Guest Blogger: Doris O’Connor Celebrates

Hello everyone!

*waves excitedly*

Elley and Tari have kindly allowed me to high jack their blog today to celebrate the release of my debut novel Lure of the Blood and I thought I would share a little about my inspirations for this tale.

When I was originally featured here back in June this novel was very much a work in progress. I read lots of paranormal stories, but I had never attempted to write one and this story didn’t start out as paranormal. It was supposed to be another erotic novella. I had recently completed one and really enjoyed the shorter length, so thought I would try my hand at another short. The idea popped into my head one night as I went to sleep. I wrote the intro to the first chapter and posted it to my critique group with a, “This just came to me. What do you think?”

I was told in no uncertain terms to keep writing, so I did. 🙂

The UCW girls, as my critique group are known, are a huge encouragement. So many of my stories would not have been written were it not for them. Lure of the Blood is no exception.

I should add here that I am a complete panster. Even when I have a vague idea of a plot, my characters grab me by the throat and take me away on a tangent. This novel is a prime example.

My original idea was sparked by a magazine article I’d read whilst waiting for my eldest son to have an MRI scan for a tumour in his jaw. This was November last year. He’s made a full recovery since, after an operation to have the mass drained. Not surprisingly the idea was put to one side at the time.

What was the article about, you might ask? Well, it was about university students financing their degrees by lap dancing. Apparently there is a growing trend for this here in the UK. So my writer’s brain thought – oooh, there is a story in there somewhere.

So, when I went to sleep that night, many months later, this gem of an idea resurfaced, and my heroine Marnie was born. She finances her Law degree by dancing in a lap dancing club. And there is a mysterious stranger watching her from the shadows. Whilst writing, this stranger announced that he was in fact a vampire, so began my hunt for suitable visual inspiration. I don’t know about you, but words come so much more easily when I have a picture in front of me.

So the yummy Ion Somerhalder proved to be just the right inspiration for Lucas de Tourneau.

 

Sorted, so we had Marnie and Lucas and hang on, what about her boss? Ion grumbled away in the background until I went searching for some more inspiration for him. Actually that grumbling should have warned me…

I found the inspiration I needed in the form of Jason Statham.

This picture was perfect for the scene I had in mind, where Ion drives Marnie home in his truck. It was then that Ion announced he was a shifter and he didn’t stop growling in my ear until I did exactly what he wanted me to do. This very insistent alpha wolf muscled in on Lucas and Marnie and the story took a completely different turn to the one I had anticipated.

Such is the joy of being a panster. Always a thrill and maddeningly opinionated characters who do not do as they’re told, ever.

*grin*

Lure of the Blood took several more surprising twists and turns the more I wrote. The short went out of the window and I ended up with a 50K novel.

So, there you have it, a little insight into my maddeningly chaotic writing process.

Lure of the Blood is available through Evernight Publishing.

I shall leave you with a little excerpt of that ride in Ion’s truck, where everything changes:

 

Marnie scooted into a corner of the pickup truck, the minute her boss had handed her up into the cab, and let out the breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. When his hands had connected with her waist, the heat of his skin had burned through her clothes, his earthy scent invading her. She could have sworn his pupils had turned into catlike slits. She must be imagining things; clearly, she had hit her head too hard last night, and she had a lump the size of a football on the back of her head to prove it. Sure enough, glancing across at him now, he seemed perfectly normal to her. Perhaps it was simply the fact of seeing him in broad daylight for the first time––that had to be it. This was the closest she had ever been to him; in fact, he had never touched her before. He didn’t seem to touch anyone.

Heat crept into her cheeks when he turned to study her, one eyebrow raised in a silent question at her blatant appraisal. Way to go, girl; caught ogling your boss.

“You ok? I’ll have you home in no time.”

The cautious smile lighting up his craggy features at her tentative nod made her toes curl under. Good lord, he was gorgeous when he smiled. Close cropped hair, coupled with the stubble on a strong jaw and his intense expression gave him a mean, sexy look. How come she had never noticed before? This was her boss, for pity’s sake. It was bad enough lusting after mysterious strangers, let alone him. What the hell was wrong with her?

Instead of letting her imagination run away with her, she ought to be concerned why she couldn’t remember a thing about last night. Well, remember nothing but a pair of compelling moss-green eyes and a gravelly, accented voice in her ear and then just darkness. Gah, it was so bloody frustrating.

Ion’s low, growled curse registered at the same time as the pickup stopped abruptly and white-hot pain shot up from her bruised ribs, the seatbelt locking her in place. She couldn’t stop the agonised moan escaping.

“Shit, are you ok? That kid came out of nowhere.”

Ion’s hands were seemingly everywhere, unbuckling her seatbelt, running one hand over her sides, whilst the other checked her head with infinite care.

“Did you bump your head again? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Marnie lost herself in the intense gaze of steely blue-grey eyes for a second, before the pain in her ribs made her flinch and Ion’s hands froze. “Your ribs? Let me see.”

“It’s nothing much, really.” Marnie tried in vain to slap his hand away, only to have her chin caught in an iron grip, forcing her to look at him. Her heart beat a bit faster at the concern she saw in his face.

“Let me be the judge of that,” and before she could say or do anything, his large hands had tugged her top up, his low whistle at what he saw causing his hot breath to skitter across her face. His hands started a slow exploration of her rib cage and her breath hitched when his fingers skimmed the underside of her breasts, awareness of the man in front of her causing heat to rise in her cheeks.

Get a grip, girl; he is only checking you over to make sure you’re ok.

His hands stilled at her indrawn breath, his gaze flickering to her face for an instant. Marnie’s mortification increased tenfold at the inscrutable expression on his face, the small muscle ticking in his jaw the only indication he was aware of her reaction.

“I don’t think anything is broken, but we ought to get you checked out by a doc anyway to be on the safe side.” His voice had dropped an octave and Marnie’s stomach dropped right with it.

“I…I don’t need a doctor, you said nothing is broken. I’ll get over it. Besides, he would ask too many questions I couldn’t answer.”

With one last searching look Ion shifted the truck into gear and moved off again.

Blurb:

Marnie’s decision to finance her law degree by pole dancing awakens her latent sexuality and the mysterious stranger lurking in the shadows sends her libido into overdrive. Attacked on her way home, she wakes up the next morning covered in bruises and with no recollection of what happened. The newspapers are full of a suspected animal attack and Marnie finds herself in her very own twilight zone.

Realizing her sexy lurker is a vampire is bad enough, but her boss is the alpha wolf of a pack of shifters? Torn between her attraction to both men and surrounded by danger, she has a decision to make, that will change her life forever.

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