Jeri Smith-Ready

LUST FOR LIFE is here at last!

It's release day for LUST FOR LIFE, the fourth and final novel in the WVMP RADIO series! Which means I have some thoughts and a giveaway to share with you. But let's get some Very Important Business out of the way.

First, an event announcement! Ciara and Shane will hold a Twitter chat this Saturday, December 1, 8-9pm Eastern. I will give away WVMP swag packs to 5 randomly drawn folks who ask them questions during this time (international entries welcome).

Just follow the #WVMPchat hashtag on your favorite Twitter app, or on Tweetchat.com, which will magically add the hashtag to your post, thus ensuring everyone in the chat sees your tweet.

Second, if you haven't read LUST FOR LIFE's Chapter One or the many teasers on my Facebook page, just follow those links.

Third, please buy this book! Thank you! Here are links for your purchasing pleasure:

• Constellation Books (signed, and if you order this week, you can still get it personalized, because we sold out of LFL's at last Sunday's signing, so I still need to sign books for the bookstore workers, which means Lauretta will be bringing me another stack anyway. Does that make sense?)
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble

By the way, Amazon has the trade paperbacks for the first two books in the series, WICKED GAME and BAD TO THE BONE, on sale for 60% off ($6, normally $15). These are "remaindered" books now that the trade paperbacks are out of print. Which means it could be your only chance to get them ever again! I bought some for myself, because of my natural hoarding instinct.

Purchase links for all four novels can be found on the WVMP Buy Us! page.

By the way, ten percent of all author royalties will be donated to VH1's Save the Music Foundation. So yay.

Fourth, don't forget to check out "Let it Bleed," Book 3.5 in the series. It bridges the gap between BRING ON THE NIGHT and LUST FOR LIFE. Its events are recapped in LUST FOR LIFE, so you won't be totally lost if you skip it. But they are very dramatic events which you're better off experiencing directly. Consider yourself duly notified.

Now that that's out of the way, it's time for a release day post!

I was planning to write about what it's like to end a long-running series, or do a nostalgic post about the series as a whole. But that would be giving short shrift to LUST FOR LIFE--it deserves its very own post, don't you think?

Not surprisingly, it was a song that gave me the idea for the events of this book and how the series would come to a close. Revealing the song title would spoil everything, but after you've read the book, check out the unnamed tune on the radio at the end of Chapter 30 (if you can't figure out the title, check the playlist at the front of the book).

DON'T LOOK UNTIL YOU'VE READ UP TO THAT POINT! Seriously, you will regret it.

Anyway, the moment I knew how it would all end, I decided I would do anything to make it happen. When my publisher turned down the proposal for LUST FOR LIFE due to less-than-stellar sales of the first three books, I was in the middle of revising LET IT BLEED, which was originally going to be Book 4 (with LUST FOR LIFE as Book 5). The thought of ending the series on the bittersweet notes of LIB made me go, "Uh-uh. No way." Except with more cussing and crying.

I asked my publisher if I could take the proposed plot for LUST FOR LIFE and make that Book 4, then self-publish what was originally Book 4 as Book 3.5, a novella. To this unique, innovative, but almost definitely crazy idea, they said, "Sure!"

It meant basically writing a whole extra novel for free, but I think it was worth it, to give the readers and especially the characters their ultimate happy ending. I hope you agree it was worth the wait!

So, today I started thinking about the things that vampires long for, what they miss from their previous human existence. Here's an exchange from LUST FOR LIFE (ellipses indicate intentional gaps left to avoid BRING ON THE NIGHT spoilers):

"What food do you miss most?" [I ask Shane]....
"When I was a kid, Mom made pancakes every Sunday after Mass. Originally she made them before Mass, but then we kept falling asleep in church. She learned to use pancakes as a bribe to get us to behave."
"Brilliant tactic."
"Then I got diabetes, so I couldn't always have them. She would make me eggs instead. And I could never have syrup."
"That sucks."
He nods. "So definitely pancakes."
"With syrup."
"With syrup."
The doorbell rings. Shane goes still for an instant, then looks at me, his eyes tinged with sadness and anxiety. Then he smiles and says, "Speaking of breakfast..."

Vampires lust over many aspects of life: food, sunlight, the freedom to travel without fear. Though they can technically survive on bank blood, most prefer to drink directly from a living, pulsing vein. The need for blood gives them a convenient excuse to get close to humans, to live vicariously through them. If they were truly isolated from humanity, they would rapidly fade.

What about you? If you were a vampire in the WVMP universe, what would you miss most? Answer in the comments below to enter to win a signed, personalized copy of your choice of Bring on the Night or Lust for Life. I'll draw two winners a week from today, Tuesday, December 4, 7:30pm Eastern time. 

My answer? Well, I'm not a huge fan of sunlight, and as much as I love to travel, I'm secretly quite the homebody, so for me it would probably be food. Mac and cheese, donuts, even something as simple as a ripe pear.

(HAHAHA, who am I kidding? Fresh fruit would not make the list.)

Tomorrow's post will be hosted by Awesomesauce Book Blog, who interviewed Shane and Regina for their Creature Feature.

Then on Thursday, Shane will talk 90s music over at Two Chicks on Books. Friday I'll be back here revealing and discussing the LUST FOR LIFE playlist. Then Saturday at 8pm ET comes Ciara and Shane's Twitter chat.

Thanks for joining me for release week, everyone! Now go read the book and report back. Go on, I'll wait...

Labels: bookstores, vampire series

• posted by Jeri @ 7:27 PM
• 22 comments