It is my great pleasure to welcome Mia James to Book Angel Booktopia today to share a reading list inspired by Darkness Falls the 2nd book in the Ravenwood Mysteries Trilogy. We all know how much I love reading lists and squeed out-loud when given the opportunity to host this post. Over to Mia:
I'll be honest, when I wrote By Midnight, the first book in the Ravenwood trilogy, I didn't really need to do a huge amount of research into the vampire genre as I wasted away my youth watching horror movies and reading schlocky books (everything from Jaws to James Herbert to Jackie Collins!), but Darkness Falls, as the name suggests, takes April on a journey deep into the shadows, so I needed inspiration from other writers who had taken their characters out there in the dark.
A very nice lady called Professor Avril Horner, one of the country's leading experts on gothic literature, gave me a lot of ideas, starting with Jane Eyre. I was initially surprised when she suggested it, but she was right: it's the story of a young girl trapped in a creaky old house who suspects a very sinister man (who she's actually madly attracted to) might actually be evil. That could describe April's relationship with both of her leading men - Gabriel and Benjamin - in Darkness Falls.
Another cracker was Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier which if anything is even more creepy and atmospheric - the house at Manderley is almost another character, which was something I attempted to do with Highgate Cemetery in the books.
Especially good advice if you fall in love with a vampire!
I'll be writing more about the creepy movies I watched as 'research' over at Readeraptor on 11 October
- Mia James, October 2011
Title: Darkness FallsSeries: The Ravenwood Mysteries #2Author: Mia JamesPublisher: IndigoPublication Date: 29 Sep 2011Synopsis: From AmazonHighgate When April's family moved to the sleepy North London village of Highgate, everyone told her it was the start of an amazing new life. They didn't know the half of it. Weeks later, her father was the latest in a series of brutal killings, someone has tried to kill her, and now her boyfriend, Gabriel, is dying too . . . Murder April couldn't save her father, but there's just a chance she can save Gabriel. There's an ancient recipe, hidden in a forbidden book, which holds the cure. All April has to do is find it. Somehow. Vampires But she has to keep a low profile. In a school full of vampires, where one of their own has been killed, they're beginning to suspect they have a Fury in their midst. April's blood might be deadly to vampires, but even that won't save her if they figure out who she is. Time is short, the stakes are high, and surviving school has never been so tough . . .
Website at www.ravenwoodmysteries.com
I have read Rebecca and The Little Stranger and both are really rather creepy! I would suggest a Susan Hill book too.
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