Spotlight: The Darkness of Love by Catherine Green (Review + Interview!)

Hi guys! Today, we have something special! By the way, how’s your 2015, so far? Ours have been good, so far. We hope yours is a lot better! (:

Anyway, today, we have a special guest. *drum roll please* We are very honored to have her, and we are eternally grateful that she has been very understanding and lovely. (We had delays remember?)

Soooo… let’s get to the point! May we present to you, Ms. Catherine Green! (:

A few days ago, we asked her a few questions and she complied so kindly. We love her to bits. ❤

Let’s go! (:

• What made you decide to sit down and actually start something?

My writing journey began just over five years ago, when a chance conversation with my younger sister led me to write the first in my paranormal romance series, the Redcliffe novels. At the time we were talking about our favourite authors, and I think we had been reading the Southern Vampire novels by Charlaine Harris. I casually said to my sister, “You know, I could write a vampire novel!”

She got very excited, demanded more details, and then insisted that I begin writing it. She also ordered me to email her each chapter as I wrote, so that she knew I would keep at it. And I am very glad she did, because the result was my debut novel, Love Hurts (A Redcliffe Novel).

• Do you write full-time or part-time?

At the moment I write part-time, mainly because I have two children under the age of 5 and they are, understandably, very time consuming!

• Do you work to an outline or plot or do you prefer just to see where an idea takes you?

I prefer to see where an idea takes me. I did try to plot my first novel in the beginning, but I am very much an impulsive writer. I do not enjoy having to write plans or reports for things; I would rather get stuck in and see what happens.

• What are your thoughts on writing a book series?

I am all for writing a book series, hence my Redcliffe novels! In fact, I am currently working on book 4 as we speak… Personally if I enjoy one book by a particular author, I like to know that they have more to offer. My favourite series is the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K Hamilton. I like to see how a character develops and grows over time, and who else comes and goes in the stories.

• For your own reading, do you prefer eBooks or traditional paperback/hardback books? 

I am a traditional woman at heart. I love the feel, texture and smell of a real book, especially a hardback. That said, I do find eBooks more accessible and convenient on occasions. For example, I can easily use my Kindle while breastfeeding my baby. A hardback book is far more difficult to hold one-handed, and turning the pages can be a real challenge while trying not to disturb my daughter! Oh, and there’s the added bonus of a backlight on the eBook reader so I don’t need lamps or overhead lights to cause a distraction in the middle of the night…

• What are your thoughts on good/bad reviews?

I think reviews are all well and good in their place. If I read a book that I don’t particularly enjoy, I might leave a few lines as a review, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time and effort on it. However, if I really enjoy a book and am bursting to share it with others, well then a review is essential, and worthwhile.

 

Pray tell us…

 

• About the cover, and how it came about. Gorgeous cover by the way!

Oh, I can’t take credit for that one, I’m afraid, but thank you on behalf of my publisher! The cover was chosen by Chances Press. They basically asked me for an outline of what I envisioned, and worked from there. They sent me a selection of images, of which I returned my shortlist, and we negotiated from there. I am very happy with the result, and rightly so, because I have received a lot of compliments about it.

• A little about The Darkness of Love

Lord Gregory Stockton is a powerful and respected businessman embracing the modern era of the Victorian industrial revolution. He has a grand and beautiful manor house complete with a repertoire of servants, and his young wife is charming, attractive, and the perfect lady to his gentleman. The only thing they lack is an heir to the family estate. Lord Gregory knows he can never produce a child, for he is a vampire, although his wife and servants know nothing of his secrets. There are other ways to provide heirs for his estate, however, and Lord Gregory has noticed the romantic attraction between his wife and the young stable hand Marcus Scott. He

hatches a plan to bring the would-be lovers together, and then cruelly tear them apart as he continues to build his empire and secure his power base in the south of England. The humans are pawns in the vampire’s game of lust, love and control.

You can see more about The Darkness of Love, including buy links, at http://chancespress.com/catherinegreen.html

It is widely available in paperback and eBook formats, including on Amazon UK, Amazon US, Barnes and Noble, All Romance eBooks and Bookstrand.

