Why Alice doesn't find out they're vampires until halfway through the book and other news

Apparently, folks are having issues with comments again, which makes me angry faced, but I'm not sure how to fix it. If you're familiar with blogspot and understand the problem, please let me know.

Also, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind words after my last blog. I really appreciated it. It was like a giant eHug! :)

Twimom followed up my fun interview with a wonderful review on her blog, so check it out: here.

I've read lots of  reviews of my books (and thanks everybody for putting in their input!!!!), and one of the most common complaints I hear about My Blood Approves is that Alice doesn't find out they're vampires until halfway through the book.

Now, I'm defending or disagreeing with these comments. This is a fact, and some people feel like it takes too long, so it does take too long. I value their feedback, and I plan on applying that to other books.

But what I am going to do is take a moment to explain why I have her wait so long, and even though it might be to the story's detriment, here it is:

I wanted her to establish  a relationship with Jack. Since I wanted to create an obvious difference between her feelings for Jack and Peter, I had to give her time to nurture an attachment with Jack before she met Peter. Because if I'm honest, if Alice had met Peter first, who knows how she would feel about Jack?

I strive for realism in the book, which sounds silly when I'm writing about vampires, but I want them portrayed as realistically as possible. That also means I want the humans to react the way humans react, and if I met a guy and he told me he was a vampire right after I met him, I would never speak to him again. And if he acted strangely, my first thought wouldn't be vampire either. I'd have to have evidence before I believed it.

Maybe it slows down the beginning more than I'd meant for it too. Maybe I could've put it in a few chapters sooner at least. I don't know. I don't feel comfortable making such a dramatic change on the book now that its been published and reviewed, but I am keeping this in mind with future books.

In other news, Fangtastic Books will be having a guest blog with yours truly, and while I can't remember exactly what I said, I do know that it's very, very exciting. It should be up sometime in the evening of Thursday, June 10 (also know as - today.)

On top of fantastic guest blogs by authors such as myself, she has giveaways, reviews, and TONS of other stuff. So if you enjoy vampires, you should really check out the site: Fangtastic Books.

The Indie Spotlight is a site devoted to shining a spotlight on up and coming indie authors, and they've been gracious enough to do a feature with me on Sunday, June 13th. They have daily features on authors in a wide variety of genres, so you should definitely check that out: here.

Meanwhile, over at Book Rat's blog, she's still has Jane in June running, and if you haven't checked it out, you're a crazy person. It's chocked full of so much stuff, I'm pretty sure she's given up sleep to run it. She has about ten billion giveaways, from Bridget Jone's Diary to Android Karenina. 

She also has a piece by me coming up sometime this month, and I'm embarrassed by the horribleness of it. So much of the guest posts have been utterly amazing, and I wrote a silly Dear Jane letter. So, you should definitely check out her site. But maybe skip over my part.

And one final note: Joran van der Sloot is the biggest douche that ever lived.

EDIT: The guestblog I did for Fangtastic Books is already up! Yay! But it's just as I predicted - very exciting. I might even divulge what Team I'm on. And even better - she's giving away a FREEE copy of My Blood Approves - either PDF or paperback!!!