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5 Questions with Lynsay Sands (and a Giveaway!)

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About a Vampire by Lynsay Sands (Argeneau #22) // VBC ReviewI hope everyone had a chance to read Amy’s review of About A Vampire. It’s the 22nd book in Lynsay Sands Argeneau series, and somehow Lynsay has kept surprising us this long. Better yet: About A Vampire works without having read the earlier books. Amy enjoyed the book and was surprised how what she thought would be a “never going to work” plot point totally worked.

That kind of experience inspired more questions. Luckily, Lynsay was willing to answer all Amy’s questions and we’re here to share them with all of you.

Amy from Vampire Book Club: The release of About a Vampire marks the 22nd Argeneau book. From your experience what are the pros to writing a long ongoing series? What are some of the challenges?

Lynsay Sands: The pros are I get to revisit past heroes and heroines and see how things are going, which is always nice for me, and hopefully, the reader.

The challenges are that this far in and with so many different characters and character traits, sometimes it’s hard to keep things straight or on point. For example, apparently in one of the books I said that Marguerite preferred showers to baths, and then in her book I said she preferred baths to showers. Its a little thing and not relevant to the plot, but you know there are readers out there that catch such mistakes and let me know about it. I also suck with names. In real life as well as my stories I have a tendency to mix up names. Leigh is often called Terri, or Ter-Leigh and Terri is often called Leigh or Le-Terri and so on. This is something I inherited from my mother. She had the same weird dyslexia with names. In real life I handle this by calling everyone by an endearment; hon, babe, sweetie, etc. It’s an effort to avoid offending anyone or making them think I don’t know their name when it’s just my brain getting its wires mixed. In books I can’t just call all my characters by hon or sweetie though, so I mix up names all the time. Usually, the mix up is caught by one of the many editors, but sometimes those name screw-ups aren’t caught. For instance, I called Mabel by the name Hazel in one of the books, which no one caught in edits. (Hazel, by the way, is the name of the real life woman the character was based on, hence my confusing them). And I mixed up Victor and Vincent several times in a couple books and only some were caught. Ah well…if I was perfect, I’d probably be annoying. I have resigned myself to making mistakes on occasion.

VBC: What originally drew you to writing about vampires (or I guess Immortals in this case)?

Lynsay Sands: I never really had an interest in writing vamps or immortals. It all came about because a friend suggested we do vampire anthologies for Halloween. I could write funny ones, and they would write their own versions. I laughed at the idea and joked, “Oh gees! If I wrote vamps you know they’d have to faint at the sight of blood or something.” I threw out a couple of other funny ideas at the time too and then the conversation moved on. We never wrote the anthology, but those ideas stuck with me, and tantalized me until the Argeneau series was born.

VBC: The twist in About a Vampire of Holly already being married when Justin found and changed her really puts them in quite a conundrum. What things did you have to consider when writing their HEA?

Lynsay Sands: The two most important things to me were that I didn’t want her to be unfaithful, and I didn’t didn’t want to fall back on the cheating or abusive mate. I didn’t want to make her husband the “bad guy” that she happily escaped to be with her life mate. I wanted their marriage to be a good one, with love in it, a marriage that might have made the long haul if not for this life altering change that took place to Holly. Her being able to hear his thoughts had to be the problem, not him. But, it is really hard to show how difficult it would be to live with someone whose thoughts you could read without making the guy look like a jerk. He wasn’t! We all have unpleasant or angry negative thoughts about people we love at times. We just generally keep them to ourselves because we know we’re just cranky or annoyed or whatever. And he thought he was keeping them to himself too. Unfortunately, she could hear them. As I say, it was really hard to let her hear those thoughts and not make him seem like a jerk. Hopefully I managed that though.

Single White Vampire by Lynsay Sands // VBCVBC: What character or couple has been your favorite to write in the Argeneau series? Which proved the most difficult?

Lynsay Sands: I guess I liked Lucern and Kate the best. They were the first, and you know what they say about your first, LOL. And they really were the easiest to write, because it was all new and there was no worry about using something that was used in another book, etc. That’s always an issue. I’ll think, “I can have her trapped in a burning—Oh wait, did that in…” So, really it does get harder with each book to keep from reusing things.

