Characters

#1 Bestselling Fantasy Trilogy Celebrates its Second Birthday!

The vampire, anti-hero, and lover LIGHT from the REBEL VAMPIRES trilogy, celebrates his second birthday today!!

It’s been two years now since the first book in the trilogy – BLOOD DRAGONS – was first published.

“One of the most unique and ingenious vampire books I have ever read …reminded me very much of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles” – Leather and Lace Reviews.

Light’s been busy: he’s had a rock anthem written for him, had his own awesome video trailer, an audio book, Rebel Gear, and he’s won and been shortlisted in a number of awards, including the Wishing Shelf Book Awards, the IAN Book of the Year, and the International Rubery Book Awards.

He’s also sparked the entire REBEL VERSE, now starring Violet and REBEL ANGELS.

I’m hosting a READALONG this week of BLOOD DRAGONS, BLOOD SHACKLES, and BLOOD RENEGADES. So, send me your favourite lines, questions, or comments as we read the trilogy together!

Discover the award-winning must-read vampire series!

In a precarious world where vampires are both predator and prey, Blood Dragons deftly blends elements of paranormal thriller and passionate romance… A character-driven, sizzling-hot saga” – Midwest Book Review

ONE-CLICK THE REBEL VAMPIRES TRILOGY AND ESCAPE INTO BLOOD LIFE…

Happy Birthday, Light!

August 14, 2018 0

3 of the Most Addictive Vampire Series…Ever!

I write addictive vampire series, with snarky angels, epic battles, and secret worlds hidden beneath our own.

REBEL VAMPIRES is out now.

In May, VAMPIRE HUNTRESS, Book One in my new series, REBEL ANGELS is released.

So, here are three of the Most Addictive Vampire Series…Ever!

The Southern Vampire Mysteries (also known as True Blood from the epic TV series): Charlaine Harris. Sookie Stackhouse is a complex and strong female lead who can read minds. Bill? He’s the discriminated against vampire. And that’s only the beginning…
The Night Huntress series: Jeaniene Frost. Half-vampire Cat is captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter. Together they search for her father, battle against killers, and become a Spike and Buffy style partnership.
The Vampire Chronicles: Anne Rice. I love this series. As a teenager, it drove me to learn how to write with such dangerous immediacy. Thrilling, and powerful, this series gives the monsters their own voice and makes you love the devil.

What vampire series are you addicted to?

Escape into Blood Life now.

January 15, 2018 0

BLOOD SHACKLES RECEIVES HONORABLE MENTION – Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, 2017

BLOOD SHACKLES - REBEL VAMPIRES Today I discovered that the second book in the REBEL VAMPIRES series, BLOOD SHACKLES, has received HONORABLE MENTION in the 2017 Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards.

This is especially important to me because it’s a book about FREEDOM, which took the idea of slavery and twisted expectations. Here the vampires are the slaves, the humans the masters. The woman is the mistress, rather than the man.

Slavery isn’t an easy topic to discuss, and taking our perspectives of vampires and turning it into a metaphor. The First Lifers think they’re superior and treat the Blood Lifers like they’re objects. – Readers’ Favorite 5*

Hunted by humans, Light’s bought by his enemy’s daughter.

Light’s caught between breaking under the cruel training, or battling to hold onto the rebel inside. If he can remember the vampire he once was, he can fight to uncover the conspiracy behind the slave ring and free his family.

But to do this, he must face his worst terrors…

Blood Shackles is tragic, triumphant, addictive, and somehow hopeful. I was so engrossed in Light’s story that I didn’t notice my Kindle was dying.

The Gold Award winner was Eric. J. Gates’ OUTSOURCED. A thriller that’s a mix of quantum mechanics and the supernatural.

BLOOD SHACKLES is Light’s Slave Journal. It’s also his journey of discovery. When a man’s broken from predator to prey, how do you find yourself again? How can save your family and the world, if you can’t save yourself?

Johns succeeded in creating a world, characters, and a story that pulled me in until I had to finish reading it. I had to know what was going to happen to Light, Hartford, Donovan, and Grayse. This is a novel everyone should read, along with Blood Dragons.

