Imagine a fashionista (à la Paris Hilton) gets bitten by the undead and turned into a vampire—Can she still go tanning? How would she do her hair and makeup without the aid of a reflection? And how do you keep your hot boyfriend vampire’s wondering eye from straying to the latest vamp bitten on the block?
All of these questions and more are answered in GCC member Lucienne Driver’s latest book, VAMPED, which just debuted this week through Flux Publishing.
As always, here’s a little bit about her book to get you hooked:
From “Valley Vamp Rules for Surviving Your Senior Prom” by VAMPED heroine Gina Covello:
Rule #1: Do not get so loaded at the after prom party that you accidentally-on-purpose end up in the broom closet with the surprise hottie of the evening, say the class chess champ who’s somewhere lost his bottle-cap lenses and undergone an extreme makeover, especially if that makeover has anything to do with becoming one of the undead.
Gina Covello has a problem. Waking up a dead is just the beginning. There’s very little she can’t put up with for the sake of eternal youth and beauty. Blood-sucking and pointy stick phobias seem a small price to pay. But she draws the line when local vampire vixen Mellisande gets designs on her hot new boyfriend with his prophecied powers and hatches a plot to turn all of Gina’s fellow students into an undead army to be used to overthrow the vampire council.
Hey, if anyone’s going to create an undead entourage, it should be Gina! Now she must unselfishly save her classmates from fashion disaster and her own fanged fate.
Here’s what Lucienne had to say:
Q: In AMOR AND SUMMER SECRETS, Mariana discovers a hidden family secret. Are you a good secret keeper?
Lucienne: Wow, start with a toughie, why don’t ya? I’m a pretty good secret keeper, except from my husband. It kills me when people say that I can’t tell even him. I have to admit that some of those slip.
I’m the same way. But is telling your husband really breaking the confidence? Who’s he gonna tell?
Q: What is the favorite place you ever traveled to, and what was the coolest thing you saw/did there?
Lucienne: So many places I’ve been and loved! Heights used to be a stumbling block for me, but I’ve been working on that lately. I’ve now been to the top of the Schilthorn in Switzerland and the rotating restaurant there that was used in a Bond film, climbed all the stairs to the very top of Sacre Coeur in France and even, just this year, become a regular coaster freak. But I think the coolest thing I ever did was go cliff diving in a spot only locals knew about near Lake Champlain that had two different levels of cliffs and falls. That’s where I learned that when diving from a great height you aim out, not down. Down will take care of itself.
I love Paris! Been there twice, but never went up to the Sacre Coeur. Maybe next time.
Q: I often tell the story of how a psychic once predicted that I would go on to write children’s books. Have you ever visited a psychic?
Lucienne: You know, I want to believe. It does my heart good to think there might be magic in the world, but up until about a week ago I’d have said I hadn’t seen any evidence. Then one of my authors did a palm reading for me….
Q: My character Mariana spends her summer in Puerto Rico connecting with her father’s heritage. Have you ever researched your family tree?
Lucienne: I’ll make it to Sicily some day. My very favorite family story is this…. My great grandparents’ families came from the same teeny tiny town near Palermo, Sicily. Didn’t know each other. They both emigrated all the way to America and ended up next door to each other in the same tenement building in Manhattan. His name was Cosmo. Her name was Cosma. He was a barber and she was an opera singer, one of the early RCA recording artists. They married, and he eventually left his job to take care of the kids and travel with her. This was waaayy before the concept of house husband. Papa was one of the kindest, funniest, oddest men I ever knew. Once, realizing that the cracked wall in the dining room was about the same color as the mashed potatoes he was eating, he tried to spackle the fissure with potatoes. It worked really well for a few days until the spackle turned green and moldy (and stinky!). I could build a whole interview around Papa stories, but no one would ever believe them.
Q: Where were you when you found out that your book was going to be published?
Lucienne: I was in the airport, flying to New York for a Superbowl celebration with friends. It was terribly frustrating because I wanted to run around and tell everyone I knew but was surrounded by strangers, who just looked at me funny when I whooped and inched away from me. I might have turned cartwheels. Okay, there were definitely cartwheels, but I still say the security guy was way out of line.
Thank you, Lucienne! Now, everyone go out and buy books, lots and lots of books!
can’t wait to read this!