Eastern European Tour - Prague Vampire Laird For the Beyond Series

Prague

I travelled to this amazing city just before Christmas and as I was writing Demon Lupus at the time, it also felt so magical and mystical. The main square was decked out with a traditional European Christmas market, with handmade baubles and decorations, gifts housed in cute little wooden lodge type stalls. The aromas of smoked sausages and mulled wine wafted around the bustling market and in the centre was a beautiful winter wonderland nativity and ice skating rink. They really know how to make Christmas feel so cosy and wholesome here.

Surrounding the Square were café’s, shops and restaurants and even in the bitter cold one could eat their famous goulash outside on the veranda and soak in the atmosphere with outdoor heater and soft fleece blankets to keep one warm.

I decided that culture was the name of this holiday and we attempted to soak up as much as I could so I attended an classical music recital in a beautiful old public building, complete with grand marble entrance and staircases and huge chandeliers. I also attended a puppet opera of Don Giovanni. Granted it was a puppet show, but it did play it true to the real opera and come on, puppet opera?! Who wouldn’t love it?

I ate at amazing restaurants like the Three Ostrich Feathers and I had the most amazing Ostrich dish ever in opulent surroundings. 

I tried absinthe for the first and only time because it made me feel very tired, but I’d never had it before and so it had to be tried in one of the backstreet absinthe bars. And I decided to dance the night away in a nightclub called Club Lavka, which I used as the name for the nightclub in the first Chapter of Vampire Sorceress 

We crossed Charles Bridge that Tom Cruise went running across in the opening scenes of Mission Impossible when he realised his team of spies had been compromised.

And best of all, I found the Natural History Museum in Wensless Lass Square and as soon as I walked into the criss-crossing staircase, I realised I was on the set of Mission Impossible again. This time it was the scene right at the beginning when Tom Cruise was disguised as some politician at dignitaries some party. I was very excited and the big kid I am I began running around, ducking and diving whilst singing the Mission Impossible theme tune.

Ah, happy days. And although I haven't written Prague into one of my  Books in The Beyond Series yet, I know I will eventually... Maybe in Lemurian Dimension Book 5 in the series...

Romania - More Than Dracula's Homeland The Beyond Series

As a supernatural fantasy author who loves all things vampiric I just had to make a pilgrimage to Romania. In particular Transylvania. As my books would eventually take the reader to Poiana Brasov high in the Carpathian Mountains and then onto Rasnov citadel, I thought it only fair to do the research for the settings. After all, every place I take you to in my Beyond Series, I have actually visited.

Poiana Brasov is a ski resort that wouldn’t look out of place in a Heidi movie in Switzerland.

The Hotel looked like one huge log cabin, although the interior did look like something from the 70’s in décor. The Swimming pool did remind me of a Russian physical education info-mercial. It was incredibly dated – we’re talking 1940’s, or earlier, décor style for a swimming pool and changing areas. The Club Lavka I described in the first chapter of Vampire Sorceress was a disco my friend and I went to a few times whilst we stayed in Poiana Brasov and again the blue velour décor reminded me of roller disco rinks of the 70’s and 80’s. 

Rasnov is a beautiful fortified Citadel with a grisly past and was the perfect location for Amethyst and Michael Romanov to meet their distant relatives Ursula and Abraham who seem to be much more informed on their families illustrious gypsy past than themselves. They also seemed far too knowledgeable of Elemental Demons living in Egypt!

I did sit out on my hotel room balcony too as the mist crept in over the pine tree tops and I did hear dogs howling at night. Whether they were wolves or not, I don’t know, but it was very atmospheric and although cliché, it was the perfect location for my Romanov Witches travel to for answers about their history and for the great Galleano Vampire and his sidekick Lucas to follow them there to spy on them.






Bran Castle was part of a sightseeing tour we went on and as it was the castle Bram Stoker claimed to use for his Dracula tale I did leave it out of Vampire Sorceress, but I may go back to it in my writing at some point as it was a beautiful fairy tale style castle, rather than the dark and mysterious picture painted in modern day films. 

Bucharest was less impressive and it took a very long taxi drive to Nicholae Ceausescu’s palace, which was ridiculously large, floor to ceiling white Italian marble and a ballroom the size of a football pitch. It cost so much money the Romanian people are taxed extra to pay for it! Unbelievable.



The taxi driver took us around a gypsy ghetto as they were forced off the roads and into houses in the 80’s by Ceausescu. My fascination with the gypsy life and history began at an early age. Firstly because they lived in caravans and I used to holiday with my family for one week a year in a caravan and I thought it would be cool to live in one all year round.