Learn more here.

September 11, 2017 0

AN INTERVIEW WITH LIGHT – Rebel Here, Yeah?

This week Light – the Rocker rebel main character in my Rebel Vampires series – was interviewed on the Mary R Woldering Blog.

Here are the 5 of the highlights!

1.Tell us where and when were you born.

Tricky one that because I was both born and reborn. My first birth was in Victorian London as a First Lifer. My second was into the glorious darkness of Blood Life when my red-haired gorgeous nightmare of an Author – Ruby – elected me.

2. How would you describe yourself?

I’ll never be human again – always on the outside, looking in. I’m a caged predator, battling the dark, as bit by bit it consumes me. Of course, I’m also a bad boy Rocker rebel with a cracking leather coat. What more do you want – blood?

3. Tell us about where you grew up.

Just outside the bustle of London – always craving for something more because the world never seemed big enough. But it was Ruby who shook the boyhood from me. Then it was my Moon Girl in the 1960s who opened my eyes to the truth: there’s no divide between our species. That was the moment I grew up.

4. Past/ present relationships? How did they affect you?

I thought Blood Life meant freedom: from society’s rules, family and control. I was wrong. For over a century Ruby and I carved out a path of crimson carnage aflame with our love alone. But I was a daft berk to ever believe that. It took a human to show me love could be free. Yet I’d reckoned myself the predator and humans the prey? I was wrong about that too. I may battle for redemption but the battle for my species’ freedom – for the right to love, family and home – that one I’m still fighting.

5. How do your beliefs make life better for yourself and the people you care about?

My family need me to be the leader. Christ in heaven is that hard. I was always trying to save the world, even in my First Life – even though the cost is usually too high. Because there’s always a price. Yet someone has to take a stand when the system becomes so corrupt. Someone has to light the match to the rebellion…sodding frightening that it’s me… Welcome to the Rebel Age!

Read Light’s full interview here.

Start your escape into Blood Life today. Click here.

June 28, 2017 0

5 OF THE BEST FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION REBELS

Rebel Vampires fantasy series

Rebel here, yeah?

Rebel Vampires fantasy series Rosemary A Johns That’s the rallying cry – or the misfit call to individuality at the heart of my series Rebel Vampires. In fact, it’s the core of every book I write: there’s a reason they’re called ‘Fantasy for Rebels‘.

Yet rebellion – against corrupt societies, conformity, kings or patriarchs has been one side of both fantasy and science fiction’s coin.

On the other?

A style of fantasy that conforms to safe patterns: yearns back to a time when men were men, women were women and peasants knew their place…even if they were all elves.

So to celebrate the rebel in fantasy, here are Five of the Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Rebels:

5. V for Vandetta: Alan Moore. V is an anarchist: violent and vengeful. His porcelain Guy Fawkes mask is also the influence for Anonymous and activist groups in the real world. How’s that for subversive fiction?

4. The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood. All right, so who’s not watching this right now? Interesting thing about the book? EVERY main character in it is a rebel, even though this is a nightmare world. Each one disobeys Gilead’s Laws, either with active resistance or rebellion within their family. No rule can be absolute.

3. The Dispossessed: Ursula K. Le. Guin. The unlikely rebel here is a physicist. How he rebels? By questioning: neither the anarchy of one world not the pacifism of the other is perfect. There’s no such place as Utopia? Yeah, got it.

2. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress: Robert A. Heinlein. This is a true novel of rebellion: a moon colony – an underground penal colony that’s like the Old West – rebels against Earth. The term ‘Rational Anarchist‘ is invented.

1. A Song of Ice and Fire: George R. R. Martin. Where to start? The whole series is a sequence of political machinations, military campaigns, and rebellions. The obvious is Robert’s Rebellion but the one that sums up the spirit..? It’s the Mother of Dragons’ attempts to give the control back to the slaves, so they’ll free themselves in Slavers Bay. Daenerys is the ultimate rebel: against her place in life, her gender, her role and for freedom. What’s not to love?

Like Daenerys, in Rebel Vampires Light rebels against his role and for freedom. He finds himself in both a human and Blood Lifer world, which is corrupt and controlling.

