Best-selling author Syrie James (The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen and The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte) has been gracious enough to forward some information about her latest release, Dracula My Love, an absolutely fantastic story! (Want to read my review? Click HERE)

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions Syrie James receives about Dracula, My Love:

When did you get the idea for Dracula, My Love?

I had turned in the manuscript for my novel The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë and was looking for my next topic. My agent knew about my interest in vampires and all things British, and suggested that I retell Dracula as a romance from the point of view of Mina Harker, the heroine. It sounded like a brilliant idea, but when I reread Bram Stoker’s novel, I wasn’t sure at first how to approach it. Stoker’s Dracula is a very evil, ghoulish old man, endlessly discussed and feared, and rarely seen after the first few chapters. I didn’t see how Mina could possibly fall in love with a character like that. Moreover, the two female characters in the book are sweet, feminine, and sexless, and their encounters with Dracula are almost entirely off-stage and shrouded in mystery. The novel is told through journal entries and letters from five different narrators, and is full of gaps and unanswered questions.

One day it occurred to me: what if Mina’s journal entries weren’t the entire truth? What if Dracula only appeared as an old man to the men in the story, but to the women he wished to woo, he appeared in his youngest and most attractive form—just as the female vampires at his castle appeared to Jonathan as ravishing beauties? What if the true Dracula was not exactly evil, but rather an attractive, charismatic, highly intelligent, accomplished, and sympathetic being: a man who’d taken full advantage of his gift of immortality to expand his mind and talents, a man who had a very different explanation for every terrible act attributed to him, and who’d been misunderstood. Mina could fall madly in love with that man, and become involved in a passionate love affair so scandalous, she couldn’t bring herself to write the true story in her journal … until now. I got excited about that concept. That’s the book I decided to write.

What’s the funniest or strangest thing that happened while writing Dracula, My Love?

My husband Bill walked around quoting “Please, don’t be afraid” and “Welcome to my parlor” so often that I had to put those lines into the book. He tried to bite my neck a couple of times (just kidding.) Actually the best thing that happened wasn’t funny or strange but incredibly gratifying. The entire time I was writing the novel, Bill kept telling me that he didn’t like Dracula, the guy was an evil predator, and he didn’t see how I could possibly turn him into a romantic hero. Although Bill had loved all my other books, he felt certain he wasn’t going to like this one, and he’d be happy to see Dracula die at the end. I just said: “Wait till you read the book, you’ll see.”

Bill was the first person to read the manuscript when it was finished. He reluctantly sat down on a Saturday afternoon and started reading. He was hooked instantly. He read far into the night and all day on Sunday and then he took the day off from work on Monday so that he could finish it! He said I had entirely captivated him. He loved the novel and he loved my version of Dracula, his heart went out to him, and the whole time he was reading, he kept hoping nothing bad would happen to him at the end. I was both relieved and thrilled by his ecstatic response.

What research did you do?

I did an in-depth study of life in the Victorian era and the locations portrayed in the novel. I obsessively read and re-read an annotated version of Stoker’s novel Dracula in search of details and clues. I watched many film versions of Dracula as well as the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and True Blood. I read a wealth of vampire literature from such contemporary series as Twilight to novels going back a century or more.

Why Vampires and Dracula in particular?

I’ve been interested in vampires for years, ever since my son Ryan asked me to co-write a screenplay with him that featured vampires. Over the past century, vampires have evolved in literature and film from evil, monstrous predators to beings who are good-looking, powerful, eternally young, and good at heart—who fall madly in love with a human and constantly struggle against the evil within them. I love that. We feel bad for vampires for the things they can’t do—eat, drink, walk in sunlight—but we envy their strength and immortality.

Vampires are the “forbidden fruit”—a combination of sex and danger that’s a powerful aphrodisiac for many—at least in fantasy. A vampire who’s lived for centuries should be incredibly good at everything, don’t you think? Vampire sex should be the best sex a woman has ever had. After all, they’ve had centuries to practice.

My favorite male characters in fiction are the ones who are hopelessly in love with a woman who, for one reason or another, they feel they can’t have. A wealth of emotion smolders within them until at last they reveal their feelings in one passionate outburst—and then the real romance begins. Although I didn’t plan it that way, the heroes in every one of my novels follows that pattern, and my Dracula is no exception.

Why Dracula? Because he’s a fascinating character whose history and true nature had not been explored in the original story. It is my hope with this novel to appeal not only to readers who already love vampire stories, to those who enjoy a passionate, adventure-filled love story, and to those who love historical fiction—but to entice readers of contemporary vampire fiction back to the Victoria era, to meet one of the first and most powerful vampires of them all.

Is Dracula, My Love being adapted for film or television?

Not yet.

Has anything interesting happened as a result of writing Dracula, My Love?

The manuscript came to the attention of an editor at Vanguard Press, who invited me to write a romantic vampire novel for them. I could come up with any story I liked, as long as it was a contemporary love story involving a vampire. I’d had so much fun writing Dracula, My Love, I was definitely not finished writing about vampires—so I was delighted to accept their offer. I think that Dracula, My Love and Nocturne go hand in hand very well and I feel incredibly lucky to have an opportunity to write complimentary works to be released so close together. I hope it will make my fans as happy as it has made me.

What are you currently working on now?

Nocturne is about a woman who’s saved from death and then falls in love with a devastatingly handsome, fascinating, but enigmatic stranger with whom she’s snowbound for days during a raging blizzard.  When she finds out his dark secret—that he’s an ages-old vampire torn between his desire for her and his thirst for her blood—she’s miles from anywhere and has nowhere to run.  The challenge was to create a book that only has two characters in it, takes place in only one location, and yet keeps the sexual tension, twists, turns, and surprises coming.  I’ve had a great time writing it. The novel will be published by Vanguard Press in February, in time for Valentine’s Day.

Order Dracula, My Love HERE

GIVEAWAY ALERT!
Today, Friday August 13th @ 1:00 pm PST/4:00 pm EST, TLC Book Tours is hosting a Vampire Lit Twitter chat (#TLCbookchat) about Dracula, My Love and Syrie James will be joining in the chat. They’ll be giving away copies of Dracula, My Love before, during, and after the Twitter chat…

Come check it out, talk about vampires, and ask Syrie any burning questions you have!