I took a trip through the countryside to a typical Carpathian village and was fed by the locals with their famous goulash and polenta dumplings, which I recommend everyone must try if you visit Romania.

My father then moved us to a little village in Cambridgeshire countryside when I was 10. The village was surrounded by apple and gooseberry orchards, which during the summer attracted the travellers for fruit picking work. Forget 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding', not all gypsies are that rich. 

Anyway, the gypsy children would briefly attend our village school and I would make friends with them – mainly because the other children bullied me and the gypsy kids for being different, so it felt quite natural for me to hang around with them. And that’s how it all began.

But I digress. Back to Transylvania and I then went to Sighisoara and other old citadel where they claim Vlad the Impaler was born. This reminded me of the city in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang where the child catcher skips through the streets with lollipops.

There was also a stately home, Peles Palace in Sainai which was incredibly beautiful and we had to wear special slippers to walk through the palace to preserve the delicate flooring. Although the palace was very beautiful, it was actually the ski resort and hotel I stayed in that inspired me to write my third book Vampire Sorceress

The hotel was incredibly dated in style, but added to a great atmosphere for the beginning of the book. Judging by the interior photos here, I'd say they've finally given The Alpin a bit of a facelift, but still very Eastern European Ski Lodge feel to the place.

All this inspired me to write just three chapters of a book. I didn’t want to overkill the ambience I created for the place, but I think I did it justice. And hopefully I can use the Bucharest and other experiences for some other series or trilogy I intend to write in the future.

Didikai Witch The Beyond Series Book 1

Ayreshire History and Culture

As the Beyond Series of novels constantly go back to a Scottish Highland Castle in the story I have travelled extenively around there for inspirational ideas for one of the Romanov Witches Castles. Here's the best bits.
Robert Burns House – This was a very humble little home that Robert Burns was born in. But I felt very intellectual that day and bought his complete works then read Tam O’ Shanter and Life is Like a Red Red Rose and felt very moved, this was the house he was born and grew up in, as a farmers son and he continued to farm throughout his short life and despite dying young, he did manage to pack an awful lot in, including mistresses, wives and children!

 We had the pleasure of being here on Burns Day (Robert Burns Birthday) They have big celebrations for Scotland's best loved author and poet.

Brig O Doon is in Alloway and this is the beautiful view from the Bridge. The town itself is just stunning to walk around - even the little ctone church is just chocolate box cute!

Isle of Arran and Cwmbrae – Cwmbrae is beautiful and has only one proper little seaside town. The cottages are picturesque and all look over \the beach and bay, directly overlooking another power station on the main Renfrewshire shore. Such a shame because I really could have considered buying a property there and go there for peace and solace to do my writing. Isle of Arran is lovely and we went to a castle and also bought some Arran cheese, chutney and oatcakes in this cute little oldie worlde shopping centre, however some areas of Arran are barren. Bet its bleak in winter.

Loch Doon – What amazing scenery. The waters were completely still to reflect the hills and trees. The peace and quiet was deafening and there was a ruined Castle Doon which made my day. This is somewhere you could come and not speak to a sole for days. Bliss.

Wigtown – Now for anyone who loves literature of any description this is the most amazing town and I’ve never heard of an English version of such a place. The town hosts the Scottish Book Festival every year and despite it being a small town on the very edge of Ayrshire, I do believe there are more book shops per square meter than anywhere else in the world. One shop actually looks like Olly Vanders or some thing from Harry Potter, Marvellous.

Viking Centre – This was interesting, but nothing I hadn’t already seen at the Yorvik centre in York. I’d say for content and realistic village recreation it was definitely on a par with Yorvik and one extra thing they did was the Norse Gods, which was interesting as I studied the various pagan beliefs including heathenry when decided what type of witches my coven would be in Didikai Witch - the first book in the supernatural serieis.

Renfrewshire – Largs - I liked the dated style of the seaside resort. It’s a small personal town with a groovy 1930’s Art Deco Ice cream parlour and tea rooms. I like retro and places stuck in a time warp. Maybe that’s a sign I’m getting old.

All good stories should be set somewhere a bit spooky for me. So it was important to get the right feel for the Scottish Coven's Castle set in a small village of Danestone Glen, in a remote area of the Highlands. I've visited many castles, all over the UK, but these are the ones I remember going to in Scotland.

