werewolf – Wayne Turmel

Werewolves as Demon Metaphor??? Blackie Williamson

One of the things I always enjoy with the current werewolf renaissance in writing is when people come up with explanations for how and why the change occurs, or what’s really behind it. With the Johnny Lycan stories, it’s mostly a genetic defect (although as Nik Koslov can tell you, it can be transmitted by bite so don’t get cocky.) Horror writer Blackie Williamson has a different theory in his book, Evil Eye in the Sky.

Alright, Blackie. Who are you and what’s up?

Unlike many horror authors, I’m not trying to be original, but trendy, to sell books, because I’ve had bedbugs more than once and want out of this ghetto. I do write brutally, and with plenty of gore and series’ of shocks, to satisfy the true horror fans out there. I also write fantasy and science fiction.

Okay, we’re going the brutally honest route. I like it. What’s Evil Eye in the Sky about?

A balance between beast and lover. Cormac, infected by another werewolf, has to fight with every fiber of his being to not rend asunder and eat blond Aubrey, his high-school love interest. To make matters worse, Cormac’s father, Goddard–who demands to be called God–is after Cormac and Aubrey to join his wolf pack and worship him, to devour innocents. The conflict is that they must find a way to defeat him.

You’ve made some interesting choices about what lycanism is and how it manifests. What is the thinking here?

: It was important to me to have the werewolf virus be a Legion, Cormac possessed by 2,000 demons. In cryptid research, I found that the Beast of Bray Road in Wisconsin became possessed after devil worship, as I am a Christian. I had fun with Cormac by making him a tough guy, but also a sweetie. Roots? I dunno. I was influenced by the werewolf-movie greats: An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and the Ginger Snaps trilogy, as well as great werewolf novels like Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King.

You’ve certainly done your werewolf homework. Who are your favorites?

Adam Nevill (werewolf novel The Reddening), Glen Duncan (The Last Werewolf), John Skipp and Craig Spector (Animals), Ray Garton (Ravenous and Bestial), and Graeme Reynolds (High Moor), the greats as far as werewolf novels, before they were overdone, plus Johnny Lycan: Werewolf PI Series by Wayne Turmel.

That’s a hell of a list, and I’m ashamed at how pleased I am to be on it. Not resistant to flattery. Where can people learn more about you?

My Amazon page is here.

@BlackieWFangs on X, and blackienosferatu on Instagram, plus blackynosferatu.livejournal.com.

If you hate starting series that aren’t complete, consider starting the Johnny Lycan: Werewolf PI series. The grand finale, Johnny Lycan & the Last Witchfinder is available now on Amazon and from Black Rose Writing. And it’s available in Kindle, Paperback and Audible.

“I’ve been a fan of this series since the beginning, and while I’m slightly devastated that this is the end of it, I LOVED The Last Witchfinder.” S G Tasz

This final installment in Johnny’s saga is perhaps the weirdest, most baffling of all… Author Jill Hand

Old Fashioned Werewolf Mayhem with Simon Steele

There is a hashtag called #werewolfwednesday, and on social media some of us have tried to leverage that to find readers. Well, you also find other authors who revel in the more furry, fangy (?) monsters. One such is Simon Steele and the first novel in a planned saga, Wolfblight.

Simon, what’s your deal?

My name is Simon and I have been a writer and author for five years. I have always enjoyed writing, even when I was a child. When I was eleven, I wrote a two page horror story for a compilation novel, the Young Writers of Wales 2003. One of the reasons I write is that it helps me to relax and is a great way to escape from the pressures of life. As someone who is neurodivergent, I find writing has a positive effect on my mental health.

Tell us about Wolfblight. It’s certainly more traditional than Johnny Lycan.

