Reviews, Reader Comments, Interviews, and Listings

http://www.myshelf.com/literary/02/captivity.htm

Reviewed by Patricia A Ard, Reader

Reviewed by Margaret L. Carter, Author

Captivity is volume one of the Darkhour Vampires. The story opens with Wade Kain and his two friends camping in the Santiam Wilderness south of Portland. They spend their days skinny-dipping and drinking beer, their nights passing around a joint and telling scary stories, but unbeknown to them, one of those stories isn’t a story at all. Enter Cassandra, sexy and insane vampire.

Cassandra has been sentenced to seventy-five years of exile by the Directors of Darkhour-the vampire’s ruling body-for slaying another vampire. But fifty years has passed since she killed Amanda and her daughter, and there is a growing sentiment within Darkhour that she has been ‘punished’ enough. When Wade and his two friends disappear, vampire psychologist, Donovan Reed, goes to investigate. He knows Cassandra of old and can never forgive her for killing Amanda and their child. He vows to find the truth and prove to Darkhour the depths of her evil.

Linda Suzane has not only created a believable world where vampires exist, she has created one where they manage a huge corporation-Darkhour-and use modern science in the form of DNA scanning to choose who is suitable to receive their ‘gift’ of vampirism.

Captivity is a well-written and excellent beginning to this series. Dialogue is believable and appropriate to the scenes, and the reader is never subjected to over the top narrative or description. The main characters come to life leaving a lasting impression-especially Wade and Donovan. If I had one criticism, it would be that the author dwelt too long on Wade’s captivity. I found myself wanting to skip ahead when I read yet another scene detailing Wade’s mental and sexual abuse at the hands of Cassandra. I also wanted more about the politics within Darkhour, but this was a minor lapse when considering the story as a whole. Perhaps Darkhour itself will be addressed in the next book, I hope so.

Overall, Captivity is a fine addition to any vampire lover’s collection. I look forward with great anticipation for Freedom, volume two of the Darkhour Vampires.

Eternal Night, Reviewed by Lesley Mazey

http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/books/s/suzanelinda/captivity.html

Score 8 out of 10

Wade, Mike and Josh are on a camping trip to celebrate Wade's birthday. The first night they are sitting around the campfire swapping horror stories and urban legends when they are attacked. Within seconds Josh sees his companions brutally murdered while he is taken captive by a rather strange woman, Cassandra. He soon comes to realise that Cassandra is more than strange - she is a vampire and she wants to make him like her so that he can be with her for eternity.

Donovan Reed is the Dark Hunter. A vampire who looks for evidence of vampire attack, captures them and attempts to turn them away from their destructive path. One day he hears how the bodies of two young campers are found, apparently mutilated by wild animals and how a third camper is still missing. Knowing that the corpses were found close to the lair of a known vampire he sets out to find out what is happening and to see if he can find the missing boy.

Captivity is the first in the Darkhour Vampires series and it sets the scene well for future volumes. Donovan Reed has two separate identities. One, Dr Donovan Reed is an eminent psychiatrist who, to the outside world, specialises in treating people with delusions of vampirism. However, this is merely a cover for his true identity, The Dark Hunter. Cassandra, the villain of the piece, is a beautifully written succubus with few, if any, redeeming features. She is unashamedly evil!

 Reviewed by Kate Hill, Author of God of Grim

Reviewed by Christine Janssen, Author of Dark Legacy

May 29, 2002

Reviewed by Karen Koehler, Author of Slayer

Reviewed by Patricia Rasey, Author

Linda Suzane pulls off this vampires' tale with finesse and flair. She has an uncanny way in Captivity of combining two plot lines into one incredible story. If vampirish stories are right up your alley, then you won't want to miss this one! ~~

Patricia A. Rasey, author of Deadly Obsession and the Hour Before Dawn

Twisted Tales - July Issue
Reviewed by Annette Gisby

June 18, 2002

For as long as there have been people to tell stories, there have always been vampire stories. Stories about creatures of the night who live on blood and hold their victims in thrall. Eighteen year old Wade Kain doesn't believe in vampires, gives no credence to the legend that there is a red-eyed demon haunting the woods.

When he and his two friends camp there to celebrate his birthday, the trio are attacked and Wade's two friends are brutally murdered. Wade himself is kidnapped and taken to the lair of a beautiful, but insane and sadistic vampire, Cassandra, who uses pain and pleasure to entice Wade into staying with her and obeying her every whim. In the vampire's power, Wade has no option but to do as she says, for in his trance-like state he thinks he loves her and doesn't want to lose her.

