What is Blood Omen Book 1 All About?

Dea is in many respects a typical teenager we can all relate to- she falls in love, fights, questions, complains, she’s messy, artistic, fun-loving and a risk-taker. But her strength is in her unwillingness to give up. You won’t find Dea sitting in a window for months because her boyfriend has left her- you’ll find her picking herself up, brushing herself off and finding a way to keep going. And once you enter her life- you’ll feel every step of her pain, love and curiosity right along with her.

The book opens with the death of Dea’s mum- both in her dream imaginings, at the hands of a vampire, and in reality, from cancer, leaving Dea an orphan in the care of her Goth best friend Ana and her family.

Through the dream scenario and the events and dialogues after, we learn that Dea has the power to see the vampires living among us. But she chooses not to engage them, regardless of how much Ana begs her to hook her up with an immortal hottie.

The story moves fast towards Dea’s collision with the vampire world she’s been avoiding since childhood. Put in simple terms, the bad guys come to collect and the good guys save her with seconds to spare. There’s an exciting car chase, a few deaths, and then Dea finds herself safe in the vampire’s woodland cottage, protected from the outside world as long as they can keep her there. She’s not a prisoner, but it’s in their best interests to keep her there.

Who are they?

I decided to mix nationalities and personalities in this key group of vampire friends working to save the girl- and the world- from destruction. The Spanish vampire, Santi, is my personal favourite- cheeky, cute, strong, but with his own dark secrets. Next is the leader of the Coven, Elias, whose father runs the Vampire Council, secretive and serious Elias is a typical English aristocrat. We have David, seemingly loyal to the cause but with shady connections to the dark side, Lucas- an American who seems to hate Dea until we find out it's not so simple a relationship, Charlotte, the only ‘Made’ vampire among them, and Takeshi- a martial arts master there to get them ready for the war.

I develop and delve into all the characters throughout the book- revealing details by interweaving them through the main body of the story. I love cliffhangers and I love posing questions which the reader then has to continue the series to answer- and all questions are answered- I’m particular about that.

There a lot of discovery in the first book- laying the foundations for the characters and the world they live in, something of the supernatural but grounded in everyday modern reality.

The vampire world is divided into those who are happy to keep under the radar of human awareness- like the ones helping Dea out, and those who want to step up as the dominant and more powerful species. For they are a totally separate species. 

To help them tip the balance in their favour, the most extreme of them- a sect called the Apophi- plan to fulfil an ancient prophecy that requires a blood sacrifice to raise the Egyptian god of Darkness, Apophis. It won’t be the first time he’s walked the earth on the side of the vampires, but with the powers he can give them, if you’re human, you certainly wouldn’t want him coming back.

But this is the bigger side, and in the first book it’s all ahead for Dea. That’s not to say the first book plods along quietly and calmly- we get our fair share of car and bike chases, shootings, beatings, near-misses and a drop or two of teenage passion, all intermixed with the way Dea deals with it, learns from it and develops as a stronger person.