What happens when you pray for an angel and get a vampire instead?

Blurb: It’s been a rough couple of years for Cailey Kantor. Facing her first Christmas alone and bad financial news, she prays for an angel to fix her problems. Instead, a sadistic, sociopathic vampire, with the goal of starting a vampire war, attacks her and forces her to drink blood stolen from the Nosferatu Gabriel Blautsauger.

Gabe must complete Cailey’s turning or she will die. In doing so he risks losing his yet unfound soulmate. But something about the lovely mortal speaks to his heart. Once her transformation is complete, he and Cailey find themselves embroiled in a battle that could cost them all they hold dear.

Faced with lies, abduction, and betrayal Cailey wonders if the vampire she is falling fangs over heart for is in it for love or if she’s just a means to stop a war.

After a spell goes horribly wrong, Morgan must learn to use her magic to save the vampire she loves.

Blurb: Rafe Blautsauger, vampire and enforcer, must put his feelings for the mortal Morgan Maquire aside. The Nosferatu council who employs Rafe strictly forbids their love. But he can’t stay away from the beautiful woman who causes his blood to beat with new life. Yet, she hides a secret, one he must expose in order to protect her.

Morgan keeps her unique gift of magic under wraps due to a spell gone horribly
wrong when she was young. She is haunted by a nightmare where two malevolent glowing red eyes stalk her. Can she trust the arrogant but oh-so-handsome Rafe with her secret as well as her heart? Can he help her regain her power in
time to save the world of the living and the undead?

He was both her hero and enemy.

She was his best student and biggest regret.

Blurb Vampire Metta Blautsauger is known as the family airhead and she works hard to keep up the façade. It’s the perfect cover as she goes from dispensing her own brand of justice as a vigilante to an agent for Orcus, the Nosferatu shadow agency.
Captured, tortured, and left for dead, she is forced to leave both the agency and Lucas O’Cuinn, the mentor she’s grown to love.
For the last century she’s struggled with regret and boredom. Then her life is given new meaning when four mortal ministers ask her help

in stopping a human trafficking ring. If Orcus discovers her unsanctioned involvement, they will brand her as a rogue. The penalty is death. It’s only a matter of time before Lucas arrives—stake in hand.

Lucas O’Cuinn has waited ninety-eight years for Metta’s return and he’s run out of patience. It’s time she remembers she belongs to him.

An icy she-vamp and a red-hot human Detective make for an explosive combination.

Dr. Michaela Blautsauger, a Nosferatu vampire, is considered an expert in her field of work. However, her skills when it comes to dealing with others and showing emotion is almost non-existent. When Detective Seth Whitehead barges into her lab, she discovers the human is just as interesting as the blood formula she is working on.

Seth’s tenacity to find who is committing crimes in Amber Heights pits him against vampire aristocracy as well as Toltec vamps who are nasty to say the least. When the she-vamp he is falling heart over fangs for leaves the country to find the blood plant she needs, he follows and discovers his cold hearted vamp truly has a heart.

When they both fall into Toltec hands, Seth knows he will do anything he has to do to keep Michaela from suffering harm. But will he be able to keep his own life in the process?

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Interview with Gabe about the Origin of the Bloody Mary Cocktail

Act natural, I tell myself as I settle into a chair, and try to quell the butterflies in my stomach. My guest today is Nosferatu vampire, Gabe Blautsauger. He’s sitting on the couch across from me, and I do appreciate the view. It isn’t as if we haven’t met before. We got to know each other quite well while I was writing his story in IT’S A WONDERFUL UNDEAD LIFE.

Still, there’s something about sitting near all his, ah, gorgeousness lightly coated with a sheen of danger that makes my body parts sit up and sing in three-part harmony. Down girl, I caution myself. He’s taken.

“Thank you, Gabe,” I practically stutter. I have to stop and take a deep breath as he smiles knowingly. “Thank you for joining me today. I’m sorry your beautiful wife, Cailey couldn’t join us.”

That’s a bald-faced lie. I’m thrilled to have Gabe all to myself—even for a platonic few minutes.

“It’s good to see you again, Re.” His low voice holds just a touch of an exotic accent. I feel my face heat. This middle-aged woman didn’t even know she could still blush. Perhaps, I’m all atwitter at the way he puts my initials together and simply calls me Re instead of R. E. I want to consider it a special nickname between just the two of us.

I swallow. “In your story, I describe your first attempts to get Cailey to drink bagged blood by disguising it as a Bloody Mary. When you first told me about it, you mentioned something about the history of the drink. Would you, please, share the complete account with our readers?”

“Of course,” he says easily. “Current online encyclopedias say the origin of the Bloody Mary cocktail is unclear, and that there are multiple conflicting claims as to who invented the drink.”