My book is named Wolfblight, it is an adult horror novel with a dark fantasy twist. It is the first of a six book series known as the Wolfblight Saga, of which four have been released. The story is about a young woman named Ulva who lives in Norway during the time of the Vikings. Whilst grieving the loss of her unborn daughter, she is thrown into tragic and extraordinary circumstances one night when she is bitten by a werewolf. Unlike the classic werewolf lore, Ulva is unaffected by the full moon and instead turns into a monster every night when the sun goes down, only to turn back to normal come sunrise. The affliction is meant to worsen as time goes on, with the ultimate fate being permanent transformation.

The story of Wolfblight involves Ulva going on a journey to find a cure for her affliction, which involves finding an artifact known as Fenrir’s Bane. She is joined on her quest by her husband John, her brother Einar and her friends Brenna and Kit. Brenna is a lycanthropist who studies werewolves whilst Kit is one herself, albeit she can control her turnings since she was born with lycanthropy. The villains of the story are the Cult of Fenris, an evil wolf-worshipping cult who want to destroy Fenrir’s Bane and plunge the land into darkness and chaos. They are led by Fenrir, the wolf from Norse mythology who created the affliction now plaguing Ulva, which is known as the Wolfblight, hence the title of the book and series.

What inspired the story? Where’d it come from?

The story has roots heavily inspired by Norse mythology. I not only wanted to incorporate such a mythology into my work, but I wanted to give readers something fresh to read since a lot of current werewolf fiction tends to be set in either in the present day or the last 250 years. I wrote Wolfblight because I was unsatisfied with the current state of werewolf/lycanthropic fiction. There are many great books out there involving werewolves to be sure. But as amazing as these works were, they left me wanting more and so I decided to write my own werewolf novel, one that would contain everything I could ever want in such a book.

I always like to know who inspired you. Who do you read?

There are many great authors out there that I enjoy, from G.R.R Martin and J.R.R Tolkien to Roald Dahl and R.L Stine. I read copious amounts of their work when I was younger. In terms of werewolf books, I have read many fantastic works, including Kelley Armstrong’s Bitten, Dylan Altoft’s Beast Born, Stephen King’s Silver Bullet, W.A Edward’s Hunter’s Fated Wait, Kat Kinney’s Dyrwolf, M.L White’s Shifter Awakened, Adrian Lopez’s Lycaon Bloodlines, Mark Runte’s Eve and Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. Each of these authors gave their own unique spin on the werewolf mythos in the same way that I gave my own unique spin in Wolfblight and I am delighted to be counted amongst them.

Where can we learn more?

Wolfblight and its sequels are available on Amazon in three forms, paperback, hardcover and Amazon Kindle. There are plans in the future to adapt the Wolfblight Saga into audiobooks, but I am unsure of when that will be. As an author, I am on Twitter, Instagram and Goodreads under the name Simon Steele. I currently do not have an author website, though I have plans to eventually create one. In terms of future writing plans, the series is in the midst of having their covers redesigned by the talented Stardust Book Services and there are two books left to write, which hopefully will be available in 2025/2026.

“I’ve been a fan of this series since the beginning, and while I’m slightly devastated that this is the end of it, I LOVED The Last Witchfinder.” S G Tasz

This final installment in Johnny’s saga is perhaps the weirdest, most baffling of all… Author Jill Hand

Vampires Hunting Werewolves with Claudia Silva

You all know that in my books, Johnny Lupul is a pretty decent guy, besides being a shape-shifting rage monster on occasion. Imagine how conflicted I was when I found a new series where Vampires were the good guys and among the bumpy-in-the-night things they killed were werewolves.

Despite the obvious conflict of interest, I enjoyed Claudia Silva’s introduction to the North American Vampire Secret Agency series. Here’s my conversation with her.

What should we know about you?

I am someone who wears many hats. I was one of those who didn’t really have a plan for the future. I went to college and became an engineer because I thought it would be easy to get a job. And it was. There, I met my husband to whom I’ve been married 22 years. We have two teenagers now.
I then changed countries and professions. I moved from Mexico to the US and became a teacher. At first, I wasn’t sure it was for me, but later I understood how to help kids and even studied for a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education.
I’ve been a teacher since 2003 and my favorite grade to teach is Kindergarten.
All through that I have read and written stories. The first book I read for pleasure was Jurassic Park. But the book that really changed my life was Interview with the Vampire. I really liked movies about vampires, witches, werewolves and all things fantasy, and with Interview with the Vampire I realized that people wrote about these things too. I was was 17 when I wrote my first fan fiction. Years later I thought about my own stories and began to write them down. I have been writing them down ever since.