He will do anything to keep her happy, even if that means murder and death...

The plot starts off at a run and has you rushing headlong towards a finish line, wondering what on earth will happen next. The pages just wanted to be kept turning and I finished the book in one sitting, ready to read more.

There are quite a few subplots besides the story of Cassandra and Wade, the machinations of vampire society, how newly raised vampires take the news that they are no longer dead and why it's rude to show your fangs when you're introduced to another vampire. Some of it is quite lighthearted, such as the vampires owning a corporation and having to deal with things like taxes and staff shortages. (It's easy to have staff shortages when you're a vampire.)

But it isn't long before the darker aspects of the tale unfold again and at the end you are left wondering what will happen in the next installment of the Darkhour Vampires.

A great read.

Vampire eBook Authors at Suite101.com

This time I get to write about myself and my book. I am an author whose passions include vampires, murder and reading. I love hosting of this column because I get to read great vampire eBooks and interview wonderful authors. I started e-Vampires.net, because there wasn’t room here for my long list of vampire eBooks, but it has taken on a life of its own and is now the place to find the best bloodsucking fiction on the Web. I also reviews print books, mysteries and vampire books, for several review sites and have just started my own book review site, Midnight Blood Reviews, at http://www.midnightblood.com.

Here is where you can find me on the Web My official homepage: http://www.lindasuzane.com
The home for Darkhour Vampires: http://www.darkhourvampires.com
For book reviews, articles, vampire fiction: http://www.midnightblood.com
Where to find the best bloodsucking fiction on the Web: http://www.e-vampires.net
Murder mystery games: http://www.playmurder.com

INTERVIEW
So what is new and exciting in your life?
CAPTIVITY, the first book in my Darkhour Vampires series, is now available from Wings Press in both print and eBook. This is my first print book. I also started a new web site, http://www.darkhourvampires.com

EYES OF TRUTH, my fantasy mystery, which is available as an eBook from Twilight Times Books, http://www.twilightimesbooks.com , will soon be in print as well. Not only that, I made my first foreign rights sale. EYES OF TRUTH will be translated into Rumanian and published by one of Romania’s largest publishers. For a writer of vampire fiction, I like the idea of my books being sold in the home of Dracula. For more information about EYES OF TRUTH see my Vampire eBook Author column http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/vamp... I have another Kingdom of Naj story, a short story called Daughter-in-Law, coming out from Twilight Times Books soon.

My first book, THE MURDER GAME, has found a new publisher, Double Dragon Publishing, and should be re-published sometime this month. http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com

In addition to e-Vampires.net News, I have started a new newsletter, MIDNIGHT BLOOD, The Linda Suzane Newsletter, with stories, serials, articles, and author news devoted to my two passions, Vampires and Murder.

How did you come up with the Darkhour Vampires?
When my daughter was a teenager, I wrote a story I called Mother’s Love about Prane, a mother of two typical teenagers, who just happens to be a vampire, a secret she is keeping from her children. I will let you make what you will of the Freudian significance of such a story, especially if you have raised teenagers. One day a character from the story, a policeman named Wade Kain, demanded that I tell the story of how he was first bitten by a vampire. I’ve heard writers talk about characters taking over, but I’d never experienced it. What a trip! The stories literally wrote themselves. If you would like to know more about how I came to write CAPTIVITY, check out my web site http://www.darkhourvampires.com

Tell us about how you go about writing such a series?
I wrote the first book is less than two weeks, over 50,000 words. It was actually the last book in the series. I then went back and wrote the first book CAPTIVITY in less than three weeks. I was driven, the words just flowed out of me, the story, everything just seemed to work. I started at the end of March 1998, and by the middle of September, I had four books and was well into a fifth. When I re-read the books, I kept thinking they were really good, but I wasn’t ready to trust my judgement. I was clearly too close to be rational. You know sometimes you write something that you think is great and then when you re-read it, it really stinks or you write something that you think really stinks, and when you get some distance from it, you realize it isn’t so bad. So I went on to finish EYES OF TRUTH. When I got finally returned to working on the series, I knew they were what I wanted to spend my next few years writing about. So I set about rewriting the first book in the series, CAPTIVITY. As often happens things change. One of the minor characters, Thom Barber, the newborn vampire, who was in the original story just as a device so I could explain what these vampires are like, became a character in his own right, so the book is no longer just Wade’s and Donovan’s story, but Thom’s as well.

