The Neck Romancer Preorders are Live
Return to the world of Love at First Bite
It’s only taken this about two years to get together. And a month-long Kickstarter that I feel like it barely came together … mostly because it was thrown together at the last minute.
You might remember Marco Catalano and Amanda Colt. One was a heartless, bloodthirsty monster, and the other was a vampire.
The books were
After I had them right off into the sunset, it was time for the next step in their relationship.
After happily every after comes “Until death do you part.”
Now, the pre-orders are live. And the first one comes out on October 23rd. Because of course it is.
THE SEQUEL TO THE DRAGON AWARD NOMINATED SERIES "LOVE AT FIRST BITE" IS FINALLY HERE.
Marco Catalano and Amanda Colt have survived vampires legions, unkillable demons, supernatural assassins and a full on army of darkness. With their allies, they have taken down a paranormal Illuminati called simply "The Council."
Now they have to deal with their next threat: marriage.
Can Marco and Amanda survive the preparations for their own wedding? And if they manage that, can they fight their way through their honeymoon?
But the biggest question of all: Who invited the zombies to the ceremony?
They're going to make it to the Church on time. And God help anyone who gets in their way.
This was seven years in the making. Despite the initial demand for more of the series after Good to the Last Drop, Amanda and Marco were done. Their story was told. I had one or two other places to go, but no plot to go with them. Sure, I had some hints. I knew they would get married. I knew they would have some additional training in Rome. And I knew they would cross paths with a certain New York City cop.
I knew there would be an incident with a Wendigo
I knew they would go to Area 51.
I knew that Marco’s mother would come into play.
I didn’t know much else.
But then, Robert Kroese snarked something over on Twitter / X / whatever it is this week.
Can't believe nobody has written a vampire romance novel called The Neck Romancer smh
Challenge accepted, Rob.
If the villain is a necromancer, then we’re obviously going to be in Chicago, because the necromancer alderman just sort of writes itself, doesn’t it?
Obviously, there would be gangbangers … but we have to give them weaponry on par with the occasion, so let’s smash together magic and technology. Namely, lasers that fire through corpse diamonds1 that will turn their living targets into zombies.
Obviously.
I must admit, when I designed the Alderman, I knew he had to be black. Why? I couldn’t find any white gangs in Chicago, and white villain in command of a black gang felt off. Gangs aren’t known for being multi-ethnic.
And I must admit, I thought of Delroy Lindo, who I always wanted to have more of a career. Him and Joe Morton. And Michael Jai White. Great actors. I just don’t see them in enough things.
And tell me you can’t see this guy as a politician.
After a while, his chief minion, a gang banger known only as Hammer … I don’t know why, but he turned into Forest Whitaker on me. No, I don’t know why. He started taking like Whitaker in my head. He started getting some of the twitches down. And I was close to giving him the drooping eyelid.
Again, don’t ask me why. Nothing about Whitaker says gangbanger to me. Granted, he can do almost anything acting-wise. He has a much better range than certain big name actors.
And we still have a great model for Amanda.
Anyway, a lot of this book came together over the course of years. Some of that was writing five books at once. Some of that was moving across the country. Some of that was losing my father somewhere between books three and four.
But I think you’ll like these. There’s a lot of character. A lot of humor. And each of these books are about half action.
Take a look. I think you’ll like them.
Take a human corpse. Cremate it. Turn the cremains into diamonds. It’s a thing, really. I find it creepy AF and always wanted to make it a tool of some unnatural horror.