So what’s your series about?

My first series is an urban fantasy. It is completed and has 6 books and 2 short stories. It’s about a secret agency where vampires work to solve paranormal conflict. The witches are their allies and the werewolves their main enemies. Some agents hunt werewolves, and other hunt rogue vampires.

The story begins with Rebecca, an ordinary woman with nothing to lose. She meets Dylan, and he convinces her to join the vampire agency. The first book is about discovery. Rebecca has a lot to learn, and not only about being a vampire, but also how to become a werewolf hunter. At the end of her training, she must be tested. The rest of the books focus more on the conflict between the werewolves and the vampires. I don’t think my stories follow any tropes, and I think mine are a different type of vampires. You’d have to read and see.

Yeah, about that killing werewolves thing…. but that’s for another time. What is it about that form of magic and worldbuilding that appealed to you?

The story originated with a dream. I dreamt about a vampire in a room full of people and how the only way to identify a vampire was when his eyes turned read. Everything started from there. The scene ended up in book 2, and it went through a complete revision to make it the first mission Rebecca needs to survive as a new werewolf hunter.

Who are the authors that influenced you? Who do you read?

I love reading. I have read most of Anne Rice’s books, as well as JK Rowling, Marissa Meyer, Marie Lu, Kiera Cass, Naomi Novak, Andy Weir, Jeff Lemire, Isaac Asimov, and Stephen King.

How can people find you and your work?

I have a website. You can find that at www.claudia-silva.com

Or you can follow me on social media:

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16803765.Claudia_Silva

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Claudia-Silva/e/B071NL28WS

Twitter: https://twitter.com/csilvaauthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/claudiasilva_author/

If you want to read about a werewolf detective who ISN”T being hunted by vampires, may I suggest Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker, now available from #blackrosewriting.

Also, you can now follow me on Twitter, Facebook (Wayne Turmel Author) or Instagram.

Get book 2 of the Werewolf PI series, available now. Or book 1 if you haven’t started yet. I don’t care.

One Week to Johnny Lycan 2- How You Can Help

If you’re reading this, you’re probably securely in my orbit, and I”m grateful for it. In exactly 8 days, my fifth novel, Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker enters the world. Here’s how you can help, if you’d be so kind:

If you’ve already ordered the book from my publisher, blessings upon you. If you’ve ordered it from Amazon, or plan to, I’m going to make a big ask. Here’s how you can help me:

Mad Max and his pet werewolf is already excited about Johnny Lycan & the Vegas Berserker

If you haven’t yet ordered the book: If you have kindle Unlimited, you can download the e-book for free. If you’ve already ordered the book, thanks. PLEASE leave a review as a verified purchaser.

If you’ve ordered the book from somewhere else, like from Black Rose Publishing or from me personally, you can still review on Amazon if you state where you got the book from.

Wherever you purchase the book, you can review and rate the book on Goodreads Early reviews are accepted there. Then there’s Facebook groups, TikTok or wherever you communicate with your friends.

Finally, if you can share on your tweetfacelinkbloggram pages and social media and tell your friends. I’d love to make this the biggest launch yet ( a low bar, to be honest) and you play an important part in that.

If I haven’t said it before, I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope my stories are worth your precious time. Here we go…

That New Book Smell- Part 14 or So

This is the worst humble brag ever but I can’t tell you how many books I’ve written or contributed to. If you just count books with my name on the cover as author or co-author it’s 14 (you can check my Amazon Author Page for yourself.) But I’ve also contributed to a bunch more, both fiction and nonfiction. The point is, that moment when the box or envelope arrives and the first time you hold your baby in your hands… it never gets old.