He takes a sip out of the to-go cup that he’d brought into our meeting. I find myself both fascinated and horrified because I knew it’s blood. Even after writing about vampires for years, the sight still makes me a little uncomfortable.

Setting his cup aside, he leans back in his chair, and smiles at me without showing a hint of fang. “Human bartender, Fernand Petiot is the earliest on written record to claim what is considered the classic recipe. He maintains he created the drink, which he called a Red Hammer, in the early 1920’s. Though he admits his part of the recipe was adding seasonings. It was one of his patrons, comedian George Jessel, that often requested a cocktail of half tomato juice and half vodka.”

Gabe paused to wet his throat again, “The name, Bloody Mary, has been attributed to many things such as her Majesty, Queen Mary I of England—who I think gets a bad rap historically and was always quite nice to me. Some say it was named for the actress Mary Pickford.” He brow furrowed. “I never got that one. If I didn’t know better, I’d pick the theory about a waitress named Mary who worked in a Chicago bar called the Bucket of Blood—I found that one off Wikipedia myself,” Gabe sounded amused.

“Re, your readers might not know that my surname, Blautsauger comes from an old Bavarian word for bloodsucker and my ancestry can be traced back before the common era. We’ve been around a long time and have seen how, throughout time, various ‘inventions’ are discovered, lost, and re-discovered. Each time something was, let’s say, re-learned the new finder claimed to be the original inventor. Most didn’t even realize the truth and truly believed their discovery was their own brain child.”

“Does that explain why cars and planes were ‘invented’ almost at the same time here and in other countries?” I mused.

Gabe nodded. “Take this for instance, in 1386 Genoese envoys brought the first aqua vitae (“the water of life”) to Moscow. Then about twenty years later a Russian monk gets the credit for making the first recipe of vodka in the early 1400’s. My ancestral knowledge goes back before all that. As a child, my stepmother, Cassiopeia played around the Egyptian pyramids while they were being build, er, you don’t need to tell her I said that.”

We grinned at each other and then he went on, “So, when Greeks were first fermenting their grapes, the Chinese were experimenting with rice. And a vampire living in what would be Poland was making her own alcohol of burned grains in water for human medicinal use.”

“Vampires made medicine for humans?”

“Naturally.” Gabe seemed a little bemused by my surprise. “Vampires have always had a vested interest in keeping humans healthy. Remember, they were our only food source. That is until recently when Michaela finished her blood formula and freed us from that bondage.”

I blinked. The fact vampires would consider their dependence on human blood as a type of bondage had never occurred to me.

He waited a beat before saying, “Over time methods of distilling improved and humans soon took over making it. As you might imagine humans made it in much larger batches and with stronger alcoholic content. In your mortal records the name wódka first appeared in written text in 1405. Potatoes didn’t replace the various grains, like rye, until after they were brought to Europe from Peru. Spuds grew quickly and soon became the most plentiful and cheapest base to use.”

“What about the name? Bloody Mary?”

He grinned fully this time and, for an instant, I caught sight of the pointed tips of his gleaming fangs. “It was named after Marysia Blautsauger. (I wish the reader could hear how Gabe pronounces her name. The syllables roll lyrically over his tongue, Mar ish ah Blôt sang er. Talk about sexy sounding.) “She was an ancestor of mine, and was feared and yet greatly revered by both peasant and royalty alike. She was the first to ferment burnt grains and water together. Then she’d mash those globose yellow Mandrake fruits into the weak alcoholic mix. It made the remedy even more beneficial as Mandrake fruits, or love apples as they were known, have cleansing and sedating qualities.”

“Aren’t love apples part of the potentially deadly nightshade plants?”

“Yes,” Gabe confirmed. “They had to handled skillfully. Later, did you know, they were often confused with tomatoes and people were afraid to eat tomatoes for centuries. So—,” he beat a tiny drumroll on his knee, “—Bloody came from our last name of Blautsauger and Mary was corrupted over time from Marysia to Maria to Mary.”

“So that’s how it all came about!” I lifted the Highball glass holding the cocktail I’d planned to drink during the interview, took a long look at the deep red color, and set it aside.

The Basic Bloody Mary Recipe: Start here and then make the cocktail your own by toying with the seasonings and garnishes.

• 1 1/2 ounces vodka
• 1/2 cup tomato juice or V8
• 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon or lime juice
• 1-3 dashes Tobasco or pepper sauce
• 4-6 dashes Worcestershire or Soy sauce
• pinch of salt and pepper
• 1 tsp celery salt or skip this and add a bit of Horseradish sauce
• Garnish as desired with celery stick, lemon or lime wedge, or stuffed green olives.

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