• About your inspiration to write Marcus’ story

The Darkness of Love is a spin-off from my Redcliffe novels paranormal romance series. When I was writing Love Hurts (A Redcliffe Novel), I introduced a minor vampire character called Marcus Scott. He was rather unpleasant to my heroine, Jessica Stone, but then he seemed to turn things around when he returned in book 2, Love Kills (A Redcliffe Novel), and became more of a friend and confidante. During this writing process, Marcus grew very loud and demanding, and he insisted that I write the story of how he became a vampire. So I did, and this is what we ended up with!

The Darkness of Love by Catherine Green

Genre: Adult, Contemporary,  Romance, Supernatural, Historical

Pages: 185 pages, Kindle Edition | 179 pages, Paperback Edition

Date Published: September 15th 2013 by Chances Press | September 8th 2013 by Chances Press, LLC

Source: Copy provided by the Author in exchange for an honest review

Lord Gregory Stockton is a powerful and respected businessman embracing the modern era of the Victorian industrial revolution. He owns a grand and beautiful manor complete with a repertoire of servants and a charming attractive young wife. The only thing he lacks and desires is an heir to the family estate. Lord Gregory knows he can never produce a child, for he is a vampire, and his wife and servants know nothing of his secrets. However, there may be other ways to provide an heir for his estate. Lord Gregory notices the subtle growing romantic attraction between his wife and the handsome young stable hand Marcus Scott resulting in the humans becoming unwitting pawns in a vampire’s game of lust, love and control.

Raised on books from a young age, Catherine was destined to be a writer. She was always a dreamer, always lost in some other world, and now she has finally started to write about it.

Catherine recently released her fourth novel, The Darkness of Love, and is working away on more of the Redcliffe series while she juggles her parental responsibilities with a baby and a toddler.

Aside from writing and mothering Catherine is a ghost hunter and seeker of spiritual joy.

Soooo… Our book for the day, is about… Vampires.

    

Uhm.. We’re supposed to have-  

(Meanwhile, at the backstage: )

We sincerely hope nobody fainted because of Damon.

Moving on… yes, people. Our book today is about vampires.

This one’s pretty not like the ordinary vampire stuff. It had a little historical twist. Mainly because the setting is back in the Old English days…

Well, it started out pretty much like a normal historical novel but then…

So to start, I should say, I did my homework. It turns out that this book is like a prequel/spin-off for/of the Redcliffe series where Marcus was first introduced. It must be the reason why it’s pretty short.

So there, the story’s short and a definitely easy read.

The story is actually too short to post a review without revealing what happened. Well, there’s actually nothing much so let’s do this the short way.

Plot: Good. It was definitely not mainstream. It’s shocking, rather. It’s more about what happened. It’s… uhm… nothing like we read before. It moves in a fair speed and not confusing, actually. It will just make you ask whhyy?? WHAATT?! SERIOUSLLYYY???! Through those questions, after some time, (when the book hangover is over) you’ll realize the connection of the story to the title. Because seriously, it is The Darkness of Love.

Characters: There’s something so wrong with them. Marcus, he’s such a… uhm… manwhore. Gregory, he’s self-centered and we got the feeling that he doesn’t know himself that much. Sarah, well, she’s pretty stupid. Actually, most of the girls (especially those who shared a bed with Marcus) were stupid. Well, stupid in our time today. I guess you would really expect that a guy would marry you just because you had a little night affair with him during those times.

Way of Writing: The saving grace of this whole thing! The writing is good and we liked it.

Setting: Good. I guess, if you’re writing about vampires, we should start from way back. Especially because this is basically a prequel to a series (which we believe is set in modern times)

Summing it up, you know we can’t say we loved the book. It’s more about the characters than the plot or the setting or the way of writing. They just didn’t click with us. We had no good connection with them. They weren’t really complicated so the fault wasn’t in them but ours. Yep, this is most likely to be a case of It was us, not you. We really wanted to love you though.

To that, here’s a jar of two and half stars.  It was good, in overall, but characters are the most important parts of the story. There’s no story if there’s no characters and well, they weren’t for us.

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Clarification: This post was first drafted on 29 Dec 2014 (Hence the date of the post) and was published on 7 Jan 2015.