Louisa Burton | Confessions of a Research Slut

When I first set out to write stories about incubi, succubi, and vampires, all I really knew about them was that they were mythological beings known for ravishing humans—a good premise, I thought, for a series of scalding erotic romances. Being an obsessive-compulsive researcher, I read everything I could find on the subject in order to build a world for my characters: a Babylonian succubus, a brooding djinni, a cheerfully lusty satyr, a tall, babe-alicious Nordic elf, and the occasional bothersome bloodsucker. It turns out that, until fairly recently, most people, no matter how learned, regarded “sexual demons” as real (in fact, a surprising number still do).

St. Augustine (354-430) wrote that “...sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called ‘incubi,’ had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied their lust upon them.” Nine hundred years later, St. Thomas Aquinas explained that incubi could actually beget human beings, “not from the seed of such demons... but from the seed of men taken for the purpose; as when the demon assumes first the form of a woman, and afterwards of a man.” Hmm... Digging deeper, I found a 17th century treatise by Father Ludovicus Maria Sinistrari de Ameno, in which he described in salacious detail how an incubus, having morphed into a female succubus, will ravish “ardent, robust men” for the purpose of capturing their high-test seed. (Nice work if you can get it.) After turning back into a male, he targets “women of a like constitution, with whom the incubus copulates, taking care that both shall enjoy a more than normal orgasm...”

I am not making this up.

As I pored over Sinistrari’s deliciously raunchy description of demonic hanky panky, it occurred to me that my premise—incubi luring humans to a secluded French chateau to satisfy their hunger for sex—had the potential to be not just good, but well, smoking hot! When the first book in my Hidden Grotto series, House of Dark Delights, won the Romantic Times BookReview award for Best Erotic Fiction of the year, I knew I was on to something. The books aren’t actually novels per se, but anthologies of two or more closely linked novellas set both in the present and the past. Although it’s a series, I pride myself on bringing my new readers up to speed without resorting to big, indigestible chunks of exposition, so each book can be enjoyed all on its own.

My July release, In the Garden of Sin, is my fourth Hidden Grotto book from Bantam, and the favorite so far of my editor and everyone else who’s read it. In this book I bring back one of my readers’ favorite characters, the vampire Anton Turek, whom we haven’t seen since his ill-fated visit to the chateau in 1749. He returns in the present day, as archly metrosexual as ever, although he’s traded in his powdered wig and lace sleeves for trendy haircuts and Dolce & Gabbana jeans.

For more about the series, including excerpts, check out my website. And please leave a comment below! I’d love to hear from you.

Libidinously yours,
Louisa