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'A big thank you to all of you who have supported my work over the years. Blood Family is a new departure for me - my first ever adult-fiction vampire novel. It is more of a mystery adventure than horror, although there are plenty of scares within its pages.

I have a new agent who already has a publisher interested in this novel. So hopefully you'll be seeing it in the book stores soon. (Updated 05/03/08)

BLOOD FAMILY - A SYNOPSIS

DANIEL DARK

New England, present day. Daniel Dark is a seventeen year old son of Baptist pastor, Nathan Dark and his wife, Annie. Daniel has left school, works at a local garage, and loves to hang out with his friends. Generally a good kid, he has become indolent and goalless in the past year, preferring the sparking of joints and draining of beer cans to figuring out his future.

THE BLOOD PARCEL

Everything changes the day a mysterious parcel arrives at Dark residence - the parcel detonates, baptising Daniel in blood. A vision ensues of a shadowy figure that claims to be his true father. Although terrifying, it is clear that this entity wants Daniel to seek him out. "Only the Key will allow you to find your blood family," are the entity's cryptic, final words. Pastor Dark, horrified by the sight of blood covering his son's bedroom, accuses the boy of murder.

Daniel takes solace in the company of his best friends, Pearce and Josh, and his girlfriend, Daelin. It is not long before they see a change in Daniel, the beginning of a transformation. His odd behaviour creates a rift between the friends. Later, alone in a dark field, a brooding Daniel discovers the first of his new abilities when he brings a dead animal back to life.

Upon returning home, Daniel his ambushed by his father and several other reverends, who restrain him and perform a religious rite. Daniel's powers explode to life, his superhuman strength and ferocity - as well has his ability to hypnotize - incapacitating his assailants.

DANIEL'S SECRET ORIGINS

That night, he is finally able to obtain the truth from his mother. Nathan and Annie are really his aunt and uncle; Daniel's birth mother was Annie's sister, Celeste. A vampire hunter, she had been spirited away to a vampire dimension by a being called Dominus, who took her as his concubine. Briefly escaping the realm with their half-vampire newborn, she gave the infant to Annie to bring up as her own. A letter from his real mother tells Daniel to seek out a shaman in Mexico, and that she will help him to hone his powers so that he can enter the vampire dimension, rescue her, and destroy Dominus.

MEXICO AND THE SHAMAN, XOCHIL

So begins the journey. Daniel buses his way to Chiapas, Mexico, eventually finding the shaman woman, Xochil, of whom his birth mother wrote. Xochil is very old and very powerful, and had helped Daniel's real mother, Celeste, in her quest to find hidden vampire realms. Now she instructs Daniel, pitting him against a vampiric creature known as the camazotz, a beast of Mayan legend and all too terrifyingly real. The clash between them sees Daniel's powers growing exponentially, but also shows him just how much he has yet to learn.

ENGLAND

Travelling to England, Daniel goes to the forbidding moors where Celeste disappeared seventeen years ago. He tracks down vampire hunter, Logan DuPris, a twenty-five year old woman whose father had been killed by Dominus. Teaming up, they traverse the moors of Devon to the highly mysterious Silverwood Manor, in which Logan knows to be the home of Dominus. Inside they find a bizarre ritual chamber of ancient standing stones - this is where the link to the vampire dimension is made...

THE VAMPIRE REALM

The world Daniel now finds himself in is a dark, nightmarish version of earth. Here, vampires, though few in number, rule the realm. His birth father, Dominus, welcomes Daniel and commends him for choosing the vampire life. Dominus takes his son to the massive edifice in which he and his clan, The One Family, reside. He meets Graye, a female vampire who is the current consort of Dominus. Graye is resentful of the boy's presence, and how he occupies the time of her consort. She devises a plan to set father against son…and tells Daniel about the bloodletters…

BLODDLETTERS

Graye shows Daniel the enslaved community of the bloodletters. These are human beings kept and bred for blood - literally, to be fed upon, again and again. This is the only life they know. Daniel discovers that his birth mother, Celeste, is now among their number, having been incarcerated there by Dominus, furious with her for having given away their child. Seeing her in this slave-like state reawakens his compassion, his human side, as well as his quest to save her...

FATHER AND SON

But there is his vampire father still to contend with. What ensues is a battle of wills between the most powerful of vampires and that creature's own, hybrid son.

One will be victorious, one will be vanquished...