Now I’m working on book two and three in the series. I’m having problems with these two books. Although I have Mignon’s story written, it was supposed to be the second book, I know that there is a third novel that completes this portion of the story. The first three stories take place in the early 1980s. The next three books take place some eighteen years later. I don’t think of them as trilogies. I was just telling the story of how Wade was first bitten and how Mignon/Prane came to escape her husband. As I worked on the stories, I realized that there needs to be a third book to finish telling Thom’s story and to set up some things that happen in the later books. It is the only one that isn’t in rough draft. I’m not quite sure yet how I am going to make it all work. I thought I had an idea, but as I am working, it seems to be changing. I’m sure that the characters have their own ideas and will soon let me know where to go.

You serialized Captivity from Midnight Blood. Why did you choose to serialize the book and will you be serialize the other stories?
I had seen the interest other authors generated in their stories by serializing them, so I decided to do so as well. It worked out really well since the thing I hate most about writing is the copyediting, that stage where you read and re-read and look at every word. By serializing it, I only had to do a short segment at a time, but I was committed to work on it every day. I couldn’t procrastinate. I was going to start serializing the second book immediately, but it isn’t nearly ready yet, so I decided to turn Midnight Blood into a monthly newsletter devoted to vampires and murder. I am currently serializing a science fiction mystery story. Will I serialize the next Darkhour Vampires book? That will be up to my publisher. I would like to, but I am not sure if the publisher will allow it.

How are your vampires different from say Anne Rice’s?
I like to think of my vampires as mundane vampires. I like the idea of vampires living next door struggling to lead normal lives. Prane is the mother of two teenagers. Donovan is a working psychologist. These aren’t magical creatures, they don’t turn into bats or run from garlic or crosses. They photograph and can be seen in mirrors. They do heal quickly, are stronger, see better in the dark. They can tolerate some sunlight and they only need to sleep all day when they are newborn. They aren’t immortal or cursed. They are created, not born, the traditional three blood exchanges. What is different is that I have taken the idea that if you kill the sire, the offspring die and made it their fatal weakness. To solve that problem they have created what are called second generations, where five sires exchange blood, so if one sire dies, you won’t die. The other factor is that only about 5% of the human population is genetically capable of transforming into a vampire. By studying DNA, the vampires can determine who will survive the change. The final unusual element is that the vampires have created a corporation, the Darkhour Corporation, as a shield to protect them. The Board of Directors are their ruling body.

Tell us about mystery games and what do they have to do with vampires?
Mystery games are basically theme parties where your guests come in character and attempt to solve a mystery, usually a murder. I have been writing my own mystery games for years for special get-togethers. My first novel, THE MURDER GAME, is about a mystery game designer whose game goes murderously wrong. Right now I am exploring the possibility of creating a game system, using the power of the Internet, that would allow the purchaser to custom design their own game. Darkhour Vampires is one of the game scenarios. You would be able to choose your favorite Darkhour Vampire to play. It is different from role playing as it revolves around a mystery to solve. Through September 30, 2002, you can help by filling out a simple questionnaire about mystery games. When you do, you will be entered to win a free autograph copy of either CAPTIVITY or THE MURDER GAME. http://www.playmurder.com/survey.htm

BOOK REVIEW
CAPTIVITY (DARKHOUR VAMPIRES: VOLUME ONE)
By Linda Suzane
Published by Wings Press
http://www.wings-press.com/gen_general.h...
Copyright 2002
eBook ISBN: 1-59088-127-3
Trade Paperback ISBN: 1-59088-904-5
Genre: General Fiction - Vampire

Vampires were the last thing eighteen-year-old Wade Kain and his two friends, Mike and Josh, expected when they went camping in the Oregon woods. Cassandra and her two get, Panther and Wolf, brutally murder Wade’s friends. Cassandra takes Wade back to her lair, where she seduced the naive young man, binding him to her with blood and sex, pleasure and pain.

A newborn vampire stalks the streets of San Francisco. Thom Barber died in a car accident, but the morgue was backed up, so he got up and walked out. Dr. Donovan Reed must stop the newborn before the bloodlust drives Thom to kill. He rescues Thom and takes him back to his clinic in rural Oregon, where Donovan helps the newborn understand and cope with his new existence.

