Once upon a time, the year was 2007, I started writing a futuristic urban fantasy. This was before I decided to write contemporary romance. I’ve been reading since I was four years old. And I read everything you can think of from paranormal thrillers to memoirs to noir, even now. I’ve loved reading romance since picking up my first Georgette Heyer story when I was fourteen. And I especially loved reading romances with everything— laughter, tears, brave and independent women with hot alpha males and how they fall from lust into love. The romance genre appeals to me because it can, and does, include everything from slapstick comedy, angst, mystery, thriller, suspense, sci-fi, history, dark erotica, gothic, and urban fantasy. As long as the story has authentic and valid emotional conflicts between two characters at its heart and finishes with a Happy Ever After or Happy For Now, a writer can pretty much do what they want.

At that time, with my kids almost grown, two careers behind me, one in international banking and the other in interior design, and a short stay in hospital (which was a huge wake-up call) I returned to my first and secret love—writing fiction. In my head I wanted to write stories that entertain a reader. One reader. Stories that made that reader happy. Even today, twenty four published books later, that reader sits front and centre of everything I write and everything I do.

The first Ludlow Hall story, Reckless Nights In Rome, was published in April 2012. But before that, let me tell you that from 2008 that story went through six or seven lives. Nico was actually Raphael. Bronte was Chloe. The premise and theme were totally different, too. It must have been revised and edited about twelve times. Can you tell I didn’t want to let it go? And it was never supposed to be a series of stand alone romances set in the Ludlow Hall world either. Now there are ten books in the franchise with more to come. And more of the offshoot series, Ludlow Nights, coming too. I’m also working on a Monroe Brothers trilogy linked to my romantic suspense story, Desert Orchid. There are more Golddigger short stories coming, but released monthly. And the sneak peek behind the scenes at Ludlow Hall.

Anyway, back to the futuristic urban fantasy; in 2009 I entered the beginning of the fantasy in a writing competition based in the United States and run by a lovely group of girls who called themselves the Romance Junkies. After months of competition which included the first thousand words and a three thousand word pivotal moment, my story came fifth and reader feedback was awesome. That book was Constantine and The Witch. The story was about a vampire and a witch and was set in our world in the near future, 2069. However, as I began writing Constantine - the vampire, and Azalea - the witch, it became clear that the flashbacks to what had happened to humanity in the past were too numerous and, for me, made the story choppy. Personally speaking, I loathe flashbacks in books and in movies. So I put the story aside to let it simmer in my brain. But on a regular basis I added reams and reams of notes about the future world after a catalogue of global catastrophes happen in our time, an Ebola virus mutating and becoming airborne, and gateways opening to a parallel universe allowing magic to leach into our reality and this world. I also included demons, a variety of witches, powerful vampire clans and, of course, humanity teetering on the edge of extinction. Fun, eh?

My first love is paranormal romance. In the genre, anything goes. Heroes can be as unPC as they like—of course they pay for it big time. *Evil laugh* And so in 2011 I began writing The Vampyre Legal Chronicles, stories based around the powerful family of global corporate lawyers, Gillespie Pattullo and Hindmarch, who just happen to be vampyres. The first four books were published from 2014-2016 and are based in the present day and detail the circumstances of unnatural events which lead to a global crisis, an Ebola pandemic, the virtual destruction of our world and how alternative realities open gateways that allow magic - good and bad - to enter our world. I wrote about an Ebola outbreak before the African Ebola catastrophe. I wrote about alternate realities before the Hadron Collider deep underground in Cern proved the theory. There is tried and tested scientific theory of the earth’s polarity moving from North to South causing birds to fall from the sky, mammals and millions of fish stranded upon our shores. Make of that what you will.

The first four vampyre books introduce readers to the politics and intrigue and arcane rules that surround the vampyre world in order to keep it secret from humankind. Constantine is mentioned on a regular basis from book one through to book four, but readers don’t actually ‘meet’ him until the end of book four. Book five of The Vampyre Legal Chronicles, CONSTANTINE, jumps right into 2069 where the vampyres, humans and white magic do everything they can to live together and thrive against the ultimate evil. Book five will be released this year. Yes, it’s taken me six years to get to this point with the world and the tale. At the heart of the world are the vampyres with their romantic and non-romantic relationships including family, friends, enemies, because writing about people with the issues common to everyone (whether they’re a vampyre or a cop or a scientist or a hot Italian who owns Ludlow Hall) is what I love to do.

I’m not one of those authors who writes with a complicated coordinated plan. I use an outline as a sort of map but rarely follow it, preferring to see what’s going to happen next. And let me tell you my characters never fail to surprise me. For me I need to be excited and totally immersed in the story to make it work and something needs to tingle my creativity. Nine times out of ten it’s a problem. A character has a problem, comes up with an idea on how to fix it (always the wrong solution) and away I go. For example in Reckless Nights In Rome, Italian playboy and committed bachelor Nico’s problem is that he wants Bronte Ludlow’s house and land to complete his sale of Ludlow Hall and the owner is Not Interested. Doesn’t sound much of a problem does it? But Nico makes BIG mistakes in his approach to Bronte. She surely puts him through his paces before he attains his goal and they fall madly in love into the bargain. Nico, Bronte and Rosie pulled me right into their world and have kept me, and hundreds of thousands of readers, there ever since.

It’s important for me to keep my writing fresh and new. Some readers love the Vampyre series, some don’t and prefer me to write contemporary romance grounded in the real world. When an author provides a mixture of genres, the downside is those who love one genre complain when another is published. That’s life. But I always take notice when I receive that tingle at the base of my spine. An author needs to follow their heart, go where the tingle takes them, and pray that readers come along for the ride.

Early last year I received a major tingle that gave me a character with a truly unique problem and an equally unique set of skills. And it’s taken me down a brand new path of suspense and intrigue. It’s a thrilling trilogy that is broad and wide and incredibly exciting and quite different to anything written in the market today. And that’s all I’m saying.

The Ludlow Hall stories will continue. As will the off shoot Ludlow Nights world. There are more vampyre stories—I’m really just getting started in that world because it Will Not Let Me Go. The vampyres have been a slow burn, but they’ve found their readers. It was a huge blessing to have three PNR books sitting high in the Amazon and iBook store paid charts in October/November 2016. I’ll continue to write fast paced romance with laughs and tears and hot guys like the Monroe brothers and the Kennedy brothers (I’ve already got the character problems and issues all lined up and ready to go). And best of all I have the tingle that is refusing to let me put it aside.

All I need now is to get better from the flu from hell which has laid all three of us who live in this house on our backs for almost eight weeks.

Christine X