Today, author Michelle Drier is guesting. She’s talking about her latest release The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles Box Set, a paranormal romance. “Follow Maxie Gwenoch as she takes the job of Managing Editor for SNAP Magazine, the world’s largest and most popular gossip media covering celebrities around the globe….owned by a family of vampires.” Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter giveaway!
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Who am I? I drink my coffee black, usually two cups of French Roast before noon.
I was born in Santa Cruz and am a fifth generation Californian. During my career in journalism—as a reporter and editor at daily newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury-News—I won awards for producing investigative series. I’m the past president of Capitol Crimes, the Sacramento chapter of Sisters in Crime; Guppies, the on-line chapter of SinC, and co-chaired Bouchercon 2020 the world’s oldest and largest convention for mystery writers and fans.
My Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death and a stand-alone, Ashes of Memories.
My paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG. The series is SNAP: The World Unfolds, SNAP: New Talent, Plague: A Love Story, Danube: A Tale of Murder, SNAP: Love for Blood, SNAP: Happily Ever After?, SNAP: White Nights, SNAP: All That Jazz, SNAP: I, Vampire, SNAP: Red Bear Rising and SNAP: Pandemic Games.
The first book in the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul, was published in 2019 and the second one, Tapestry of Tears, in 2020. Find me at www.micheledrier.me, Amazon author page https://www.amazon.com/Michele-Drier/e/B005D2YC8G, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/michele.drier/ Twitter https://twitter.com/MicheleDrier and on Goodreads
I write in two genres: Traditional mystery, suitable for PG-13 and paranormal romance, PG-17 (some not-explicit sex on the page).
What inspired my recent book? I wanted to write a mystery with a protagonist who had an off-beat career and as I wandered through my book collection, I ran across one on the art of stained glass. In the 1970s I made a small piece of stained glass for a college art project, got intrigued and now thought, “Aha! That’s an off-beat career.” And Rosalind Duke, “Roz” was born.
Pantser or plotter? Pantser, all the way! When I start a book I know some of the basics—who are the characters, what happens to them. And I know how it ends, always at least a Happily For Now because I love solving puzzles. But I don’t know how I’ll get from A to B. I liken it to talking a trip. You start out on the freeway, but along the way smaller roads and detours beckon. Who will you meet down that one-lane road?
My reading habits: I read. I read. I read. I read mysteries, some romance, literature, non-fiction, history, biographies. I’m currently on my third reread of Rise and Fall of the Third Reich because I see so many parallels to our current political climate. I love Tana French and Daniel Silva. And will read anything by John Stanford. Lady Antonia Fraser’s biographies are wonderful. Mary, Queen of Scots, The Sun King, Oliver Cromwell and a study of women in The Weaker Vessel. And Doris Lessing, her African Stories and Matty Quest series. Even though I believe we speak the same language, her facility with it is stunning.
Do I read reviews? Yes, because I’m always looking to improve my story-telling and writing and many reviews offer an insight into what works (or doesn’t work) in my books. By the time a book is published, it’s gone through at least two critique groups, one or two editors and up to five or six beta readers but I’m still looking for feedback. On the other hand, I’ve gotten one-star reviews that aren’t the least bit helpful, including one that said, “I hated this book.” Well, OK, I don’t think that person will ever be a fan, but I have no idea what he or she didn’t like.
What’s next? I’m working on two books currently, the 12th in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, as yet untitled and the third in the Stained Glass Mysteries, Resurrection of the Roses. After that, the fourth book in the Amy Hobbes series and a stand-alone on mistaken identity.
Currently reading: Because of the PBS series, All Creatures… I’m rereading the James Herriot English vet books. A kinder, simpler life.
Nail polish: French manicure (worse for wear because of the pandemic)
Ebook or print: I still really love print but read mostly on a device. Love the fact that when I can’t sleep at night, I can turn on my Kindle and just read by its light.
Music: Baroque
Best place: Paris
Blurb and Buy Links for Tapestry of Tears:
History had always been a strong magnet for Rosalind Duke.
She took up the medieval craft of making stained glass and was building a solid international reputation, taking on larger and larger commissions. Her idyllic life with her husband, Winston Duke, an art historian at UCLA, was cut short when he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting.
After moving to a small town on the Oregon coast, she’s offered a commission to translate the medieval embroidery, The Bayeux Tapestry, into stained glass for a museum at a small Wisconsin university. Roz jumps at the chance. Not only to try to transfer the Tapestry into a new medium, but to spend time in Southern England and Northern France, tracing the path taken by the invading Normans under William the Conqueror.
But the 21st century drags her back when she finds a body crumpled against a wall in an ancient stone church in the small town of Lympne, on the southern coast of England. Has she walked into a contemporary murder?
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08P41FKJY
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tapestry-of-tears-michele-drier/1138556280?ean=2940162911357
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/tapestry-of-tears-2
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Title: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles Box Set
Series: Books 1-4
Author: Michelle Drier
Genre: Paranormal Romance
This boxed set includes Books One through Four of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles: Book One, SNAP: The World Unfolds; Book Two, SNAP: New Talent; Book Three, Plague: A Love Story and Book Four, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder.