That said, here’s the latest story filling the house with that new book smell. Johnny Lycan and the Vegas Berserker is officially born on December 8, but I got some early copies for reviews and the like.

I love all my children equally, but this is some of the best work I’ve done and certainly has a couple of the best new characters. In particular, Lemuel Collins, the Las Vegas psychic pawn broker, and Cree Jensen, a badass witch who trains in MMA. Johnny is in all kinds of trouble. The kind you’ll love.

If you are a reviewer and want a copy, drop me a line. If you want to buy a signed copy, I can hook you up. If you want to wait til the due date, God love ya. I hope you enjoy Johnny’s latest adventure. I mean, how much trouble can a guy get into in Las Vegas, right?

Jon Robinson’s YA Werewolf

Long time readers will know I’m not a big fan of YA as a genre. (You can read my rant about it here.) That said, introducing young’ns to scary stories is a time honored tradition. Hence my interview with eclectic author Jon Robinson. His first foray into Lycan-inspired fiction is Sunshine and the Full Moon. Like 14 year old girls aren’t scary enough…

Jon, welcome aboard. Tell us about yourself.

I used to write about video games, sports, and wrestling for everybody from ESPN to Sports Illustrated to WWE. But now I’m trading in my love of sweat and polygons for werewolves. That’s right … silver bullets, fangs, and fur. I’m all in. Sunshine and the Full Moon is my first novel, and the main character, a sassy 14-year-old girl obsessed with geocaching, baseball, and k-pop is inspired by my daughter. Her encounter with a werewolf is actually something I had a dream about, so I decided to turn that dream into a novel, and here we are.

Johnny Lycan started as a dream too, and look where that got me. Tell me about Sunshine…

A 14-year-old girl named Sunshine goes on a geocaching adventure and uncovers a werewolf den. Turns out, the town her grandmother lives in up in the California Gold Country has had a mysterious string of deaths, and Sunshine stumbles headfirst into the mystery. When a young girl in town goes missing, can Sunshine figure out the clues behind the creature wreaking havoc throughout the small town before it’s too late?

What is it about that form of magic or character that appealed to you? What are the roots of the story?

I’ve always been a big fan of werewolves. Vampires are cool, zombies are fun, but to me, werewolves are king! Anyway, I had this dream where there was a werewolf attack, and the creature bites down on a young girl’s arm, but the girl had a cast from where she broke her arm, and the werewolf’s teeth get caught. So you have this moment where it’s staring eye-to-eye with the girl, saliva dripping down on her as it tries to wrestle its way free. I decided to work backward from that point in the story, develop a plot and main character around my teenage daughter’s personality, and Sunshine and the Full Moon took on a life of its own.

It’s interesting that you’ve written so much about sports. A lot of my short stories center around boxing, and yet here we are talking werewolves. Who do you read?

I’m a big fan of everyone from James Lee Burke to Shea Serrano. I also really love to read sports books that take you behind the scenes, like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four.

Where can we learn more about your work?

Check out my website: Jon Robinson Books

On Goodreads: J on Robinson (Author of NXT) | Goodreads

You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram @Jrobandsteal

Amazon Author Page:

Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is available in paperback and Kindle, and available almost anywhere from #BlackRoseWriting. It’s an American Book Festival Finalist for Best Horror of 2020. “If Raymond Chandler wrote about werewolves.”

Paramedic to the Paranormal- Jamie Davis

One of the trends in Urban Fantasy that fascinates me (and makes me insanely jealous) is the number of authors cranking out series after series of fun reads. While they might not be great art, they’re fun. It’s kind of the Kindle version of the old pulp novels (and I mean that in the best way.) Ultimately, it’s what I envisioned for the Lucca stories and for Johnny Lycan, but you know… day job, life and stuff.

One such author is Jamie Davis, the author of 40 books including his new series, Extreme Medical Services. Imagine being an EMT and having to pick up an overdosing vampire and you get the idea.

