Neha Yazmin: Spoiler-Free Q&A on #PoisonBloodSeries Book 3: Prophecy

In celebration of the release of the final two books in the Poison Blood series, below is a (spoiler-free) Q&A on Book 3: Prophecy.

Q: Why did it take you so long to release Poison Blood, Books 3 and 4?

A: I published the first two books in 2012 – it’s the year the series is set in. At this time, I’d written parts of Book 3 and had an outline for Book 4. I knew how the story was going to end and how I was going to get there. I’d planned to publish the third and fourth instalments as and when they were ready.

By the end of 2012 however, my personal life had taken a turn for the worse and continuing my writing journey was the last thing on my mind. I’ve written several blog posts on what led to my 3-4 year hiatus from the publishing industry so you can read about it by clicking these links:

http://nehayazmin.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/when-life-becomes-stranger-than-fiction.html

http://nehayazmin.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/when-life-imitates-art-authors-tale.html

Q: Since there was such a big gap between writing the first two books and Book 3, did you end up changing a lot of things that you’d initially planned?

A: Plot-wise, nothing changed. Back in 2012 however, I’d expected there to be more romance, and more of Christian. I guess, what was supposed to be a paranormal romance series has turned into more of an urban fantasy series.

Q: Could the Poison Blood Series have been just one novel?

A: Yes, I could have published one big novel instead of splitting the story into smaller books. If I’d done it that way, I would have priced it at $2.99, like my full-length contemporary novels, Chasing Pavements, Make You Feel My Love and Someone Like You. The combined price of the Poison Blood books is less than $2.99, and we get to have a few pretty book covers instead of just the one!

Q: How does Ellie compare to other heroines of paranormal/urban fantasy books?

A: Readers will be able to answer that question better than me.

Usually, the female leads in this genre have one characteristic in common: they have a tendency to get themselves and/or their friends into avoidable danger/trouble by making rash, irrational decisions. Decisions I wouldn’t have made in that situation. Choices that didn’t make sense. Reasoning that didn’t add up and felt a bit forced, presumably to add a bit of drama and action.

As a result, I found the heroines rather annoying and felt like throwing things at them. I hope Ellie isn’t irritating in that way – well, not too often, anyway!

Q: What are the best and worst things about writing about vampires?

A: The best: vampires in this series are really fast, strong and can have special supernatural powers. So when it comes to action sequences, the possibilities are endless. I can get really creative.

The worst: I really love writing dream sequences. All my books – apart from the Poison Blood Series – have dream/nightmare sequences. But if your main characters don’t sleep, they can’t dream. Therefore, I didn’t get to explore what goes on in Ellie and Christian’s unconscious minds.

Q: Which series did you enjoy writing the most, the Soulmates Saga or the Poison Blood series? Which would you enjoy most as a reader?

A: I know this is a boring answer, but I truly enjoyed writing both series, and writing one series helped make the other better. Editing the Soulmates Saga was harder though, and I enjoyed that less, whereas the re-writing process for the Poison Blood books was less laborious.

As a reader, I’m always looking for contemporary romance novels like Chasing Pavements and its sequels, but never succeed in finding anything like them. So I think my favourite series out of the two would be the Soulmates Saga.

Q: What about your friends and family, which of your books do they prefer?

A: Apart from my 13-year-old niece, I’m the only one in my family that enjoys reading fiction. My siblings are always glued to their SmartPhones and iPads, but not to read books. My husband isn’t into books either – he knows what happens in my novels, but hasn’t read a single line. So, none of my relatives have read my books. Yet. I know that once my niece is old enough, she’ll give my books a go. I’m really nervous as to what she’ll think of my work though. She’s a very talented writer herself and I have great hopes for her writing!

As for my friends, only two of them have read my work. I’m so grateful that they took time out of their incredibly busy lives and careers to do so, and for writing reviews on the books that they read. They were thankfully very honest in their reviews, stating both what they disliked and liked about the novels, so it’s not easy picking out which reviews were left by these two friends and which were written by strangers.

My other friends are very busy with their personal lives and their careers – I remember when my life was like that; I just wanted to sleep if I had a spare few hours – and they don’t have the same passion for reading that I do to squeeze in half-an-hour of reading into every day, which is what I started doing in the last couple of years. And I’m glad I did, because that 30-minute read during my lunch break helped me rediscover my love for reading and went a long way in improving my writing.

Who knows, if I make it big one day, maybe everyone I know will read my books – or at least own a copy – but until then, I’m happy to settle for the show of love from the strangers that were kind enough to message me on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and on my blog, telling me how much they enjoyed my work. Thank you, it means so much to me!