Follow Maxie Gwenoch as she takes the job of Managing Editor for SNAP Magazine, the world’s largest and most popular gossip media covering celebrities around the globe.
First, she finds the owners of SNAP are a family of Hungarian vampires, then she discovers she’s the reason for an escalating war between the Kandeskys and their archrivals, the Huszars.
Book One, SNAP: The World Unfolds
SNAP, a multinational celeb TV show and magazine, is the holy grail for Maxie Gwenoch. When she snags the job as managing editor, she’s looking for fame, fortune and Jimmy Choos. What she finds is a media empire owned by Baron Kandesky and his family. A family of vampires. They’re European, urbane, wealthy and mesmerizing. And when she meets Jean-Louis, vampire and co-worker, she’s a goner.
The Kandesky vampire family rose in Hungary centuries ago. They gave up violence and killing to make a killing on the world’s commodities markets and with that beginning they built SNAP, an international celebrity multimedia empire. Now cultured…and having found food substitutes for killing…they’ve cornered the world market for celebrity and gossip journalism.
They haven’t fully left the past behind. Their Hungarian neighbors and rival vampire clan, the Huszars are starting to ramp up attacks, maybe looking to start a war to take over all the Kandeskys have built.
Maxie believes she’s found her ultimate career. She doesn’t realize that she’s found a family feud like none other, a centuries-old rivalry between vampire families, with her as the linchpin. Bells ring with Jean-Louis, but she doesn’t realize they’re alarm sirens until she learns that Jean-Louis is second in command of the Kandeskys…but by then it’s too late.
Book Two, SNAP: New Talent
In the second book of the SNAP Kandesky vampire series, Maxie Gwenoch, media-savvy editor of the multinational celeb gossip magazine SNAP, is pummeled in Paris and kidnapped in Kiev as the Huszars ramp up the race to oust their centuries-old rivals, the Kandeskys.
SNAP’s owners, the Kandesky family of vampires, built the world’s most popular celeb coverage empire but this isn’t just a business take-over. These powerful vampire families lived with an uneasy peace for four centuries until Maxie came in to boost SNAP’s coverage and started making inroads into the Huszar’s traditional hunting territories.
Although Jean-Louis, Maxie’s lover, vampire and second-in-command of the Kandeskys, tries to keep her safe, Maxie is determined to do things her way, a way that may lose her her job, her love and her life.
This is a new edition. It has been reformatted and contains additional bonus material.
Book Three, Plague: A Love Story
The third book of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles begins the saga of the family’s start during the chaos of 14th century Hungary. When Stefan’s wife and infant son die in a minor plague outbreak, he has nothing to live for, so Theron’s turning him to a vampire is just a way out of his anguish.
Until he takes over the estate of a merchant, recruits Jean-Louis to teach him business and meets Lady Penelope Kandesky.
Plague returns to Budapest and this time paves the way for Stefan to become Baron Stefan Kandesky, a businessman who builds a trading empire with the help of Jean-Louis and Pen.
Book Four, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder
The Kandesky management trio, Stefan, Jean-Louis and Pen, find themselves embroiled in a war with their rivals, the Huszars, which is bad for PR and bad for business, but after a judicious assassination they hammer out a pact.
This fourth book of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles tells of peace agreements with their rivals and the growth of their now-international business ventures.
It also follows Jean-Louis as he meets and falls in love with a young artist, Magda, who desires travel and adventure but never imagined the world the Kandeskys inhabit
Purchase at:
When you get to the top savor it; it’s a long way down, my mother’s mantra, hummed through my head as the elevator rose. On the eighteenth floor, a muted sound chimed as the doors slid open, and there it was. The headquarters of SNAP, the newest, cutting-ist edge gathering-of-information machine covering people who matter in the world.
As I stepped into the lobby I was deafened by the silence. Two receptionists sat behind the black marble counter, showing only their heads with headsets. They were murmuring something, but so quietly I couldn’t hear words. The famous SNAP logo etched into the wall-to-wall, ceiling-high mirror reflected the backs of their heads.
The reflection only showed my head and shoulders, my body disappearing as I neared the black slab. The receptionists were both blonds, so fair their skin had a translucent pale blue tone sliced by mouths slathered in Russian Red lipstick. At least I hoped it was lipstick.
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Michele Drier is a fifth-generation Californian and spent better than 20 years as a reporter and editor at California daily newspapers. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, current president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, and co-chaired Bouchercon 2020.
Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.
Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG. Book Eleven, SNAP: Pandemic Games was published in 2022
Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul and Tapestry of Tears, and she’s working on the third, Resurrection of the Roses.
She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.
Follow Michelle: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bookbub | Amazon | Goodreads
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Maggie Blackbird 
Thanks for the great post. I enjoy vampire novels. These could be perfect for me.
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Thank you, Debra!
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