Hello folks!
This has been an exciting few weeks, so let's jump right in.
I'm proud to annnounce the release of a super-secret project I've been working on. LONDON SUCKS is a short story set in the Vampires of Oxford Universe. If you've been wondering...
- How did Lily come to live with Damien?
- Why is Damien such a pouty jerk around the Vampire Council?
- What mysterious incidents led up to the formation of the Council as we see in WICKED MAGIC?
...then this is the prequel for you.
BUT!
This prequel will not be available on Amazon. For the foreseeable future, it is exclusively available--FOR FREE--to my subscribers. So subscribe now to get ahold of it and find out about Lily, Damien, Jeremiah, Ayotunde, and many more.
Already a subscriber? Don't worry, you'll be getting an email about it very soon.
Until then,
Margot
We abide by three laws in our community. One: Never reveal the existence of supernaturals to human beings. Two: Never take the life of a human. Three: The Council’s authority is absolute.
Damien has roamed the Earth alone for over eight hundred years. An ancient vampire, he governs London—unofficially—and keeps himself safe via judicious application of violence.
Life is uncomplicated. Until one day a phone call changes everything.
Damien has a daughter.
In a moment of weakness, he ends up stuck with a nine-year-old child who can’t fend for herself at all. With enemies circling, all of whom would use her against him, Damien must figure out how to keep her safe. Does he trust the Council, with whom he has a tenuous truce? Or Adrian, the enigmatic hunter-turned-vampire who works for him? Or does he fight this battle the way he has fought every other battle in his long life: alone?
But death and danger are never far away in Damien’s life. When an attack at a Council meeting on his territory threatens to destabilise his careful peace, Damien finds himself facing the worst battleground of all: politics.
Can Damien protect his daughter from the evil that haunts him? He can’t even seem to protect her from the everyday dangers of growing up in the twenty-first century!
It’s a weird fact of life that you want to talk about something so badly, and when you finally have the chance to do it, you just don’t know what to say.
Publishing Wicked Magic is a bit like that for me. It’s been my whole life for so long, taking up literally hours of every day, and now I can actually talk about it and my brain has just gone blank…
…which is maybe why this post is about two weeks late.
But anyway.
I am extraordinarily proud to announce that my debut novel is now launched. Wicked Magic was first written in late 2019/early 2020. I actually wrote the whole thing in the space of about two months, including a three-week writing break over Christmas. Nathan really wanted his story to be told.
Then I sat on it for over a year.
2020 was a really bad year for all of us, I think we can all agree. It wasn’t a year of reaching for dreams for me, that’s for sure. I thought 2021 would be better, and truth be told, this year has been a kick up the behind.
But we’re reaching for it anyway.
I picked a date, edited 20,000 words out of the manuscript, cleaned it up, cried over typos, and panicked enough to give my mum grey hairs, but it is finally here.
Wicked Magic is a coming-of-age tale that combines a lot of things dear to my heart: Oxford, the place I studied and lived for many years. Paranormal fantasy, which is my first love when it comes to books. And being a teenager and navigating those tricky years when you’re trying to find your place in the world and forge a new relationship with your parents.
These are all things I love to write, and you can expect to see many more novels exploring these things (in this series and in others).
The book follows Nathan, a teenage vampire hunter, who struggles to figure out what he really wants in life… and if you want to read more about his tales, you can buy it at all major e-retailers. More information on my Books page!
Announcing… the members’ area
I’ve been working on a little something for the last few weeks. Members can now hop over to the Explore page and check it out.
I’ll be updating it regularly with deleted scenes, sneak preview, giveaways, and other freebies, so do check back often to see what’s going on. Also follow my Instagram, where I’ll be announcing new updates.
Haven’t got your password yet? Don’t worry, it’ll be in the next newsletter.
Wicked Magic 2?
In other bookish news, I am over halfway with drafting the next book. There’s always a point in the middle of writing where it feels like it’s taking forever and you’ll never get to the end, but I just have to keep reminding myself that I’ve reached the top of the hill, and now I’m on my way down again. Actually, the hardest part is done, establishing who the characters are and figuring out the plot. Any mistakes I make now will be manageable and easily fixed during the editing stage.
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That’s all from me for now.
If you want to buy Wicked Magic, all of the details are here.
And for a cheeky sneak preview to book 2 (and maybe some deleted scenes from Wicked Magic), subscribe to my newsletter and keep an eye out for the next issue, which will give you access to the new members only area!
Ciao,
Margot
Vampires have been a mainstay of paranormal fiction and TV for generations, from Dracula to Twilight to The Vampire Diaries. We all know and (mostly) love them. Who wouldn’t want a sexy bad boy feasting on their blood?
