Interview and Giveaway: The Vampire’s Protege by Damian Serbu

We’re so pleased to welcome author Damian Serbu to TNA today to celebrate the release of his latest novel from NineStar Press, The Vampire’s Protege. Damian has taken a moment to answer a few question for us, and there’s also a giveaway, so be sure to check out those details below.

Welcome, Damian!

The Interview

Q: If you could travel forward or backward in time, where would you go and why?
A: I am fascinated by the American and French Revolutions. I’d love to go back there and observe, but you’d have to promise me that I won’t get shot in the head in the process.

Q: We’ve all got a little voyeurism in us right? If you could be a fly on the wall during an intimate encounter (does not need to be sexual) between two characters, not your own, who would they be?
A: I am such a fan of Anne Rice, I would give anything to watch a moment between Lestat and Louis. Or with Armand – I love that vampire most of all!

Q: If I were snooping around your kitchen and looked in your refrigerator right now, what would I find?
A: Not much! We keep the frig pretty bare. Paul especially likes to shop daily. So there’s juice, some cherries, condiment type stuff. Milk. But nothing very exciting.

Q: If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
A: Flying!! I think that would be so much fun.

Q: If you could trade places with one of your characters, who would it be and why?
A: Thomas – one of my first vampires. Because he’s so powerful, uninhibited and loves life. That being said, since childhood, I’ve had a fascination with bad person characters. Like the Wicked Witch, Darth Vader, and later Hannibal Lecter. Right now, I have a huge crush on Loki (for a variety of reasons . . . ) So that side of me wants to be Charon from The Vampire’s Protégé! That’s not really my personality, but it’d be fun for a while! A bad ass, carefree, fuck em vampire.

About the Book

Title: The Vampire’s Protege
Series: From the Vampire’s Angel universe
Author: Damian Serbu
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: August 21
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: No Romance
Length: 295 Pages
Genre/Categories: Horror, paranormal, abduction, action, blood and gore, cisgender, contemporary, crime, dark, death, gay, vampires
Goodreads
Buy Links: NineStar Press || Amazon || Smashwords || Barnes & Noble || Kobo
Blurb: A sinister vampire offers Charon a choice he can’t refuse: play a deadly game of winner takes all, losers die.

Charon relishes the competition and molds himself into a sexy vampire who defies vampire law, savoring his power and embracing the role of villain. He also loves surrounding himself with hot young men. But when an alluring vampire stalks him and threatens to turn him into the Vampire Council unless he helps with a seemingly impossible task, will Charon risk his perfectly narcissistic life on the challenge? Does he have any other choice?

Tour-wide Excerpt

Prologue

Introducing Charon

Everyone thinks they adore the Vampire Council with its rules and regulations that allegedly govern all vampires and thereby ensure the safety of virtuous humans. People want to lose themselves in the tales of the Council members: Xavier and Thomas and their love; Anthony and Jaret and their guarding of humanity; Catherine and Harriet and their whims within a righteous vampiric empire. Most of all, the Vampire Ethic provides comfort with its guarantee that goodness protects an individual from a vampire attack, with its promise that all vampires defend innocence.

Vampires accept this reality because it gives them a collective soul. The ethic protects them from the stereotype of evil incarnate preying upon humanity. Or, in the least, obedience to it keeps them alive, lest the Council hunt them down and murder them for transgressions against it.

Humans desire the Council’s laws to maintain their fantasy of security from the supernatural realms. Who would dismiss a hidden force of vampire police that might swoop in at any sign of danger and annihilate the perpetrator?

Yet deep inside, so many long for something different, something that avoids this utopian trope and perfect world, all tied up in a pretty bow. Part of everyone, that piece so desperately stamped down and derided, seeks an alternative story.

To be sure, many will deny it. Fight against these words and honorably cast them out as the devil’s temptations. Yet no proof of Satan or such demonic forces presents itself. Because even those thoughts really stem from the inner being in everyone, that secretly locked-up atom inside a person that pines for freedom and seeks release, even as the goodness scolds it.

Still people contest these words. Deny them.

Yet a fascination with villains thrives in America. Think of the great antiheroes of history and their legendary fame. The Wicked Witch of the West. Darth Vader. Hannibal Lecter. The Joker. The infamy of historic figures such as Adolf Hitler or Ted Bundy or the Son of Sam. The people who don the costumes at Halloween of Lord Voldemort, Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler because it empowers them for a night with beautiful wickedness. People laugh at Scar, Ursula, and even Mr. Potter. They read the tales of Lex Luther and Cujo, privately wishing they would eventually triumph over the heroes of the story and bring a bit of destruction to the globe.

Jack the Ripper lives through the ages because he successfully hid himself, true. But also because his perfect malevolence went unpunished. People want that for themselves. His legend draws them back again and again to that story with the hope of their own misdeeds going unchallenged.

Thus, whether admitted or not, people long to meet Charon. Yes, so many cry out for Charon and his story. People want him. Readers desire him, need him, really. The world will have no choice but to love him. All will embrace him as they have these other villains of history. They will celebrate his perfect treachery.

Unlike those obedient to the Vampire Council, Charon hardly worries about a bit of notoriety from time to time. Fear of retribution never enters his vocabulary. He need not concern himself with the Vampire Council and its regulations. Nor does Charon often fret over any other person or entity cracking down on his masterful empire.

About the Author

Damian Serbu lives in the Chicago area with his husband and two dogs, Akasha and Chewbacca. The dogs control his life, tell him what to write, and threaten to eat him in the middle of the night if he disobeys. He previously authored several novels now out of print, and is excited to reignite his writing with NineStar Press!

Author Links: Facebook || Twitter