Jamie, what’s your deal, man?

When I get the question “tell us a little about yourself” I’m usually stuck for an answer. I mean, there’s so much to tell. I’m a husband, father, grandfather, nurse, and retired paramedic who has been telling stories in one form or another my whole life. My wife puts it this way: “He embellishes every memory a little more each time. You never know which version you’ll get.”

I think it’s because I see so many possibilities in the world and people around me. “What if” is a way of life for me and that’s where many of my books begin. In fact, my first series, Extreme Medical Services, started in the back of the ambulance late one night when I dropped off a particularly hairy patient. I remarked to my partner, “What if that guy is really a werewolf? It is a full moon.” Thus was born my books about paramedics for supernatural creatures.

Now, I have more than forty books, most of which fall into the category of what I like to call Fun Fantasy Reads. All are family-friendly and suitable for young teens and up, even though they are written for adults. I have heard from several readers who enjoy my books because they can share them with their kids. It gives them something to talk about in a time when we’re always so distracted by our screens.

What’s Extreme Medical Services about?

Extreme Medical Services as I explained earlier is book 1 in a whole series about supernatural paramedics. If you’ve ever asked yourself, “What happens if a vampire or a werewolf needs to call 911?” then these are the books for you.

Of course, now you’re curious, aren’t you? That’s okay. There are plenty of stories there to scratch that itch. With 8 books and a prequel in the series already, I’m also currently finishing up book 9. All the books are also available as excellent audiobooks. They’re narrated by the superbly talented Roberto Scarlato and he really brings the stories to life with his amazing voice.

What is it about this world that you enjoy so much?

Dean Flynn, the newbie paramedic in Extreme Medical Servcies is as green as they come. Don’t get me wrong. He’s highly trained, having graduated at the top of his paramedic academy class, he just didn’t exactly know what he’d signed up for when the chief told him he had a special assignment in mind.

He’s thrown into the deep end as he meets patient after patient on his first days on the job, uncovering a whole new world he never knew existed, right there under the surface in the city in which he grew up. Now he’s an ordinary guy, saving lives, and making some unusual friends along the way. That’s a good thing, because there’s something sinister lurking behind the scenes that could endanger the patients he’s sworn to protect.

If this was set in Chicago, it sounds like he might run into Johnny Lupul one night. That would be hilarious. Who did this to you? What do you read?

I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about authors who’ve influenced me. I could list off the big ones, Tolkien, Robert Jordan, or Heinlein. Yeah, I read them, but I think there are others who had a bigger impact on me in different ways. Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series was probably the first that set up a modern world with a hidden magical realm ordinary humans couldn’t see. The concept intrigued me then and still does today. I still reread those books from time to time. I highly recommend them. They’re not just for kids.

Another writer who impacted me was David Weber. His Honor Harrington Universe (and it is expansive) showed me how really strong characters could draw you into a story, making you care about them and everything they do. I’ve laughed aloud, cheered, and shed a few tears while reading his sci-fi epics.

I’ve read many others and they’ve all impacted my writing in one way or another. In the end, they’ve taught me to write stories about people you can care about, even amidst fantastical or futuristic situations. Who knows, I’ve always said we should all keep our eyes open because there’s magic all around us.

How can people keep up with you and your work?

The best ways to catch up with me and what I’m doing is first at my website, https://jamiedavisbooks.com, where you can get a free book, sign up for my active and fun fantasy newsletter.

Second, you can join the fun in Jamie Davis’ Fun Fantasy Readers group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/funfantasyreaders/). We don’t just talk about my books. It’s a place to talk about great fantasy (and sci-fi) stories on TV, in movies, and other great authors out there. I’m in there all the time and love chatting with everyone.

You can find the entire Extreme Medical Services series here: https://jamiedavisbooks.com/buy-extreme-medical-services-books/

And I’m also on Twitter at https://twitter.com/podmedic

Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is now available in paperback and Kindle, and available almost anywhere from #BlackRoseWriting. It’s an American Book Festival Finalist for Best Horror of 2020. “If Raymond Chandler wrote about werewolves.”

