Bleeding Heart VBT

Blurb:

While the public struggles to live side-by-side with vampires, medical student Brian Preston has dedicated himself to their care and study by working in a government-run clinic that monitors and feeds the resident vampire population. He has learned to expect the unexpected in his job, but his life takes a surprise turn late one night when a young, struggling vampire named Kyle stumbles into his clinic and his heart.

 As they draw closer, can Brian come to grips with loving the elusive vampire, and can Kyle find the strength to share the secret that can separate them forever?

Bleeding Heart is the story of love, blood, political intrigue and the secrets that can spell the difference between life and death.

Excerpt:

 “It’s the husband,” Erica says, jabbing a finger at her iPad. “It’s always the husband.”

 “Oh, come on,” Brian replies, laughing at her insistence. “He’s such a nice guy.”

“That is exactly why it’s him,” she counters, tossing up a hand in frustration at his apparent inability to see what is so very obvious to her. “Besides, he slept with her sister.”

  

“Before they were dating; that doesn’t even count, and it doesn’t make him a murderer. Geez.”

  

“Lunch at the taco truck says it’s the husband.”

  

“I see your angle,” Brian replies, smirking. “You’ve got a deal.” He taps the iPad, pausing the television show they’ve been watching. “We should keep an eye on the door.”

    

She brushes back her glossy black hair. Her almond-shaped eyes and petite frame show a weariness that matches his own. “It’s been a long week. Besides, it’s just past four-thirty; the rush is over.”

  

Can’t deny that, Brian thinks, and thank goodness. They’d had no less than six unidentifieds, and one volatile who’d done serious damage to the counter and the security doors before the police had arrived with their chemical spray and herded the poor guy off into custody.

  

Working the graveyard shift at a blood service center in downtown Chicago, Illinois is a job that could never be called boring. It’s not that the vampires can’t go out during the day—the fact that they can is one of the reasons they’ve been able to hide for as long as they have—but that they are stronger at night. They tend to handle their business and socializing between dusk and dawn and getting free blood at the center is often the first stop for many of them.

  

Coming on later in the evening means that Brian usually sees the more mature vampires—those who can wait, those who prefer to avoid the younger crowd that shows up as soon as the sun goes down. The downside to this is that he also sees, at times, the unpredictable ones—the ones who aren’t regulars, the ones who wander in at all hours of the night. Between he and Erica, they have plenty of crazy stories to tell.

Melissa, thanks so much for stopping by. So, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?

The pleasure is all mine!  Thanks for having me—this is my first book tour, and I'm so excited to get to share my first novel Bleeding Heart with you all.  It's a fun, fast-paced, erotic story about a young, troubled vampire and the human medical student who falls in love with him, and how that meeting changes both of their lives forever.

How did you get started writing?

I discovered the world of fantasy/sci-fi in my early teens and never looked back.  I read a lot of X-Files fan fiction, because the show was a big deal at the time and I was always looking for more.  I role-played generic fantasy characters in Internet chat rooms at the same time as I began to write The Nightworld (by L.J. Smith) fan fiction—vampires, witches, and shape shifters enthralled me, and I wanted to explore romantic themes in that kind of a world.  From then on my obsession with fantasy worlds and the stories they might hold drove me to constantly write.

What was the inspiration for your book?

I have read vampire fiction and vampire erotica for most of my life—I've read every combination of genres (classical, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, modern), but I had never read a book where the main characters were two guys who fall in love and one of them happens to be a vampire.  There's an odd lack of queer-themed vampire fiction, so I thought: why not?  I wanted to write something interesting, romantic, and explicitly sexual—so often vampire novels choose to be just one of those things, and I wanted to offer something with all of the above.

What’s the one genre you haven’t written in yet that you’d like to?

I definitely would like to dabble more in the sci-fi genre.  I'm a sucker for fantasy (if you made me choose between Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, it would be Lord of the Rings all the way, though I love them both), but sci-fi opens up a whole world of space travel and gadgets and science themes that would make a romance so compelling.  Aliens in love—what's not to like?

Are there any genres you won’t read or write in? Why?

Nope. You’ll never know if you really like or dislike something until you’ve checked it out.

So, what are you working on right now? Got any releases planned, or still writing?

Always writing!  But specifically: the next step of Brian and Kyle's journey.  For fans of Bleeding Heart, have no fear...the end of that book is not the end of their story by a long shot.  They have a lot ahead of them, in terms of both their relationship and their individual lives, and it remains to be seen whether or not they're ready.  Elisa and Clara are definitely going to be putting them to the test.  Stay tuned!

Alright, now for some totally random, fun questions. Favorite color?         Purple.      

Favorite movie?
The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring.  One of the most amazing film adaptations of all time, of one of the most beloved stories of both my childhood and adulthood.

Book that inspired you to become an author?
Interview With A Vampire, by Anne Rice.  Her prose and eroticism gives me chills to this day.

Alright, you have one superpower. What is it?
Shape shifting—who wouldn't want the choice to be anything or anyone at will?

Last question: Which of your characters are you most like and how/why?
I'm a weird blend of Kyle and Elisa—I'd say that if I was a Gemini, they would be my two halves—Kyle because he's forever young and forever trying to catch up and he wants so badly to find the acceptance that he never found growing up, and Elisa because she's a hardcore realistic who has found success and acceptance but never really trusts in it, because she's smart enough to know better.

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Author Bio and Links:

A veteran writer of fan fiction known as MissBeizy to her online readers, Melissa Graves’ stories have thousands of followers. At age 13, she wrote her first work of fan-based fiction, and by age 16, had met her future husband in an online vampire fiction chat room. A fan of science fiction/fantasy, she has a degree in anthropology and a passion for good chocolate, amateur erotica and fan worlds that celebrate diversity. She is mother to two cats.

Follow Melissa Graves and learn more about her work at http://msmelissagraves.com/

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