Sometimes rebellion is less dangerous than hiding in the shadows…

So who’s your favourite rebel in fantasy?

June 26, 2017 0

REBEL READERS – My Name Is Light…

Two days to go until the release of Blood Renegades and this has been an exciting few weeks. Rebel Vampires has been seen on:

This last year has been quite a journey. I’ve written about love, family, and home. I’ve followed my passion for freedom and the individual. Now I’m not just one Rebel: we’re all Rebel Readers challenging this new modern-day world.

Now it’s almost time for Light to tell his story in Blood Renegades:

My name is Light. In 14 nights I’ll go up in flames. In 14 nights I’ll die for my family. In 14 nights I’ll save the world…

The terrorist Renegades sacrificial betrayed me. The ambitious Blood Life Council craves to burn me. My interrogator is trying to break me – one secret at a time.

And me?

I’m bleeding tickety-boo, mate.

My name is Light. Predator. Slave. Freedom fighter.

And I’m the bloody hero.

Blood Renegades releases on Tuesday 13th June. Buy it on pre-order here for 0.99.

Vampire Book - Blood Renegades - Rosemary A Johns — BUY NOW

June 11, 2017 0

VAMPIRE PODCAST SPECIAL – Rebel Vampires and Off the Realm

The comedy and music legends in the podcasting world that are The Pod Effect have featured REBEL VAMPIRES in their latest video: a hilarious goth Vampire Special.

Pod Effect are mates from way back with the lead singer and bass guitarist Tim Black from the band Off the Realm.

Off the Realm wrote Forevermore – the stunningly good rock anthem – inspired by my vampire Light. The dark poetry of the lyrics, combine with hardcore bass guitar and serious hook… When I say I can’t get this out of my head when I type, ‘condemned to remember…’ Yeah, still there.

Enjoy!

Buy Forevermore here

Escape into Blood Life here

May 26, 2017 0

STUNNING AUTHOR INTERVIEW – Vampires, Domination and James Dean

Rosemary A Johns - Fantasy Author

Sometimes as an author you have chats with magazines, interviewers or TV hosts where everything just clicks. They get you, the book and more than that: how to challenge it.

You discover something about writing, yourself and life, as well as discussing your work in a far more fascinating way than you ever could alone.

That’s what happened with Scaffolding Magazine.

Freedom, domination, terrorism, my childhood, writing tips and James Dean…

And did I mention how gorgeous the podcast is..?

Start your escape into the Rebel Vampires series here…

May 10, 2017 0

WOMEN IN FANTASY – A Storytime Reading About a Red-haired Devil

Gender in fantasy – and women’s evolving role – is a tricky but interesting subject. Things have come a long way from heroes in epic fantasies rescuing the princess.

Except, have they..?

In urban fantasy, there’s a divide between the human woman being controlled and ultimately sacrificing everything – even her life – for the paranormal male.

This was explored in my most recent panel on Twilight. There’s a reason my human woman chooses to grow old, rather than be elected into Blood Life in Rebel Vampires.

I’ve always wondered why stories focused on vampire males’ obsessions with teenagers…and never followed their lifelong – adult – loves.

It may be partly because an increasing number of paranormal books are Young Adult, so must have young protagonists.

The other side to urban fantasy..? The kick-ass heroine (look at the covers of the top 20 urban fantasy books). This in itself is a stereotype, especially when they don’t have equality but dominance over men.

In Rebel Vampires I write from the British male vampire’s perspective. This meant I could write powerful women into the book but avoid the ‘kick-ass’…

Kathy is human but she’s never controlled by Light. She’s his equal and although he saves the world, she saves him. Blood Dragons (Rebel Vampires Volume One) Award-winning fantasy

Ruby is Light’s ‘red-haired devil, Author, muse, liberator, guide: my gorgeous nightmare.’ His Elizabethan Author, she’s savage, powerful and offers an all-consuming love.

This reading by K Kantis is taken from Blood Dragons. It’s a rare moment of vulnerability, when Ruby for the first time tells Light about her human life: the fear she has of being ‘caged‘ again, ironically means she cages all men, even though she’s desperate to set Light free.