I’m happy to introduce another new Pen Pal today. Margarita Felices has stopped by with CALL OF THE RIGHTEOUS, book two in her popular vampire series. Sit back, unwind, and take a moment to get to know Margarita and her intriguing undead characters.

Thanks for visiting, Margarita. Please share a bit about yourself and how long you’ve been writing.

I live in Cardiff with my partner and three little mad dogs and I work for a well-known TV broadcasting company. I love living in Cardiff because, for all its modernisation, there are still remnants of an old Victorian city. I love writing and base my stories in Cardiff because it has such character.  When I can, I go out to the coast and take photographs, mind you, we have a lovely castle in the city centre and a fairytale one just on the outskirts, so when I feel I can’t write anything, I take a ramble to those locations and it clears my head.

I am Gothic.  I love the fashion, the architecture and the music. The club in my novel is real. When I was writing book one, I got all my club material and clientele from there, I wouldn’t have finished that section without it.

I think I was 10 years old when I first started to write stories…    <thinks back and smiles at reading her first essay in front of the class>     I’ve always loved writing stories.  My teachers weren’t so impressed though.  I remember my English teacher giving us our weekly essay assignments and always pointing at me and then saying in front of the class, “No more than 10 pages OK?”   That was sheer torture for me each time.  I had been known to fill two exercise books!    But they soon found a place for me.  I ended up writing for the school newspaper and then became its Editor, I always thought I’d end up a journalist, don’t know what happened there.   After I left school I wrote short stories for magazines and that paid my expenses while at college.  In fact my published short story The Psychic was one of the short stories sent to the magazine.   They heavily edited it so it was nice to rewrite it years later and let you all have the full story.  (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Margarita-Felices/e/B007BHDIVS/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0)

That’s quite an interesting background, and what a wonderful place Cardiff must be! Do you have a favorite place and/or time of day to write?

I have a laptop and write at home next to my bed so I can just fall in when I feel I’ve done too much!   It’s not always ideal because I find myself waking up in the night sometimes and doing an hour on it again.  I love to write at night, I think my imagination kicks in more at night.  I start around 11pm and before I realize it, it can be 3am!   I don’t start work until 11am so I can afford to lie in and my body clock seems to have adjusted for late nights.

Please tell us about your new release, CALL OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

Well this new release is part two of the trilogy.  It goes back in time and starts when Rachel has already told her parents that she’s going to fix everything and find Max and the book.  But she’s a new vampire and is alone and frightened until Arun shows up to show her what to do.  They have a lot of adventures while they search for Max and the book.  Rachel makes her first mortal friend, Arun falls in love, Max gets involved with the French Revolution, Rachel meets a dashing Count and saves him from the guillotine and of course it’s the start of the vampire hunters, The Righteous. 

So much going on! How did you choose your title?

I love a band called HiM and they released a song called The Sacrament.    “I hear you breathe so far from me.  I feel your touch so close to me.  And I know my church is not of silver or gold.  Its glory lied beyond Judgement of Souls.”   I just loved the song and those words stuck in my head.  When I first began to write the trilogy, the original title was Gothic Dreams, but I felt it wasn’t deep enough, so I changed it to Judgement of Souls because the missing vampire artifact in my novel, the Book of Cain, is after all about the souls that it possesses within it.  It seemed very apt.

It sounds like you must have done a good bit of research for this novel. What was the most interesting thing you discovered?

I had a lot of research to do with this novel.  Firstly I had to set up dates stretching 300 years.  Then I had to see if anything interesting happened in those years, the French Revolution for example.  It was extremely hard tying up mortals and immortals… I had to make sure that my mortals actually lived a certain amount of years while my vampires just carried on as usual through the years.   I also had to research the Fort in Malta where our characters deal with the Righteous, I decided to go to Malta and take a look around for myself.  I also went to Rome to research the Vatican Museum, Library and Vatican as well as finding out who was the pope at the time my characters visit Rome…   and a visit to Ancient Rome was also handy.

What great places to visit for research! When you’re not writing (or reading) what do you do to unwind?

I do love to take pictures. I live in Wales which is home to a great Jurassic coastline. We have castles, ancient ruins of all kinds, mountains, waterfalls and wildflowers and beaches, lots and lots of beaches (you can even find fossils on some of them).   I have three little dogs so I love to spend time with them too. Cinema, clubs, Facebook, live bands – I’m very partial to drumming and drummers…  <blushes>

LOL. My brother is a drummer and actually met his wife when his band was playing a gig. And Wales sounds phenomenal. I would so love to visit! Now for some favorites: 

Favorite color:  BLACK

Favorite type of music:  GOTHIC ROCK/ROCK

Favorite musical group or singer:  30 Seconds To Mars / Within Temptation /  Evanescence

Favorite animal:  DOG

Favorite social media platform:   FACEBOOK

Owl or lark:  OWL

Thanks for the interview, Margarita. I hope you enjoyed your visit today and I wish you much success with your series. I love the history element woven through it!

If you’d like to know more about Margarita Felices, connect with her at the following haunts:
Blog
Twitter:  @felicm60
Facebook
Goodreads

BLURB
CALL OF THE RIGHTEOUS
Rachel has a promise to keep. When Max arrived at the Elysium and started to court the young Rachel, who knew why he was really there? Who knew what he was planning?

Who knew he’d frame her parents and leave behind such misery? Who knew he’d break her heart?

Rachel should have known.

It may take time to track him down, but she will and she’ll make him sorry. In the second part of this vampire trilogy, Rachel searches for Max and the missing vampire artifact to save her parents.

Meet her new best friend who happens to be mortal, meet her handsome Count destined for the guillotine and meet the Righteous, the fierce vampire hunters.

Purchase CALL OF THE RIGHTEOUS from
Amazon UK
Amazon