Deceitful and Bloodthirsty Gothic Vampires: An interview with J.A. Lynch

Today I'm talking with J.A. Lynch about her Gothic-inspired novel of a woman and brutal not-so-sparkly vampires, Within the Shadows.

1) Tell us about your book.

My book tells the story of Giselle Bergman, an eighteen year old who embarks on the darkest of journeys. Through betrayals, heartbreak, harsh realizations, Giselle learns quickly that she has to count on herself if she is to survive the multitude of creatures out to hunt, torture and kill her. She is on the run of her life, and her allies are few and far between, and the only one she can truly count on is Antoine, a vampire who has a taste for the grander things in life, but can she really trust him?

If you like your books full of Gothic elements: suppression, submission, highly sentimental, and where the characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially, terror; suffering from raw nerves and a feeling of impending doom,then Within the Shadows is the book for you.

2) What inspired you to write this particular story?

Vampires, the paranormal, horror and my love for all things Gothic inspired my first novel, Within the Shadows (something started nearly 3 years ago). It is no secret that I am a crazy, hardcore fan of vampire literature, and I suppose you could say that I wanted to put my own stamp on the genre. I wanted to create something completely different to anything out there, and I achieved that with my book. It is fast paced, edgy and something you won’t forget in a hurry.

3) Tell us about your lead, Giselle.

Giselle is a normal girl, with normal aspirations in life. In her head she has it all figured out, until things unravel before her eyes in a very bad way. She was brought up to trust in people and care for everyone around her. She of course lays to much trust and dependence on Alex, her 'best-friend', for him to tear it all apart. Giselle is too trusting, and this lets her down on many occasions, but each time she falls, something begins to grow inside her, and unbeknownst to her, this growth will be a valuable asset in her future. She can at times be frustrating in the decisions that she makes, but being a naive young woman, she doesn't have the experience or balls to say no. This is something that also grows, and we will see Giselle grow into a very powerful lead in the future.

4) Please give us a little insight into some of he men Giselle deals wih in this book.

Firstly, we have Alex. The best-friend all girls want to date. He is a chameleon. He runs hot and cold more often than not, and is poisonous. Of course, I can't give too much away, but all is not what it seems with Alex, and although you will learn to loathe him, there will be a glimmer of hope about his 'humanity'.

Then we have, Marc. The guy that throws it all away for a quick fumble with the school harlot, or is that the case? Marc has been Giselle's steady boyfriend for quite sometime, and they seem like the 'perfect' couple, but Alex and Marc walk in different circles and there is a genuine hate going on between these two. There is certainly no chance of a 'bromance' here.

Hmm, Leonid (Alex's dad) - well, Leonid is old school vampire hard, but there is something very different in him. Something that glows, and although he is responsible for a lot of the hurt in Giselle's life, he is also the reason she survives. He's really not the beast he comes across as.

Oooh, Antoine....Antoine. The 'one' who will be there for the long run. He's a savior where Giselle's concerned, he's the light at the end of the tunnel. He's the one to watch for.

Xavier, the dark one who has the creepiest agenda for Giselle. but there is more to his story than just wanting her as his Shadow Queen.

5) There are a lot of books featuring vampires in them out there. What sets your book apart from others?

My book is completely different. There is no whirlwind love affair, there isn't much of a happy ending (yet) and my vampires are blood thirsty, they thrive on lies, betrayal and deceit. I've created them in a different manner. There are two breeds, the classical and the inheritors, and then there is Giselle.
The whole world is new and unique and is edgy.

6) This is the first Shadow World novel. How many are planned for this series?

So far, there are three books planned, Within the Shadows, Escaping Shadows, and Fighting Shadows.

7) Please tell us about some of your other non-Shadow World projects.

I'm also working on a new series, WitchBlade: The Hunters Saga, which is planned for release late 2013, and also planned for 2013 is Ice Goddess and Heatstroke.

-----

If you'd like to learn more about her and her books, please check at her webpage at http://www.julieannelynch.co.uk/ or check out additional stops on her blog tour at   ttp://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1009032-18---julieanne-lynch---within-the-shadows.

