Author Guest Post with Elli Morgan: The Shadowed Moon

After they took everything from him, Dave Patton dedicated his life to hunting vampires. But he can’t bring himself to destroy their newest vampire prisoner Sarah…

Welcome to the September 4th stop on the blog tour for The Shadowed Moon by Elli Morgan with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Discuss the world you’ve created for the book

The Shadowed Moon is set in our world with one key difference: vampires exist. They keep their existence hidden from the world as well as possible, though. And if someone threatens to expose them with reckless behavior, they’re dealt with by those in charge.

Vampires are immortal, although they can be killed. Wooden stakes are useless against them, but silver is quite effective. It weakens them so it can be used to capture and contain a vampire. Ramming a silver stake into a vampire’s heart or shooting them with a silver bullet—depending on the exact spot and the vampire’s age, experience, and power—can be fatal. Decapitation kills them, too.

Apart from extraordinary speed and strength, some vampires possess special abilities like teleportation, telepathy, mind reading and mind control.

A vampire’s senses are heightened. Thus, the smell of garlic might be unpleasant, but it won’t keep them away. Vampires don’t eat or drink human food, although they are physically capable of doing so for pretense. They only consume blood. The interval and amount depend on a vampire’s age. While feeding, they can inject their victims with fluids to ease the pain, make the bite pleasurable, make them sleepy or lose consciousness, poison them, immobilize them, temper with their short-term memories, or prepare to turn them into a vampire.

Vampire blood can also heal humans. If humans consume a small amount of blood or smear it on a wound, they will heal. Regular consumption of vampire blood can also physically strengthen a human.

In order to turn someone into a vampire, they need to be drained of all blood. During that process, the maker needs to trap the victim’s soul with a fluid injected during the bite. Once the heart has stopped beating, the maker will feed a large amount of his blood to his victim to revive them.

A royal family rules over vampires in Europe, keeping them in check. Members of the royal family are recognized by their powerful blood and a certain aura that warns other vampires to show respect. The leader of all vampires is their king, and the ones he turned are princes. If a prince or one of his offsprings turns a human, they can also become part of the royal family by imbibing the king’s blood.

At court, vampires need to follow a certain etiquette. Most vampires follow that etiquette all the time, though. Powerful vampires expect weaker vampires to treat them with respect; and weaker vampires have to obey. Otherwise, the powerful vampires might kill or at least punish them for their insubordination. A strict hierarchy defines the vampire’s world, ruled by strength and blood. The king is at the top, followed by everyone he has sired and then their fledglings. Next are powerful vampires who’ve fought for their rightful place. The weaker a vampire, the more he or she has to bow to another.

When Europeans discovered the New World (that is North America), some vampires followed them. Once the American colonies demanded their independence, the American vampires also refused to recognize the authority of the European royal family. They created their own hierarchy with their own royal family with a queen at the top. After that, the American and European vampires have coexisted without too much overlap or interaction.

Vampire hunters exist all over the world. They’re often victims or relatives of victims who decided to fight back. Whereas the vampire hunters in Europe are often part of rather small, unorganized groups, the ones in the States have banded together to study vampires and create more effective weapons and strategies.

About the Book

The Shadowed Moon
by Elli Morgan

Published 4 September 2024
Wild Rose Press

Genre: Paranormal Romance
Page Count: 238
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

After they took everything from him, Dave Patton dedicated his life to hunting vampires. But he can’t bring himself to destroy their newest vampire prisoner Sarah—a young woman with a tragic past, who awakens forbidden desires in him.

Sarah McAllister spent her childhood in the hands of ruthless vampires aiming to turn her into a perfect soldier. To take revenge, she hides her true strength and surrenders to a group of hunters, hoping her knowledge will help them bring all monsters to justice.

When the hunters’ compound is attacked, Sarah has to reveal her powers to protect them from certain death. How will Dave react when he learns the truth? And how much will she have to sacrifice to defeat her tormentors?

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Excerpt

Based on the fragments of conversations beyond the door, it was day again, which meant no one had visited Sarah for over twenty-four hours. The beast in her screamed for blood, keeping her awake. She wrapped her trembling arms around her knees as her insides constricted in pain. The first hours of starvation were always excruciating. Would Dave remember to feed her soon? Her heart rate sped up at the thought of him. She could almost smell his fresh, spicy odor and imagine the taste of him on her tongue. Closing her eyes, she pictured licking the sensitive skin on his neck, searching for the perfect spot to bite. Would his blood be as tantalizing as his scent?

The door opened, and daylight illuminated the corridor, pulling her from her forbidden fantasies. She sat up as Dave staggered down the stairs, followed by Dr. Crowley. Beads of sweat coated Dave’s forehead, and a foul stench penetrated her nose as he leaned against her cell door, panting.

“Are you okay?” she asked, forgetting her all-consuming hunger.

“As if you care about me, bloodsucker.”

She winced. Why was he acting so hostile?

With shaking hands, he opened the cell door and approached her. He drew his gun and held it to her temple. “If you don’t want to die right now, you’ll tell me everything you know about vampire viruses.”

Too close. Her heart drummed and the beast in her howled. Blood. Her eyes wandered to his neck. Blood. The liquid she craved was almost within her grasp. She only needed to lean forward to consume it. Blood. Her stomach lurched, and her thoughts twirled.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Nothing else mattered. But she was here for a different reason, wasn’t she?

She hissed at him and dug her nails into her skin to regain her focus. “Get. Away. From. Me.”

He stared at her blankly.

“Dave, I think she’s ravenous,” Dr. Crowley said. “You might not get much from her in this state.”

About the Author

Elli Morgan was born in 1991 in a small town in Germany. Although she only started learning English in sixth grade, she quickly fell in love with the language. To improve her skills, she spent a year working and traveling in Canada and the US.

As a teenager, she devoured countless fan fiction and vampire novels. During that time, she also developed the idea for her first two books.

Her debut, The Waxing Moon, won the Reader Views bronze award in the romance category.

Apart from being a writer, she’s also a trained mathematician, working as Business Intelligence Developer at an IT company. In her free time, she enjoys hiking, traveling, and all kinds of games.

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Giveaway Alert!

Elli Morgan will award a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.

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