Hello all! In addition to being Sunday, today is also the day Royal Rumble (the 13 year-old requires that we attend every WWE event that comes to the general vicinity) takes place in Houston and the day AFTER five of my six children had their very first flying lesson! Exciting! It seems we've planted the seed of aviation in all of my
little daredevils children and will hopefully be getting some pilot lessons underway in the not-too-distant future.
Also, I would like to apologize. I signed up to blog last week, and had full intentions of doing so, until we learned that my aunt passed away from cancer in Odessa, TX. We rented an RV, loaded up the kids, and set out across the Lone Star State, and somewhere between the Brazos and the Pecos Rivers, blogging completely slipped my mind. Thank you for welcoming me back this week!
Now . . . onward to my newest and most exciting project yet! Dracula! To get this proverbial party started, I'll begin with an excerpt from my reader letter. So without further ado, let's step out of the shadow of Count Dracula . . .
Back in 2009 when I began writing
historical romance, on its own accord my work seemed to take an inspirational
shift, which led (naturally) into more faith-based works, including my first
Amish novel, Rebekah’s Quilt. Like the never-ending laundry pile
produced by my family of eight, Rebekah’s Quilt morphed and multiplied
with reckless abandon until it became book number one of a four-book series
titled Rebekah’s Keepsakes. Suffice it to say, my work tends to take on a mind of its own and
does as it pleases. Which pretty much describes in a nutshell how this book
about Vlad came to be.
As a gal with a Bachelor’s degree in
Medieval European History, I have an extreme fascination with the people of
yesteryear and was thrilled when I learned that the infamous, bloodsucking Count
Dracula was based on Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Ţepeş,
or Vlad the Impaler. Once I started research into Vlad and his life, I began to
see him as a person instead of as a fictional character, and he was nothing
like what legends described.
Vlad Drăculea III was fiercely Catholic, a
third-generation Defender of the Faith, and a member of the Order of the Dragon,
declared so by the Pope. His grandfather took their surname, Drăculea, to honor
the Order of the Dragon since, in old Romanian, drăcul translates to dragon.
Today, it translates to devil, which does no favors to Vlad’s legacy.
As a child, Vlad and
his younger brother Radu were handed over by his father Vlad II, ruler of Wallachia,
to be a prisoner of the Turks, whose practice of taking sexual liberties with little boys and young men was common
knowledge of the time. This was a selfish move on King Vlad’s behalf, as he
traded his sons into Ottoman hands to ensure himself a peaceful reign without
Ottoman harassment and, worse yet, this practice of trading of little boys to the Ottomans in exchange for
peace with the Turks was a common practice between many European countries and
the Ottomans - not just Wallachia. . .
.
There we have it. Ten sentences yanked from the first portion of my reader letter, thus setting the scene for this first-of-its-kind Dracula story. I hope you'll subscribe for updates for more behind-the-scenes Vlad drama which I uncovered while researching this series - and of course another excerpt from the untold story of Vlad next week! In the meantime . . . why not check out some of my fresh, new Amish romance releases? Because Vlad and Amish . . . they go together like . . . pickles and ice cream? Maybe . . . ?
The Old Order Amish life offered in her hometown of Gasthof Village, Indiana is too restricting for spunky Katie Knepp after her return from Rumspringa. But is she really ready to turn her back on her devoted fiance Peter Wagler, on her twin sister Annie, and even her beloved parents? Katie has a tendency to act first and think later, and this time, she may pay for this with her life . . .
Rebekah Stoll has everything an Amish girl in 1888 could ask for . . . loving parents, a handsome sweetheart, and a mess of little brothers who think the world of her. However, when an English stranger arrives at her simple homestead and sets her world - and that of everyone she loves - on end, everything Rebekah thought she knew is called into question. Even her faith.
Who can Rebekah trust when the line between the Amish and the English becomes blurred?