Werewolves Run Amok in Northern Ireland- Iain McLachlan

If you survived the great vampire boom of the 90s and early 2000s (Twilight, Pure Blood, The Lost Boys) you lived to tell the tale. We seem to be going through a similar thing with werewolves. All the tropes are being reexamined. Lycanthopic romance is a thing (seriously, a lot of women are hot for Lycans. It’s also big in gay erotica), legends are updated to a thoroughly modern world like Steve Morris’ Lycanthrope series (you can read the interview here), and some for a mix of humor, detective noir and horror like Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk. But if you never thought of Northern Ireland as werewolf territory, you need to meet Iain McLachlan.

Iain, what’s you’re story?

Well, I live south of Belfast in Northern Ireland, I was raised here and moved back home three years ago from living in London. I started writing my first book back in 2008, but work kept me away form it so it was 2017 when I went back to it with the decision ‘right, I WILL do this’ and I have not looked back. I love traveling, and apart from one, all the locations in my stories are all real and I try as best as I can, to do them justice. I love it when I get feedback from people who know the locations who tell me that they can picture exactly where the character is standing at the point in the story.

What’s the story behind The Moon Dancing series?

I have looked at the genre of ‘werewolves’ but from a scientific point of view and not a ‘myth and fantasy’ one. I spent eighteen months before I started writing volume one doing research to see if this was possible in nature, and I discovered that theoretically, DNA can change shape, but (very big but) if this was real, what we see in stories and films would take nearly eight months for a person to change into a lycanthrope, not sixty seconds! So, I did take a bit of literally licence

My story in Moon Dancing Volume one is about a pack of werewolves in modern-day Northern Ireland, they have done a very good job at hiding from modern society when (in volume one) a small pack of wolves from a different pack arrive .. and start to cause trouble.

I look at how the pack reacts to more wolves in their territory, how the police would have to investigate a series of brutal murders and the evidence that they gather and how a local journalist reports what she is seeing and discovering through her job.

The story was first going to be a trilogy but I am now looking at at least six books over the story line.

What is it about werewolves that is so fascinating? Belfast doesn’t seem like prime loup-garou territory.

I have always loved the idea of werewolves, but when I look at them in legend, I spotted major differences between central Europe and here in Ireland, for example, the witness descriptions from central Europe, drooling mouth, blood shot eyes, rage … I spotted that these were also the signs and symptoms of the disease RABIES. There has never been rabies in any of the British Isles (Ireland both north and south, and Great Britain) and the descriptions of werewolves in Irish legend were all of tales of ‘protectors’ and good tales. I found several legends that pointed to tales of the old kings of Ireland, that in times of war, would hire the clan of werewolves (or dogmen as they were also called) as bodyguards. They were known as fierce warriors and very loyal, totally different to Central Europe.

I’m always interested in who you read for fun. I get the sense you are kind of old school.

I have always loved reading, my list is varied and includes, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Keri Arthur, Patricia Briggs, Maya Angelou, David Niven, Claire Savage, Ernest Hemingway just to name a few.

Where can people learn more about you and your work?

I am on Good Reads, Volume one and Volume two of Moon Dancing are available on amazon, I am on social media as well,

www.instagram.com/iain_mclachlan_author

Moon Dancing Volume three is due for release in June 2021.

Scary Critters in the Canadian Woods- Katie Berry

Canada is underrated for scariness. You think everyone’s nice (which is a great cover for a serial killer if you think about it) and it’s all outdoorsy and stuff. But if you’ve ever been alone in the woods at night, there’s a high creep factor. A writer from my home province of British Columbia has it figured out. I came across Katie Berry’s book Claw and figured I should introduce her to you so…

Katie, been years since I spoke to anyone from Castlegar! What should we know about you?

