to write - but however tempted I am, I can’t go back to ‘Black Hill Farm’ the story has been told.
I’m currently writing the last book in this Kiera Hudson Series and the book is called ‘Vampire Hollows’ and will be available early February. Once this is finished I’m going to start work on the a second Kiera Hudson series and the first book in this series will be called ‘Kiera Hudson - The Dead Flesh’. This will be different from the first series with a whole new bunch of characters.
I think my books are different from the other vampire books out there - because each one works a bit like a mystery that Kiera has to solve. There are lots of twists that I enjoy writing and I love leaving the reader guessing right until the last page. The other thing that I do is set clues throughout the books for readers to find should they care to look for them. I started this in the first Kiera Hudson book and the clues run throughout the rest of the series. I’m hoping at the end the reader will look back and say “OMG - how did I miss that and that and that…so that’s what he/she was doing when she did…” and so on. In a way, I guess the books are five pieces of a puzzle that when put together you will see the whole picture. I promise you - all the clues are there from book one.
It was the same with the ‘Black Hill Farm’ books - there are lot’s of twists and turns and no one as yet has seen the twist at the end of the book coming - I like that as it means as a writer I did my job - I hope. There is another twist in the book that I almost pulled at the last minute before publishing, but I was persuaded to keep it in and I’m glad now that I did. It’s the twist that I get the most emails about.
I love writing to music and that’s important to me - it can create a certain mood. All the songs that I listened to while writing the vampire series are all mentioned in the books. Kiera takes an iPod with her everywhere that she goes - so a lot of the songs I’m listening to while writing about her, she in a strange way is listening to, so I put them in the book.
It was the same when I was writing about Andy in the ‘Black Hill Farm’ books - she carried an iPod with her too (there’s a pattern forming here!) but the music she listened to was a lot darker than the music Kiera Hudson would listen to. I think the music we listen to says a lot about us, our moods and how we are feeling at any given time, so I use the iPod in my books to help convey the mood of my characters. I get a lot of emails from people saying that they listened to a particular song while reading parts of the books. People seem to listen to the songs that Kiera is listening to in the book at the same time as they are reading about her. Maybe it brings the reader closer to Kiera, something that they are doing together. I’m not sure - but people seem to enjoy that about my books.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity of doing this interview and guesting on your blog. Very much appreciate it.
Links to Vampire Shift:
Amazon.co.uk: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vampire-Shift-Hudson-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0057Q23DO/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Shift-Hudson-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0057Q23DO/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_4
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vampire-shift-tim-orourke/1104205793?ean=2940011447457&itm=1&usri=tim%2bo%2brourke
IBooks: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/vampire-shift-kiera-hudson/id455609964?mt=11
Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/78787
Website: http://ravenwoodgreys.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/wwwRavenwoodgreyscom/109170242508
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4193568.Tim_O_Rourke
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