Guest Post & Giveaway: Author Felicity Heaton with the Vampire Erotic Theatre Series

Creating the world of the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series

It’s wonderful to be back here at Romance Book Junkies with my Vampirerotique Winter Tour!

Today, I’m going to be talking a little more about the world of the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series.

I love to write vampire romance series. The thing I love most about them is that I get to play with a societal structure and I often get to really flex my world-building skills. I can’t help it. Whenever I write a vampire romance, I have to dream up a different sort of society, a world in which they live with laws they abide or break, people they either look up to or down on, and other fascinating aspects. It’s an intrinsic part of my vampire worlds and as important to me as what sort of vampire I’m writing.

Vampires are ageless. They live for centuries if not millennia, so it makes sense to me that they would have a very structured society that might seem antiquated to humans and perhaps a social divide too. You have to consider that they’re from a different time. When they were raised (or turned, but more about that later) it was probably in a very different world to our modern one, a time when humans had a very structured society too. The divide in modern human society is less noticeable than the one that existed a century or more ago. The divide in vampire society in this world isn’t.

I often write vampires as one breed with only age and who their sire was as a deciding factor on where they stand in society. That’s the case for my Vampires Realm series and also some of the worlds in my stand alone novels like Heart of Darkness. Sometimes though, I want a stronger divide and that’s when I introduce two very different types of vampire, and that’s the case with my Vampire Erotic Theatre series.

When dreaming up this world, I had established that the theatre would be a middle ground for vampires from the two sides of society. It’s very antiquated and old in its ways, and while both sides of society attend the theatre, they do so in a way that keeps them divided. I wanted to have that clear divide between them to reinforce the sentiments of the two sides and the feelings that run throughout the series.

Make no mistake, I have kept the vampires very similar to each other. They all stem from the same genes and ancestors after all. They breed and produce offspring. They all age at a rate much slower than humans and stop aging when they reach full maturity, appearing somewhere in their thirties to mortals. They live on a blood only diet but have some body heat and a heartbeat. The purer their blood or the younger they are, the quicker the UV rays will burn them. They live in a world they have fought to keep hidden from the majority of the human population.

What divides the vampire in the world of the Vampire Erotic Theatre series is the purity of their blood.

There are the powerful pureblood aristocrat families, who pride themselves on having only pureblood vampires in their lineage, and the elite families, who have turned humans within their bloodlines.

When I was coming up with the world, I wanted these two different types of vampires. I wanted the strong and the weaker (they’re still far stronger than mortals) vampires to exist in the same world. The aristocrats with their mission to keep their families pure and perfect, untainted, and the elites who are weaker because the power in their genes has been thinned by generations of breeding with turned humans, but are more down to earth and modern than their aristocrat brethren. The elite vampires don’t feel the same way as the aristocrats but they put up with the barriers between them and the often antiquated views of their stronger kin. If you think about it in terms of human society, the aristocrats are the lords of old and the elite are the common people they find disgusting and don’t want to associate with.

The theatres make this very clear. The aristocrats have private boxes and look down on the elite who all sit in the stalls, but regardless of where they sit, when blood is spilled on the stage all of them react the same way, with their vampire side emerging and salivating for a taste.

The series is focused on vampires from both sides of society. Four vampires run the erotic theatre, Vampirerotique. Two of them are elite, Javier and Callum, and two are aristocrats, Antoine and Snow. There are another two elite vampire heroes in the series, Andreu and Payne, but they don’t technically run the theatre. I wanted to have two from each world because it meant that I could play with both the upper class and lower class citizens, and show their differences or lack thereof. It also meant that the theatre could entertain both sides. In a world so focused on power and position, you would need aristocrat vampires associated with the theatre in order for their kind to deem it a place worthy of their patronage. In essence, the four owners of the theatre have found a way to bring the two sides of society together... in a way.

They also provided me with a chance to explore which of the vampire breeds are truly stronger—the aristocrats or the elite? Those obsessed with purity or those adapting to a modern world and embracing love wherever they might find it?

But it isn’t only vampires in this series. There’s a whole fae world involved too. I’ve had amazing fun bringing in species I’ve never played with before, including succubi and incubi, and also touching upon the worlds of the werewolves and the witches too. The Vampire Erotic Theatre series encompasses a huge number of different species and it’s been great fun exploring them and their world. In Bewitch, we even venture into a fae underworld with one of the heroes, seeing how that side of this series lives and exploring it in more detail.

While most of the heroes are vampires (one is part incubus part vampire) all of the heroines vary in their species, from mortals, to vampires, to a sassy succubus, a stubborn witch, and a wicked werewolf... and there’s another heroine too, but I can’t say much about her right now, although all fans of the vampire Snow are desperate to hear about this one because she’s his heroine.

It’s a complicated world, with vampires fighting their pride, their past, the laws and society itself to find love that will last eternity. I hope it’s a world that you’ll step into and find yourself immersed in their lives and their romances as their fight for their forever afters.

Be sure to follow this fantastic tour to learn more about the passionate heroes, wicked heroines, and life at London’s premier vampire erotic theatre! You can also find yourself in with a chance to win a $100 or $50 Amazon Gift Certificate if you follow the tour. More details, including how to enter and a full list of stops, are available at the Vampirerotique Winter Book Tour page: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/vampirerotique-winter-book-tour.php

All of the books so far in the series are available in paperback, and in ebook from Amazon Kindle, Apple iBooks and Kobo. Covet, Crave, Seduce and Enslave are available from Barnes and Sony Reader too. Bewitch will be available at those retailers soon. Excerpts are available for all of the current releases in the series, so you can get a taste of these wicked erotic romances.

Books in the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series

Covet (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 1)

Crave (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 2)

Seduce (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 3)

Enslave (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 4)

Bewitch (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 5)

Unleash (Vampire Erotic Theatre Romance Series Book 6) – Coming in 2013!

Felicity Heaton writes passionate paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In her books she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!

If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.

If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, Felicity Heaton’s best selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series she writes as F E Heaton or any of her stand alone vampire romance books she writes as Felicity Heaton. Or if you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try Felicity Heaton’s new Vampire Erotic Theatre series.

In 2011, five of her six paranormal romance books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews, Forbidden Blood was nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews, and many of her releases received five star reviews from numerous websites. In 2012, she received the GraveTells Author of the Year Award and her vampire romance novel, Heart of Darkness, was selected as a 2013 Epic Ebook Awards finalist in the paranormal romance category.

If you want to know more about me, or want to get in touch, you can find me at the following places:

My website: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

My blog: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/blog/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/felicityheaton

Twitter: http://twitter.com/felicityheaton

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/felicityheaton

Felicity has generously donated a giveaway of some awesome signed swag pictures below. Just leave a meaningful comment to be entered. Don't forget your email address so I can contact you.This giveaway is international. Good Luck!!