First of all, thank you so much for having me here today. It’s great to have a chance to speak to everyone and let them know a little about myself. Where to start? I am from Ottawa, Ontario, originally. Moved out west in a family migration when I was young. We ended up in the Okanagan in what was then called Westbank. After moving around the province several times over the years, I have settled down finally, and now live and write in the beautiful West Kootenays of British Columbia.

I have been writing for as long as I can remember. My first story was written in grade three. It was a four-page murder mystery. My teacher wanted the class to write a short story. Mine was the only story with a hand drawn cover. It really stood out, since it was hand-typed (thanks to my dad’s assistance) and had a lovely colourful cover: a large pool of bright-red blood lay on a sidewalk next to a vibrant green lawn surrounded by a white picket fence. I was a regular Rembrandt. ? Got an A- on it, too!

Canada has plenty of scary critters, but CLAW goes way above and beyond. Tell us about it.

CLAW is about a small town in BC that has several problems. Right about this time of year, they suffer a major earthquake, the town’s sole mountain pass cut off from the world. The other problem is with the ‘wildlife’ that keeps eating people wandering around in the local forests. Finally, there is a greedy cartel of murderous morons trying to hide a massive gold strike recently discovered in the area. The main protagonists, Austin Murphy and Christine Moon have been well received, with Christine being called a ‘kick-ass conservationist’ by one reader. I have had many people write to me telling me that they know these people, or people just like them in their own communities, and how the novel all seemed very real to them.

I always feel that the more you can ground your story in a realistic world that surrounds the reader, the easier it can be to introduce the more unbelievable elements. I recently heard from a zoologist who teaches at a university in the UK who just loved the book, saying it has everything he looks for in a novel, from story, action and characters, all the way to the title cryptid villain, who is actually not called CLAW, interestingly. It’s nice to have the scientific community at your back, I must say.

As someone who grew up in a hub for Sasquatch sightings (Bigfoot is so American), I love me a good cryptid. Where did the story come from?

The roots of the story. I had a dream. After that dream, I got to wondering about certain things in my area, and it all just sort of fell into place (eventually). It was a four year journey from that dream to reality, but I feel it was worth it. I am truly proud of that novel, and especially so when people tell me they rank it right up there with stories by King, Koontz and Crichton. I truly feel blessed to have done so well. CLAW has been in the top 5,000-10,000 on Amazon.com since just about a month after its release in December 2019. As of yesterday, I have sold just a little over 10,000 copies and counting. And the two new prequel novelettes I have recently released are also doing quite well. Another aspect of the novel was that I wanted to write something like a big-action blockbuster monster movie set here in the mountains of BC. With CLAW and its upcoming sequel and prequel, I think I have achieved that. CLAW is also available in paperback and audiobook (14.5 hours of fun!)

What is it about this kind of story that appeals to you?

I have always had an affinity for the horrific side of movies and television, and especially things that go bump in the night or with monsters in them. I remember watching the old Universal horror movies with my mom, such as the Wolfman, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Invisible Man, etc. One of the things we also watched were reruns of Kolchak: The Night Stalker with Darren McGavin. It was that show that inspired me to be a writer. I actually wanted to be an investigative journalist like Carl Kolchak and bust monsters each week like he did. Hey, I was only ten at the time.

(WAYNE HAS TO INTERRUPT>>>LOVED Night Stalker! I actually had a dream the other night I got a TV deal to write a reboot of Night Stalker with Randall Park as the reporter. How do we make that happen?)

But that set me up with the writing bug and I never looked back. I actually did study journalism in college for a while along with abnormal psychology. Personally, I like things with the unknown in it. But unknown of the fantastic nature. I know that some people love a good psycho killer novel, but with all the horror in the world these days, I like to escape when I read, or write. Man’s inhumanity against man is something that holds little appeal to me, but nature’s inhumanity to man, or the supernatural’s, well, that’s another thing.

Where can we learn more about you and your work?

For any reader that would like to keep up with my writing, my website is always up to date with links to all of my books at https://katieberry.ca.

Also, my Amazon Author Page is a great place to go

Let’s not forget Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19756937.Katie_Berry.