When Donovan hears the report of two badly mauled bodies and a missing camper, he is certain that Cassandra is involved. Almost 50 years ago, Cassandra was sentenced to the mountain lair for the murder of Donovan’s love Amanda and their young daughter. All these years Donovan has watched, frustrated that the rest of the vampires would allow Cassandra to be as wanton as she wants, just as long as it doesn’t attract attention to the vampires. When a woman is kidnapped and the suspect looks like Cassandra’s servant, Stanos, and the autopsy reports on the two boys show two different bite marks, Donovan decides to investigate, only to find himself Cassandra’s helpless prisoner. His only chance is Wade.

Here is what others are saying about Captivity:

Not a vampire devotee, I had no preconceived notions when I began reading Captivity by Linda Suzane. Am I glad I started it on a weekend, because I simply HAD to finish it RIGHT AWAY. In a word, Wow! The power of Ms. Suzane's writing propels you into the story with vivid images, strong characterization, and totally believable scenario. An unequivocal thumbs-up! ~~ reviewed by Christine Janssen, who received the Golden Wings Award from Wings ePress, Inc. for her romantic suspense, STAND ON YOUR OWN.

A fast-moving "good vampire vs. evil vampire" adventure, with the two sides fighting over a kidnapped teenage boy, CAPTIVITY has rich characterization as well as sustained suspense. The "evil" vampire is sometimes almost pitiable in her madness, and the "good" vampire has enough of a dangerous edge to make him believable as a centuries-old creature of the night. Linda Suzane achieves a fresh approach to the familiar vampire problem of tension between living ethically in the human world and protecting the secret of the immortal blood-drinkers' existence. ~~ Margaret L. Carter, author of DARK CHANGELING (www.hardshell.com), winner of the 2000 Eppie Award for Horror

Great book. This is a keeper. Lots of well defined sexual scenes but with a real story that develops the good guys that you will just fall in love with. Characters to fall in love with. HOT, HOT, HOT. Move over Laurell K, new kid on the block. -- Patricia A. Ard, Reader

Wings Interview Linda Suzane by Christine Janssen  

July 1, 2002

Not a vampire devotee, I had no preconceived notions when I began reading your July release, CAPTIVITY. I’m glad I started it on a weekend, because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened! I know your readers will want to know more about you and how your mind works. So, here goes:

Most interviewers ask where writers get their ideas, until it becomes a cliche. Because of your subject matter--dark vampire novels--it is a very valid question. How did you come up with the premise for CAPTIVITY?

When my daughter was a teenager, I wrote a story I called Mother’s Love about Prane, a mother of two typical teenagers, who just happens to be a vampire, a secret she is keeping from her children. I will let you make what you will of the Freudian significance of such a story, especially if you have raised teenagers. One day a character from the story, a policeman named Wade Kain, demanded that I tell the story of how he was first bitten by a vampire. I’ve heard writers talk about characters taking over, but I’d never experienced it. What a trip! The stories literally wrote themselves. If you would like to know more about how I came to write CAPTIVITY, check out my web site www.darkhourvampires.com.

How much of your personality/experience surfaces in your books?

I am not much into research so I tend to write from experience. In my first published book, THE MURDER GAME, I used my experiences designing murder mystery games and for a location a mansion in Mill Valley where I had stayed on several retreats. In CAPTIVITY, although the settings are fictitious, I drew very heavily from my experience of living in a small town in rural Oregon and some of the picnics we had in the beautiful Santiam Wilderness. Later stories in the series are set in Salem, Oregon, and the surrounding area. When I envision the house where Prane lives, I see the house, the street where we lived in Salem. Her kids go to North High School, the same school my daughter went to. It was my daughter and her friends that gave me lots of ideas for Wade and his friends.

When I write I tend to take some reality and liberally season it with unreality. I like the image of Vampires living next door, struggling to lead normal lives.

On your website, you talk about hidden, secret sides to people. What is your hidden side?

When I was first writing, I took a class from Science Fiction writer Ray Faraday Nelson. One of our assignments was to figure out our passion, our obsession, the thing we kept writing about over and over. He explained that our best stories would always be about that passion. I realized that all the stories I was writing were about people with hidden aspects to their character, a secret past, and the conflict of trying to integrate two disparate aspects of the personality. Wade has a horrifying past, a past he doesn't even remember; the series is about his dealing with the conflicts that arise when he does learn about that past, what he is, and what he is capable of. Prane was made a vampire against her will. She must hide what she is for her children's sake.

So what is my hidden side? My writing side. I am an ordinary, very overweight, past-middle‑age woman, who spends her time plotting murder and writing about vampires, sexy vampires at that. There is the public part of me and the writer part of me and they don’t quite mesh. Sometimes I have problems with that. Whenever a writer writes something, especially of an erotic nature, even if it is just a steamy category romance novel, they must wonder what others will think. Will they think you’re like your characters? Will it change their opinion of you as a person?