The stories I have the most problems with is when the female is an immortal and the male is mortal. This is probably sexist on my part or something, but it just feels too unbalanced. She’s stronger than him, older, probably has more money just due to the fact that she’s had centuries to accumulate it, and has centuries worth of confidence too. The mortal male seems somewhat at a disadvantage in comparison. The same could be said of female mortals in comparison to male immortals, but it’s not quite the same. I mean, it’s getting better, but guys were always supposed to be the strong one. However, in these stories, he’s faced with the knowledge that the chick he’s hot for can pick him up under her arm and cart him around like a football (I think Tiny once said that to Marguerite). He becomes the “Sweet young thing” to the older, more powerful heroine. I like strong females, but I want strong males to partner them, and sometimes that gets difficult to show when the female is immortal and the male is mortal.

VBC: Anything you can tell readers about what we can look forward to in the future of the series?

Lynsay Sands: Well, there are two more books already written, the Notte twins Dante and Tomasso both have their books written and I had a LOT of fun with those. And my agent just finished negotiating a contract for three more immortal stories so we aren’t done yet which is good because the ideas keep coming. Also, Dante and Tomasso’s story are kind of the lead in to the possibility of another series, separate from the immortals, about different beings. Don’t want to spoil anything by saying too much here, though.

You can get a copy of About A Vampire at Book Depository or Amazon.

GIVEAWAY

Since Lynsay talked about how much she liked Lucern and Kate from Single White Vampire, we’re going to give away a copy to a VBC reader. Just fill out the Rafflecopter form to enter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

19 Responses to “5 Questions with Lynsay Sands (and a Giveaway!)”

  1. Jessica Lyn says:

    I love this series. For some reason, I thought the last book was going to be the last book. I may have somehow been misinformed, but remember.

  2. Amy M says:

    Great answers! Thank You so much!

  3. Victoria Sloboda says:

    I love all of these books but SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE is my favorite just because of the cod piece scene. I nearly died laughing.

  4. Katie says:

    Havent read any of this authors but looks like ill be adding more books to my TBR pile!

  5. erinf1 says:

    I haven’t had a chance to start this series but I do have the first several books and now I know I need to jump in 🙂 thanks for sharing!

  6. Susan says:

    This is one of my favorite series! When a new book comes out, and I have it in my hot little hands, nothing else matters. Not food, not family, not even the BATHROOM! Can’t wait for the next books!

  7. Nihcki says:

    OMG, Lucerne was my favorite , too! So hysterical to be a hermit immortal author dragged to a RITA-like convention! I’m only on Bite Me If You Can, Lucian’s book, but I recommend this series to EVERYONE! Funny, sweet, sexy, suspenseful, the Argeneau vampires series has it all.

  8. Nicole Newman says:

    I am in love with this series. I have been reading since the beginning. From the first book I was hooked. I love the unique story lines, the character development and I LOVE that it’s still going. I am really excited for this giveaway. Thank you.

  9. BookLady says:

    Love the Argeneau series! Amazing that there are already 22 books in the series. The characters and story lines are fantastic. Glad to hear that the series will continue.

  10. June M. says:

    I love this series! It was the one that started my intense addiction to romance books 🙂 Lucern’s story was one of my favorites too.

  11. Raine says:

    I’ve read all of the Argeneau books (multiple times ), it’s one of my favorite PNR series. It’s hard to pick a favorite but The Accidental Vampire was great! Loved the q&a, it’s always fun getting insight from the author.

  12. Susan H. says:

    I LOVE the Argeneaus!!!!!!!!!

  13. Aliyah says:

    One Lucky Vampire is my fave as it takes place in my home town.

  14. Beth A says:

    I have devoured the series. My favorite is Margueite. It was nice that she found her own life mate after taking care of all her children ( blood relatives as well as her adopted members )!

  15. Pam Blome says:

    Cool! Thanks for the opportunity.

  16. Gowri says:

    I love the series. Lynsay Sands books are fantastic and its nice to read books that feature so many Canadian locations 🙂

  17. LisaC says:

    Single White Vampire is my favorite of the series so far. It is laugh out loud funny! I’ve re-read it many times. Love this series!

  18. Sarah E says:

    It’s hard to narrow down my absolute favorite of the Argeneau books, but I think it has to be either A Quick Bite of The Accidental Vampire. I love both of these stories!

  19. Kalliope D. says:

    I’m a huge vampire book lover!! I’m new to Argeneau and I’m so glad there are already 22 books in this series that I’ll have the pleasure to sink my teeth into!! 😉
    Thank you for this amazing giveaway! <3

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