Link to all of the books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3nxDvBv

Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is now available in paperback and kindle, and available almost anywhere from #BlackRoseWriting. It’s an American Book Festival Finalist for Best Horror of 2020. “Like Dresden Files with Bite.”

Are You Ready for the Werewolf Apocalypse? Steve Morris

I was a fan of werewolves long before Johnny Lycan entered my brain, and have been reading a fair number of Lycanthropic novels lately just to see what’s out there. One of my latest favorites is Wolf Blood: The Werewolf Apocalypse Begins. As you can imagine it’s a very different tale than mine, although it plays with some similar themes: Lycanthrophy as a disease, making conscious choices about what to do with it. That’s about where the similarities end. This is a flat out, badass thriller. I was happy to talk to Steve Morris about his series…

Steve, it’s great to meet another werewolf junkie. Please introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Steve Morris, and I did several different jobs before becoming a writer. After university I spent ten years working as a nuclear scientist. I then ran my own internet company for a while, before coming up with the crazy and misguided notion that a fresh start as an author would be a smart career move.

I really enjoyed Wolf Blood and look forward to the others. Tell us what it’s about.

Short answer – werewolves taking over the world! A virus originating in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania is brought back to London by scientific researchers. Once established in the city, it begins to spread exponentially. Back in 2017, when I started writing the series, a pandemic felt like an unlikely apocalyptic event rather than something we would all soon experience first-hand.

Long answer – all kinds of things. I’m interested in good and evil, and how it can manifest in each and every one of us, and how the dividing line can sometimes be paper thin. I wanted to explore the theme of diversity, and whether opposing groups of people can find a way to live together, or whether conflict is inevitable. The predator-prey division between werewolves and humans can be viewed as a metaphor for our times.

That’s what I love about werewolf stories, that we all have that inside of us and it’s how we cope that matters. What are the roots of the story?

The title of my series is “Lycanthropic.” The word came to me one day and I thought it would make a cool title for a book. I searched on Amazon, but no one had written a book with that title. So it dawned on me that I would have to write it myself.

I’d enjoyed a lot of zombie apocalypse stories, and so it seemed like an obvious move to write a story about a werewolf apocalypse. Most traditional werewolf stories involve lone werewolves in isolated settings, or else they are coming of age stories where the condition is often regarded as a curse to be overcome. I wondered what it would be like if lycanthropy wasn’t necessarily a curse, and if the werewolves weren’t hunted down and killed at the end of the book. I also wanted to explore what it would be like to be a werewolf.

I know why werewolves fascinate me, and my readers are probably sick about hearing why. But what’s their appeal for you?

I have always loved werewolves. I think that when I was a teenager, I would have liked to be one. The idea that you have this incredible power inside you that can be unleashed, even if you have little or no control over it, can be very seductive. I remember reading about them when I played Dungeons & Dragons, and realising that they didn’t have to be magical, but that lycanthropy might be an actual disease. That made them seem far more real, more plausible, and much more interesting to me.

I’m also very interested in transformation and reinvention, and werewolves and other shapeshifters are the embodiment of these qualities.

Who are you reading people should know about?

I read quite widely. I’ve just finished “Dracul” by Dacre Stoker, which I really enjoyed, and now I’m reading “The Terror” by Dan Simmons, who also wrote the amazing “Hyperion” books. Other authors I have greatly enjoyed include Frank Herbert, George R R Martin, Patrick Ness and Joe Abercrombie.

How can people learn more about you and the Lycanthropic series?

The best place to go is my website at https://www.stevemorrisbooks.com – here you’ll find links to Amazon.

I’m on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17204478.Steve_Morris

and my Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/stevemorrisauthor

Thank you for inviting me onto your blog!

Of course, for those who want to compare werewolf takes, Johnny Lycan and the Anubis Disk is now available in paperback and kindle, and available almost anywhere from #BlackRoseWriting. It’s an American Book Festival Finalist for Best Horror of 2020. “Like Dresden Files with Bite.”