Good morning! Please welcome guest author Michele Drier. Though I will be away for most of the day, please feel free to leave comments for Michele and I will post them as soon as I return. Thank you!
~Kate
What’s Happily Ever After?
“And they all lived happily ever after”
These words conjure up a lifetime of bluebirds and love songs. Of kindness and kisses. Of caring for one another.
What about aging together? Or illness? Or resentments that fester because there’s not enough money?
There’s a saying that “Getting old isn’t for sissies.” Is living happily ever after any different?
Happily ever after can be hard work. Learning to get along with each other’s family. Learning to live in a new place. Learning new routines and eating new foods.
In the best of worlds, these can be difficult adaptations. But throw in BIG differences—different religions, different nationalities, different species—and the learning curve is steep.
In The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, two regular women, Maxie and Jazz, fall in love with two vampires, Jean-Louis and Nik, members of the Kandesky family. What does their happily ever after look like?
First, “ever after” takes on a new meaning when one of the partners doesn’t age and won’t die. Maxie faces terrific tension when Jean-Louis wants to marry her. If she’s going to marry, she wants to do the whole enchilada. She doesn’t want to live in a world where her lover and partner doesn’t age, is never ill, always looks in his early 30s and at his physical peak. This means she’ll have to turn and become a vampire.
Giving up the sun and learning to live in the night? Giving up all the food she loves? Scaring her friends when she announces she’s a vampire? Never having children?
What does she get in return? Someone who loves her unconditionally. A lifestyle of the rich and famous. Never being ill or injured. Never worrying about weight gain, or wrinkles, or achy joints.
And what about Jazz? She watches her friend and mentor, Maxie, go through the agony of making this decision. What will she do when it’s her turn?
To complicate things, Jean-Louis was married once before so he knows what it’s like to live with a woman. To protect her and keep her safe while accepting all her own independent choices.
Nik, whom Jazz loves to distraction, is still living in the seventeenth century where women are concerned. As she tries to drag him to an understanding of the twenty-first century, he’s giving her orders and is baffled when she resists.
Can there be a happily ever after for these couples or are their differences too great to overcome?
I don’t know yet. I love writing the Chronicles and living with the Kandeskys. They always surprise me. And I admit that I believe anything is possible if you love enough.
Do you believe in happily ever after? What does it look like to you?
Michele Drier was born in Santa Cruz and is a fifth generation Californian. She’s lived and worked all over the state, calling both Southern and Northern California home. During her career in journalism—as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers—she won awards for producing investigative series.
SNAP: All That Jazz, Book Eight of The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was published June 30, 2014. The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles paranormal romance series include SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, Plague: A Love Story, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Night and SNAP: All That Jazz. SNAP: I, Vampire, Book Nine in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles is scheduled for publication early 2015.
She also writes the Amy Hobbes Newspaper mysteries, Edited for Death and Labeled for Death. A third book, Delta for Death, is coming in 2014.
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Thanks so much for having me as a guest today, Kate. I’m still looking for Happily Ever After!
Thank you for being a guest, Michele!
The HEA is certainly different for vampires. It really is an interesting proposition. I tried to think what I would do, weighing eternal youth and love with all the things you mentioned I’d have to give up. Don’t know. Interesting. Kandesky is a fun series. I’m halfway through. You’ve done a great job creating the ambiance. Kudos.