All This and Family Too

For those readers who don't know, ALL THIS AND FAMILY TOO is the title of my wife's first novel. It will be coming out next year from Pill Hill Press. It is a very funny story of what can happen to a nice lesbian vampire who has to uproot her family from their home in North Carolina and move into a gated community in California to escape a vampire hunter.

Life after death isn't easy for a vampire with a heroic streak, but Cynthia wouldn't have been a vampire if she had been able to resist the urge to rescue women in trouble. Undeath hasn't taught her much. On the way west she impulsively rescues a teen and ends up saddled with taking care of the lovelorn baby dyke through the rest of the novel.

By now you are probably asking yourself why I am writing about this book in my blog. It is not my story, it is not a mystery and it is not historical. Aside from the fact my spouse wrote it, there is not much about ALL THIS AND FAMILY TOO that connects it to me.

Well, that's not exactly true. Professor Leach started out as a character I invented for a vampire role playing game my wife and I played with several other friends. The game ended years ago, but Sarah found the idea of a vampire uptight enough to have a stick up her butt outrageously funny. So, I turned Cynthia over to her. The result is an over-the-top romp through Irvine, CA mixed with the terror of bureaucrats protecting their turf.

What would a vampire story be without a little horror? Professor Cynthia Leach, the vampire, discovers the true meaning of horror when she has to deal with the president of the neighborhood association,  maneuver through the university bureaucracy, and manage to survive her unlife in a world where she no longer belongs. It isn't easy being an undead hero, but Cynthia does it with her own special style.