Broddick Castle is situated outside the port of Brodick on the Isle of Arran, an island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. It was previously a seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is more like a Victorian country estate rather than the type of fortification I was looking for) -Culzean Castle -is near Maybole, Carrick, on the Ayrshire coast of Scotland. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy, but is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland and is too large for the insular magical family I was trying to create- Inverary (A lived in castle to this day and owned by an offshoot member of the Royal family, it watches over the small town below, nestled around forest scenery and a shimmering Loch shore) - Kelburn Castle, (which oddly has been painted with local artists murals all over the outside walls, colourful, but sort of lost it's charm as an oldy worldy ancient fortess capable of protecting a coven of very shy and secretive witches for half a millenia!)



I chose for the books though Lochranza Castle - which is situated in the centre of Lochranza village on the north coast of the Island of Arran. The earliest parts of the castle were built in the mid 1200s for the MacSweens. In 1262, it was granted by Alexander III to Walter Stewart (Earl of Menteith).

It is believed Robert the Bruce landed at this spot on his return from Ireland in 1306 as he began his successful campaign to become king of Scotland. The castle was later owned by his grandson when he became King Robert II of Scotland in 1371. The following years saw it used as a royal hunting lodge. During the 1490s, Lochranza Castle was used as a base from which James IV could attack the MacDonalds (Lords of the Isles). James VI took control of the castle in 1614 and the English Parliamentarian leader Cromwell took control in the1650s. The last owners, the Hamiltons, acquired the castle in 1705. 

Loch Doon Castle - was my back up castle and the barron scenery around the Loch is based on Danestone Glen in the books. The castle was built in the 1200s for Robert the Earl of Carrick. Robert the Bruce’s father gained control of this castle and Turnberry Castle in 1271 after marrying the widow Marjorie (Countess of Carrick). The castle was originally situated on a small island in the middle of Loch Doon. The ruins were rebuilt at the side of the loch in the 1930s to allow the loch to be used as a water reservoir. 

Taormina and Mount Etna Sicily

As I love to travel I thought I'd begin a series of travel blogs for my adventures abroad and what has inspired me to include in my The Beyond Series Of Books.

I love Italy and I think Italians are amazing friendly people so I was thrilled to get the opportunity to visit Sicily. Taormina is a quaint city in the mountains close to mount Etna. Lost of windy roads to the top of the town. It reminds me of Venice, but without the canals and water ways. Oldie worldy and very quaint.

There is a beautiful Roman Amphitheatre that is still used today for shows. 

A town square where locals gather for coffee and ice cream and leisurely sit around gossiping in the sun and listening to the street musicians. I went to the café that Liz Taylor and …… Famously met regularly for illicit liaisons, so I’ve heard. It was very expensive, but I felt a film star for a couple of hours.
A live band was playing one evening as we sat out enjoying the atmosphere of the square. I could have sworn the lead singer was chatting us up over the Microphone, I couldn't tell what he was saying as it was in Italian, but he did sing Lady in Red whilst winking at me... (I was in a red dress).

I had my portrait drawn whilst there and although my neck was stiff as a board after fifty minutes stuck in one position the results were very impressive. It is something I’ve always wanted and now it hangs pride of place on my living room wall.

One excursion I will never forget though was a trip up Mount Etna… WOW! As a Health and Safety freak you can only imagine my fear of the damn thing erupting whilst I’m taking pictures of an unfortunate hostelry that didn’t survive the last eruption. I can’t believe people are mad enough to go on skiing trips there. Yes, there is a ski village there a few hundred feet from the top where the ground still steams!!! Crazy!! The bus ride was cool, like moon buggies and the tires are so huge to cut through the ash to the top. Barron, but beautiful.

 This was the view from our Apartment Balcony. Stunningly lovely, but there's always that worry in the back of your mind that one may have to escape the island at a moments notice. I barely unpacked anything from my case and lived out of my suitcase for the entire holiday!

As I was heading back to the Cable car ride back to the ski village I looked back to see huge plumes of sulphur smoke billow over the horizon. I Said to someone sitting next to me, “you don’t think that’s and eruption do you?” To which all other passengers turned to look a tad alarmed. And yes when I returned home I confirmed that Etna had indeed erupted again. It was cool to say I have been on a live volcano, but I seriously doubt I will dabble with fate and try that again!



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SciFi Weekender Discussion Panel - Promoting The Beyond Series - Supernatural Books

Last weekend I attended the SciFi Weekender in Pwllheli in Wales to try and promote and sell some of my Beyond Series books. So I was thrilled to be asked by Author Sam Stone to sit on a couple of discussion panels. As this is quite a long blog (for me), I decided to break it into two parts.

