Jens Kuhn - Guest Blog and Contest

Please welcome Jens Kuhn author of the vampire novel The Gripsholm Mystery. One lucky reader will win a copy.

This is a brief description of the story: "Antonia Correlli has lived for 600 years. She's a vampire with special abilities which let her live amongst humans undetected. For the most part. In 1915 the First World War is raging through Europe and new, frightful weapons bring suffering and pain to the men who fight it. While using her cunning and her magic on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean Antonia discovers mysterious things aboard. And she develops dangerous feelings for her captain. Solving the mystery, she discovers once again that humans can't be trusted and that immortality has its price"

 Jens explains why he used an unusual setting for his book.

How does one get the idea to put a vampire on a hospital ship in the middle of the First World War? I might be tempted to explain it away by the fact that it's the ideal place to be if you are a vampire: lots of blood and no way for your prey to get away. But the fact is, I have a faint past as a writer of nautical fiction, so I couldn't do without boats whatever I'd write.

Having been quite intrigued by the paranormal romance genre for a while, I decided to add some preternatural magic to the mix of boats and steamy encounters between sailors and intriguing female spies, thus taking the story beyond the factual limits of historical fiction, while keeping up quite high standards of accuracy for historical and technical facts at the same time.

But of course I could not make it too easy for myself. So my heroine, Antonia Correlli, isn't just a vampire. She also is a succubus. That means she is endowed with some special magic, for example the ability to sustain sunlight and heal humans. But in order to keep this ability she needs to feed on human emotions. On their passion, their sexual arousal as well as on blood.

Here, the confined space of the hospital ship becomes a double-edged sword. Because as well as her human prey being unable to escape her, there is only a limited number of them and sooner or later Antonia won't be able to protect her secret. When certain mysterious things happen aboard the vessel, her curiosity makes her less cautious. And there is the captain, who seems to have some magic of his own.

This is the setting for "The Gripsholm Mystery", the first book in a planned series about succubus-vampire Antonia Correlli. 600 years old, Antonia has not always been a succubus. Starting out as a classic vampire of the more primitive kind, she has lived through ages of misery, bloodlust, filth and carnage. When she eventually discovers her other side, her succubus magic, she becomes what she is now, a unique being that is capable of love and caring, but also of deadly dispassionate actions if her survival requires them.

 CONTEST

*Jens is offering a paperback copy of The Gripsholm Mystery to one lucky reader.

*Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win. 

*Contest is open tor residents of the US, Canada, and Europe.

*Contest ends March 10 at 11:59pm EST