Today, I have the pleasure of featuring Norm Applegate and his new book, Blood Bar (a vampire tale) as part of the Pump Up Your Book Promotion Book Tour. Many thanks to Tracee for giving me the opportunity to be part of the book tour!

Below is a short interview with Norm Applegate:


1. Where are you from and how did you get into writing?
Lately not sure, and yet I can definitely say born in Glasgow Scotland, raised in Toronto, and have been living in Florida for the last twenty-eight years. I have traveled steadily for awhile, 2 million miles on Delta, with visits to Australia, New Zealand, London, Paris (My favorite) and this year Rome, oh yeah, Alaska, Hawaii and just about every city in Canada and the USA. I was a hypnotist and did the traveling listen to my voice mesmerizing road show through most of these countries.

2. When and why did you begin writing?
Always wanted to write a book, didn’t know how, thought it was beyond my capabilities, but while traveling through New Zealand it started. The hypnosis career changed my life, and realizing nothing is impossible, began writing short notes, tales, and just life experiences to my wife back in the States.

3. When did you first consider yourself a writer?
That moment was when a few readers, strangers actually, people I had never met, sent me emails, or talked to me about something I wrote. The book was Into the Basement, abduction, torture, murder, the usual romantic stuff that makes you squeeze your thighs tight, warms your face, and blush sinfully. It surprised me, thrilled me to know people liked what I liked...I wasn’t alone from that point forward, my dark side had an outlet, freedom.

4. What you think about the trend of vampire books comparing the past to today? (By Melody)
It’s what is popular that’s changed, I mean if you go back to the Anne Rice novels, Interview with a Vampire, it’s a serious, adult suspense thriller. Other books from that time A Delicate Discipline, were about the horror, and the cold dark sinister evil, but we found them captivating.

Today with True Blood on TV, Twilight, and the Sookie Stackhouse series, it’s a young adult audience looking for romance, and they have found it in vampires. Twilight, I’ve read, the writing is excellent, Stephenie Meyer has a style that pulls you in. But I found myself waiting for the essence of the vampire, you know the one that we grew up with. I’m afraid we have made this horror genre boring, in fact it’s not even horror any more it’s YA romance.

My novel, Blood Bar, A Vampire Tale, is erotic, violent and an adventure story.

Let me share the synopsis for Blood Bar:

Vampires don’t exist...yet, on the brownstone back alley side streets of New York, a vampire dies. Desperate, his lover turns to Kim Bennett, author Norm Applegate’s quintessential heroine whose passion for S&M led to celebrity status as a hell-and-back murder mystery sleuth who’s been there, done that, and then some. This time, Kim finds herself caught between a secret vampire society’s attempts to locate The Black Testament (a sacred document written by Jack the Ripper), the modern-day vampire hunters bent on their destruction, and a white knuckled journey of self-discovery that catapults her into the bowels of hell and the arms of the ultimate vampire.......courtesy of The Haven, New York’s ultimate Blood Bar.

5. What are your current projects?
Just finished re-editing Into the Basement, was never happy with what my previous publisher did to it. Next is the screenplay to Basement, written by Nicholas Grabowsky and myself, we have a producer/distributer interested, and the movie is cast with Courtney Gains, then my next novel in the Kim Bennett series that I’m tentatively calling Black Sun Rising, is another vampire tale. You can go to http://www.intothebasementthemovie.com/ to read more about the cast, director J.L. Botelho, and see his trailer for Into the Basement...it’s wicked, prepare yourself, you don’t want little kids watching this, seriously don’t let your kids see this.

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I want to thank Norm Applegate for taking the time in answering the questions.