Graham Guy, Me, Sam Stone and Austin Chambers on first panel.

Horror Writing

Visceral Versus Psychological

Horror to me is defined as stepping into a fantasy world that you normally wouldn’t entertain in everyday life. For instance you wouldn’t court a mad psychopath who is so unpredictable that you could potentially become their next victim, whether rape, murder or cannibalised! Nor would you really meet a person or a mythological creature that frightens the life out of you and disturbs or disgusts you. To me, this is horror.

When I was asked to sit on two writer’s discussion panels for the Sci Fi Weekender, it actually made me think properly for the first time about the genre I regularly write in. I never normally analyse or label my work until I have to publish the book. So I lay awake most of the night before thinking about what horror writing meant to me and which did I prefer. Needless to say I was tired the next day, but with the adrenalin pumping and microphone in hand, an eager audience waiting for something profound to be blurted from my lips, this is what I wanted to say – even if I didn’t articulate it very well at the time.

Visceral Horror is the blood, guts and gore of the genre, the things that we watch or read that makes us go eeewwwuurgggh!!! Psychological Horror is suggestive, giving the audience the opportunity to use their own intelligence and imagination to make the spine shiver and the heeby jeebies get jiggy in your tummy.

Zombie Cop!

As I am predominantly known as a novelist, I wanted my audience to be clear that ‘writing horror’ isn’t just restricted to writing books and short stories for anthologies or magazines. Graphic Novels, TV Scripts, Film Screen Plays and Theatre all come under the writing banner too. At the end of the day a person thought it, wrote the script and then let others produce the creative media the story is being told in.

So we discussed novel writers such as Dean Koontz, Stephen King. Horror Films which crossed over into the Sci-fi genre too, such as Cloverfield and Skyline (I found terrifyingly disturbing films). Supernatural Horror like Nightmare on Elm Street, Carrie and Paranormal Activity – Serial Killer Horror like Halloween and Friday the 13^th. Granted there is some blood and gore in them, but only right at the end when the psychological tension has been built to a crecendo. I pointed out horror in the theatre, psychological plays like A Woman in Black, The Haunting and Ghost Stories (my personal favourite). I did see a visceral play in the form of a Jacobean Play called The Changeling (I have reviewed this play in my Blog before). Quiet shocked when there was a lot of stabbing and blood at the end.

The Weeping Angels on Doctor Who. The thought of something horrible happening to you when you close your eyes for just a second is terrifying!

I concluded that psychological horror worked much better for me because I like to think about what’s going on in the story, being kept on the edge of my seat or compelled to turn the next page of the book, but a certain amount of visceral horror is needed to push the story along. For instance, my Beyond Books do have a certain amount of violence or blood based wounds and deaths because the supernatural creature themselves are visceral and NEED to drink blood or kill with their bare hands or decapitate the odd immortal Lycan, because it is necessary for their survival.

One cannot help but feel sympathy for a vampire who is made against their will and then must feed on human blood to continue to survive – or a were-wolf pack ripping the heads of the feral wolves that attack them in their homes when all they wish to do is live peaceful lives and hunt in the forests.

It seemed unanimous amongst the group that it was easier to accept this fictitious world because we all know it’s not real, but an escapism of the drudgery of real life. However, psychological horrors involving humans inflicting the visceral blood lust and gore on fellow humans is deeply disturbing for me. For instance, serial killer TV programmes that I have watched like Dexter, The Following, or Patrick Jane tirelessly hunting for Red John in The Mentalist is far more frightening because we are all too aware that these sort of people really do exist. In fact, as you read this and look around, (if in a public place, of course) notice the people and ask yourself – Who are they? Why are they there? Are they inherently good people or could they be the next Yorkshire Ripper or Myra Hindley?

How many times have friends and neighbours said in the news about killers. “Well, I’ve watched them grow up on our street. I’ve known them all their lives – He was such a lovely person – I can’t believe he could do such a thing!” And the shock quotes could go on and on. I’ve never heard anyone being interviewed after a revelation of a captured serial killer saying – “I knew all along the guy was a complete wacka-doodle… or - I thought about telling the cops when I saw him cooking his pet guinea pig on a campfire when he was a kid… He gave me the creeps!!” To me this kind of horror is truly disturbing and which is why I am exploring the mind of a serial killer in my crime thriller series Mancunian Tales. I have two books written so far, but I want the one I’ve been currently researching to write to be released first as part of a trilogy. 