Mr. Beard's Regency Tour Day 5: The Mighty Enchantress, the Gothic Queen: Ann Radcliffe

Welcome to my fifth post on Regency England. If you haven't a clue what I'm talking about, please check out this post.

-----

First, an excerpt:

While Emily gazed with awe upon the scene, footsteps were heard within the gates, and the undrawing of bolts; after which an ancient servant of the castle appeared, forcing back the huge folds of the portal, to admit his lord. As the carriage-wheels rolled heavily under the portcullis, Emily's heart sunk, and she seemed, as if she was going into her prison; the gloomy court, into which she passed, served to confirm the idea, and her imagination, ever awake to circumstance, suggested even more terrors, than her reason could justify.

Another gate delivered them into the second court, grass-grown, and more wild than the first, where, as she surveyed through the twilight its desolation—its lofty walls, overtopt with briony, moss and nightshade, and the embattled towers that rose above,—long-suffering and murder came to her thoughts. One of those instantaneous and unaccountable convictions, which sometimes conquer even strong minds, impressed her with its horror. The sentiment was not diminished, when she entered an extensive gothic hall, obscured by the gloom of evening, which a light, glimmering at a distance through a long perspective of arches, only rendered more striking. As a servant brought the lamp nearer partial gleams fell upon the pillars and the pointed arches, forming a strong contrast with their shadows, that stretched along the pavement and the walls.


-- The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1794.


Crumbling castles, brooding noblemen, virtuous women terrorized by supernatural wickedness in the darkness. These are all part of the the early tradition of Gothic fiction. Fixated on atmosphere, the Gothic tradition, particularly at the height of the Georgian (and Regency) era, was a mix of horror, melodrama, and romantic elements. Whenever Gothic fiction is considered, there's one woman who helped define the genre: Ann Radcliffe.


While not the first author to write what we would now consider a Gothic novel, she helped popularize it and brought Gothic novels into the literary mainstream. For this reason, she's often considered the true definer of the genre. 


Although she was wildly successful during her lifetime, she wrote only a book of poetry and six novels: The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), The Italian (1797), and Gaston de Blondeville (1826). If you're wondering about the large number of years between her fifth and sixth novels, the last was actually posthumously published by her husband.


Her works tended to focus on virtuous and imperiled heroines of breeding dealing with the aforementioned brooding noblemen, mysterious exotic castles, and supernatural elements. Radcliffe, however, in contrast to many other Gothic writers was rather explicit (with one exception,  Gaston de Blondville, though as noted above, it would only be published after her death) in showing that the supernatural elements in her stories all actually had rational, non-supernatural explanations. One of the continuing elements in her works is a heroine desperately resisting an onslaught of emotion and instead, eventually, applying reason to the situation. For the time, especially given many people's sentiments about women in general, this was actually somewhat feminist. It was, however, a type of feminism considered mostly acceptable by late Georgian and Regency society. Indeed, her combination of sensible heroines, lack of true supernatural elements, and virtue allowed her brand of Gothic novels to be acceptable for the literary mainstream. Critics at the time hailed her as the "mighty enchantress" and praised her work.


Surprisingly, at the height of her popularity at the age of 32, she stopped writing. As she kept a rather low personal profile, it's not certain her exact reasons for quitting, but many literary historians attribute it to her personal disgust with the direction Gothic fiction was taken, particularly in terms of prurient disreputable supernatural content. For example, The Monk, published in 1796, gained some popularity. The novel features, among other things, rather negative portrayals of female characters, demon pacts, rape, and incest.


Though Radcliffe stopped writing before the true Regency era, her works remained popular and influential throughout the 19th century both in England and the United States. As many of the authors she influenced later went on to influence others, her Gothic tentacles stretch rather farther than many people might expect from a woman with a relative modest number of works.


Her 19th-century popularity is easily attested by the direct references to her works in Regency and later fiction. One of the more famous and familiar to modern readers would be the several references to her work, particularly The Mysteries of Udolpho, in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1817), a parody of many elements popular in Gothic fiction and Radcliffe's books. I should note that Ms. Austen was not the only one parodying Gothic excess at the time.There was a veritable cottage industry of Gothic parodies.


So, whenever you read a book where some young woman is running down a spooky mansion/castle corridor or watch a similar movie, it may very well be a descendant of Radcliffe's work.