When I was in second grade, and it was my turn to choose the book from which our teacher would read aloud, I chose The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe. And when she started to read it, I recited the opening lines aloud, along with her.
Mom got a note.
I’ve never been anybody’s definition of normal and my love for the macabre is family legend. But I have been around for a while. Nobody was publishing vampire romances when I started writing Twilight Phantasies (currently FREE in E.) Anne Rice was publishing her lush, vivid, passionate Vampire Chronicles outside the romance genre, and I was devouring them, but there was nothing within. The newborn genre of paranormal romance hadn’t even been named yet. Yet here I was, writing something that had very little hope of being published.
I took my novel’s title from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats by Percy Bysshe Shelley. That’s why phantasies is spelled with a ph as it was in the piece’s thirteenth stanza, which is, I think, the most beautiful. There were no vampire novels with “twilight” in the title at that time. In fact, I had published ten vampire novels with “twilight” in the title, before the idea was adopted first by one, and then by many other authors.
During the writing of that first novel, Silhouette Books announced a brand paranormal romance line called Shadows, and I knew that was where I was taking the series. I wrote the first three novels for Shadows, a line I believe was ahead of its time, and then the line folded. But my vampires lived on, and with a hop here and a skip there, they landed at Mira Books, Harlequin’s “big book” imprint.
After I left Harlequin, I wrote three more novels, and a novella for a Berkley anthology headlined by Christine Feehan, who told me my Wings in the Night had been the inspiration for her Carpathians. She even put it in writing for me.
“My inspiration has always been Maggie Shayne and her Wings in the Night series!”
—Christine Feehan
Inspiration, not Imitation
We are all inspired by storytelling that resonates with us. Anne Rice’s work, especially Interview with the Vampire, inspired me so much so that my very first vampire novel was dedicated to Lestat. “To the young blond man on the balcony high above Rue Royale.” (I am loving the new AMC series, by the way, and reviewed the first episode in depth on my website’s Coffee House Blog.)
I decided early on that my vampires would NOT be spinoffs of Rice’s any more than hers were spinoffs of Stoker’s. And no more than Feehan’s would eventually be of mine. I created my own, unique vampire world with its own, original rules, and so did Feehan and others after her. I’ve spun two dozen stories in the web of that world, and more are in the pipeline.
Wings in the Night includes the most sexual and sensual stories out of the over seventy novels I have published since 1994. There’s just something about the vampire myth that demands it. It’s how they have always come through me, and I don’t expect that to change. And they do come through me, not to me. Usually, they are dictated by the voice of Rhiannon, the most powerful and beloved character of them all.
Earlier this year after endless asking and no small amount of spell casting, I regained the publishing rights to my entire Wings in the Night series and wept for joy. These books really are my heart and soul. I set to work immediately to create what I am calling The Great Wings in the Night Re-Launch.
- Every book is getting a polishing draft and stunning new cover art.
- Each book includes a brand-new bonus story from series star Rhiannon’s early life.
- Titles drop every other Tuesday, June 2022 - June 2023 in paperback and ebook versions
- The series includes 18 novels, 1 related novel, 1 serial story, 5 novellas, 1 online read, and the in-progress Rhiannon shorts, so far.
- There’s currently an 8-episode serial, REAPER, available exclusively at Kindle Vella.
- There will be more to come.
About the covers:
We brainstormed, experimented, dreamed, and played until we came up with a cover concept that captures the passion and cult-appeal of Wings in the Night in a way that truly reflects its nature while at the same time standing out from the crowd. This is no ordinary series, but one that helped birth a genre. It deserves special cover art. Readers of a certain age might notice that our design gives a nod to Silhouette Shadows, where the series was born.
So far, books 1 thru 9 are back on sale in these special new editions, with more coming every two weeks. Book 1, TWILIGHT PHANTASIES - One of the most passionate romances you’ll ever read - is FREE in E right now at Kindle, BN, Kobo, GooglePlay and Apple Books.
To learn more about my work and 11 other series including thrillers, romantic suspense, small-town romance, and of course paranormal romance, visit my website.
Wings in the Night #9
A serial killer stalks the streets of Bangor, striking only by the full moon, and he has chosen his next victim. The lovely Mary McLean.
The feeling of being watched and followed has plagued Mary for several days now, so she probably ought to be more wary when a handsome, enigmatic stranger starts showing up at the vampire bar where she serves drinks to humans who like to dress up like the undead and imbibe drinks with creative names. Stake Stopper. Preternatural Punch.
The stranger seems to have made her the object of his attention, and she feels a pull toward him like nothing she’s ever felt before.
But who is he really? An admirer with a horrifying secret? Or is he the one who’s been stalking her, with the most evil of intentions?
Romance Paranormal [Self Published, On Sale: October 16, 2022, e-Book (reprint), ISBN: 9798358299443 / eISBN: 9798358299443]
New York Times and USA Today bestselling, RITA Award winning Author Maggie Shayne published 62 novels and 22 novellas for five major publishers over the course of 22 years. She also spent a year writing top story arcs for CBS’s Guiding Light and As the World Turns and was offered the position of co-head writer of the former. An offer she tearfully (it was lots) turned down. It was scary, turning down an offer that big.
But in March 2014, she did something even scarier. She went indie. And it went so well that by July 2015 she incorporated her business, Thunderfoot Publishing Inc. She’s never enjoyed her job more. This new frontier of publishing is bringing Maggie success like she’s never seen before in two distinct areas of her work.
First, her contemporary western romances, The Texas Brands series and the Oklahoma All-Girl Brands. And secondly her beloved paranormals, including the Wings in the Night series, which has the distinction of being the second vampire romance novel series ever, launching just a year after Lori Herter’s Obsession series created a new genre.
Maggie is also an acclaimed thriller writer with her award-winning Brown and de Luca novels, and many more. Maggie Shayne is extremely accessible to her readers, interacting with them daily, via her Facebook pages and twitter accounts.
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