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Ghost Hunt Of Healey Hall

Healey Hall is a beautiful old house in Rochdale. I was invited to a real Ghost Hunt, which was brilliant, I have to say. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do especially seeing as I write for a living about a paranormal investigative team in my Beyond Series of books. I thought it would be fun to go on a hunt and do a little research for my books characters at the same time - plus I wanted to have a nosy inside a big private manor house!

First we had a tour of the house and immediately I was creeped out by the maze of cellars and the attic rooms, especially when the owners had one of those creepy life size child dolls that face the wall as if playing hide and seek, but when you turn the things around they have no face, yahhhh! How can anyone find those things cute?

There was also a little chapel on the first that was currently being used as a dressing room for a guest bedroom and this also sent shivers down my spine. I’m telling you now, if I was a guest sleeping in that house, I would be sleeping in the lounge.

I heard a few moans and groans through the white noise, but the séances were a joke. There was a lady there who claimed to be psychic, and who blatantly directed the séances using a glass. There wasn’t even an attempt to use the power of suggestion through advanced language patterns. As an NLP Master Practitioner not much passes my attention, so I sat out of them both, especially when I felt other people in the seance circle actually pushing the glass around to spell out a word! Geeze!

Anyway, I enjoyed sitting in the darkened living room alone, until other people came wandering in and talking, which irritated me a little as it ruined the ambience for me. I left at 3 am because the “psychic lady” was banging on about a Victorian nanny that walked into the current nursery. Now I knew that that room hadn’t always been a nursery and it’s pretty safe to assume that a house that size would most certainly have had servants and a nanny!!! Oh yeah and I was tired. I didn’t experience anything conclusive that ghosts exist or blew my socks off scary like that librarian in the beginning of Ghostbusters movie!

We did have this machine that gave out white noise and if you went into this room you had to keep very quiet, unless something was heard through the equipment. So I spent quite a bit of time in here. I did hear something - I'm not sure what, a cry or a moan or a sigh! The organisers came running in the room very excited and asked me if I'd just heard 'that'? I said I'd heard something from the white noise box. Apparantly the two men had been in the attic and they claimed to have heard screaming and moaning! Creepy!! But sadly that was the only exciting thing that happened that night.   

In conclusion, I think it's fair to say that these ghost hunt TV programmes do exaggerate and sensationalise each and every hunt they go on just to make themselves more credible. I would really like to go on a ghost hunt with just two or three people and who are trustworthy enough not to fake stuff. Any Offers?

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Lycan Lamia - Book Four in The Beyond Series is NOW ON SALE

Book Four of The Beyond Series is out on sale now. After blood sweat and tears :- ie seven weeks to write, two months of arduous editing and the publishing process was a nightmare - I finally made and I can concentrate on what I love doing best again - WRITING!

Synopsis

Dawn rises over Danestone Glen following the battle between Christos and his vamp army. Galleano and his rag tag bunch of supers consisting of; werewolf packs from the five continents of The Beyond, a circle of four elemental demons who despise one another, and the Daryavaush paranormal team. Casualties are high and the groups have split and retreated. The four castles of Avalonia seem to have crumbled and the Romanov children are missing.

Daryavaush has another nasty shock waiting for them back at the Carmichael Mansion just as a stranger arrives to offer them salvation and protection from the vengeful rogue vampire-witch Kasha.

Galleano is at a loss, now doubting his own decisions from centuries ago to present day, he needs to find a cure for Amethyst's sudden 'illness'. Nathaniel and his five packs have suffered the worst losses in centuries and they want revenge.

Can the Daryavaush trust their new saviour and find the children of Avalonia before it's too late? Will Galleano save Amethyst's soul and finally find the answers he's so desperately searched for over half a millennia and across the world? Here and now he faces his darkest hour of enlightenment before his own destruction from the Lycan Lamia.

About Alison

Alison is a full time writer juggling her life between working on the popular supernatural novel series  - The Beyond, her new Crime Thriller series - Mancunian Tales and scripts for a TV series in development. As a great fan of theatre, Alison is now writing a play based on The Beyond Series, as well as short stories for her writing blog http://didikaiwitch.blogspot.co.uk and a historical true life novel set in war time Britain.

Alison also loves to travel, abroad and in the UK. There are many fascinating and beautiful places to see. These travelling sabbaticals are inspiration for her work. As a result Alison and her husband are currently travelling the UK in a large motorhome to promote The Beyond books. They are also using the opportunity to raise money for two great charities, Different Strokes and Lions Club International of which they are both members.

Alison’s Travel blog: http://penneysontour.blogspot.co.uk

Alison’s website: www.alisonkershaw.com

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