The origins of vampires aren’t exactly shrouded in mystery—unless you count the fact that there are so many “origin stories” that things have become a bit confused. Bram Stoker borrowed a real-life person (Vlad the Impaler) as the inspiration for his story, and since then we’ve seen any number of different variations on vampires. But is it any wonder that there’s a lot of confusion (do vampires burn in sunlight? Or do they glitter?) when they appear in the folklore of every country and language under the sun, and people used to believe they really existed?
That’s right, there is real-life evidence that people believed in vampires. How do we know this? Because they used to exhume corpses that were suspected of vampirism and deface them: cut off limbs, stake them, or otherwise take measures to prevent them from rising from the grave.
But where did this very real fear of vampires actually come from? Would it surprise you to find out that it may have had its roots in medical diseases? Probably not—these days everyone’s probably heard of porphyria, which had symptoms remarkably similar to the modern conception of vampirism. But in fact, porphyria is not alone in inspiring the vampire mythos. Here are four illnesses that contributed to rising paranoia about vampires in the eighteenth century.
Vampirism: Symptoms and Signs
But first, what is a vampire?
Developed a sudden allergy to sunlight? Hate the smell of garlic? Feel a sudden, burning desire to chow down on someone’s neck? You may be a vampire. Here’s a handy checklist of symptoms to look out for:
Disclaimer: This is by far not an exhaustive list. Consult your doctor if concerns persist.
Got any of these? Probably nothing to worry about. Here are four other illnesses that explain these symptoms.
1. Porphyria
Porphyria is an illness affecting the production of heme, a part of the haemoglobin in our blood. Although today severe cases are fairly rare, and treatable (albeit not curable), at the height of the vampire hysteria in Europe it may have been particularly common in rural areas with limited gene pools. The symptoms include skin blistering when exposed to sunlight, gums receding (which would have made teeth appear more prominent and fang-like), and urine turning reddish-brown (the same colour as blood). Interestingly, one of the prescribed treatments was drinking animal blood to replenish their own.
2. Rabies
Rabies is a disease which has been linked both to the vampire and the werewolf mythos. Although there is now a vaccination, it used to be fairly common in Europe. Conferred by bite or blood-to-blood contact from animals to humans, it caused symptoms such as aversion to light, aggressive/delusional behaviour, and biting. Many early tales about vampires, particularly in Slavic folklore, refer to them as having beastlike behaviour, rushing at their victims, and biting them. Interestingly, there was also a major outbreak of rabies in eastern Europe around the time that the vampire was gaining traction in folklore.
3. The Plague
Even with modern medical understand, pandemics are scary things. In the past, with limited knowledge of the spread and treatment of diseases, they were even more terrifying. It’s not surprising, therefore, that vampire scares often coincided with waves of the Plague, which spread around Europe in the 1300s and 1400s. Humans contracted it from rats, and would develop symptoms such as fevers, chills, and weakness. Although it extremely rare today, the disease is still fatal if left untreated.
Suffers of the plague would often develop lesions around the mouth or emit a black purge fluid from their mouths after death. This led to the belief that they were drinking blood to keep themselves alive. Archaeologists have uncovered bodies amongst plague victims who had been buried with bricks in their mouths. This is thought to have been a method of preventing them from climbing out of their graves to drink the blood of the living.
4. Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (also known as consumption or TB) is a virus which destroys the tissue of the lungs. Although there is a vaccine, and it can be treated with modern antibiotics, the illness is fatal if untreated. It could be transmitted from person to person by air and spread particularly in poorer communities in the 19th century.
Tuberculosis suffers exhibited symptoms such as physical weakness, coughing up blood, and fevers. If one person in a household became sick, they would often infect the other family members. Because people at the time didn’t understand how diseases spread, it wasn’t a leap of logic to believe that a recently deceased relative was draining the life out of their family members, like a vampire would. The most famous case of this belief was Mercy Brown, in New England, USA… But that’s a story for another day!
Evidence of belief in vampires in Slavic folklore dates back to the 9th century, with notable periods of vampire hysteria over the centuries following that. These periods are often linked to the spread of highly infectious diseases. The vampire has been used as a symbol for all sorts of things over the centuries, often representing the unknown or the foreign, but it may well have found its origin as an early attempt to understand what we now explain through science and medicine.
Sources:
Sledzik and Bellantoni: Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the NewEngland Vampire Folk Belief (http://www.yorku.ca/kdenning/+++2150%202007-8/sledzik%20vampire.pdf)