It would be a lot easier to write about safe things. But it doesn't work. You have to write about your passion. Joyce Carol Oates said, "Never be ashamed of your subject, and of your passion for your subject. Your 'forbidden' passions are likely to be the fuel for your writing . . .Your struggle with your buried self, or selves, yields your art." I keep reminding myself of that and keep writing about my passion.

I won’t give away the plot of CAPTIVITY, but I can ask about Donovan, a leader of the vampires. Will we see more of him? What about the evil Cassandra?

Oh yes, Donovan and Cassandra both return in later stories. There must be an end to the conflict between the two of them that has been going on for over one hundred years, and in the fifth book of the series, REVENGE, Cassandra, Donovan and Wade meet for one last time.

If CAPTIVITY were made into a movie, who do you see as playing Wade, the kidnapped young man who struggles to stay alive – or should I say, to stay human? Who would play Donovan and Cassandra?

That is a hard one since I see them so clearly in my mind and I can't think of any actor or actress that I could picture them as. I will say that I've always seen Wade as having the rather good looks and those extraordinary eyes of a young Frank Langella or someone like that. Bedroom eyes with loads and loads of sensuality and a wonderful voice.

The vampires in your books live hundreds of years. If you could enter a time machine, what year/era would you like to set the dial to? Why?

Another hard question since I am very content to live in the now. Perhaps San Francisco in the decades after the gold rush. I've studied that era and find it very interesting; besides, I was born in San Francisco so I have an affinity for the city.

You write as Linda Suzane. How did you choose it for a pen name?

Our last name is Melin, which most people mis-pronounce as Melon or something sounding like that. I just couldn't picture people coming in looking for books and asking for an author named melon, especially since I tend to write with a lot of sensuality. My middle name is Suzanne, so I made it Linda Suzane. I really like it and have found it tremendously freeing. I am known on the Internet as Linda Suzane. It is like my hidden, secret self, my secret identity, my identity as a writer. The part of me that likes hidden secret selves really gets a kick out of it.

You’ve moved around the country quite a bit. Now that you’ve settled on the Oregon coast, have you finally found your “home”?

I don't know for sure. We really enjoy it. It is very beautiful and we like the cool, comfortable weather. Right now we live here because this is where my husband has a job and our daughter and grandson are here. I suspect that if she was to move somewhere else, we would probably move to be closer to her. But I do love Oregon. It is a beautiful state. I was a native Californian, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it has just gotten too crowded, too busy. Oregon is more like what California was when I was young, slower paced, fewer people.

With all the irons you have in the fire, tell us how you organize your day to get everything done.

Lists and more lists. But I wish I was more organized. I seem to work from one deadline to the next deadline, one crisis to the next, focusing only on what I absolutely must get done right this moment and there are always far too many items on that list. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and literally go escape into a good book or a long nap.

I tend to tumble out of bed around 6 am when my husband leaves for work and start working on the computer, and I keep working until my brain and bottom are both numb. I know I should take more breaks, do other things, but I am notoriously bad about not being able to stop in the middle of something, and there is always one more little thing to do.

I’ve been so busy lately with the business of being a writer and web designer that I haven’t had the time to be a writer, to experience the joy of creativity, of focusing solely on a writing project. After the furor of getting CAPTIVITY published, I plan to devote myself to just writing about my Darkhour Vampires.

What does your family think of your writing?

My husband has always supported my writing. He has been my best critic and editor. He was an English major in college so he always has the answer. Right now he is working two jobs to give me the opportunity to write full time in the belief that someday I will start making money at this writing game.

The hard one was letting my daughter read my vampire series. Who wants to think that their mother writes sex scenes like that? But she’s read them and really enjoyed them. My grandson is only three, too young to read, but someday I hope he will think it is cool to have a grandmother who writes about vampires. Certainly not something that most grandmothers do.

Finally, what advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Join a good critique group and learn from them. Recognize that writing is a learning process. It isn't whether or not you are published, it is what you learn from writing that particular piece that is important. Learn enough and eventually you will find yourself a competent writer. Unfortunately nowadays, being a competent writer often has nothing to do with being a published writer. Thank goodness the Internet and quality royalty-paying e-publishers like Wings Press are allowing competent writers to be published.

Thank you, Linda. It was a pleasure “talking” with you. I hope your readers enjoy CAPTIVITY as much as I did.

Christine Janssen