JN Moon
NK - You set your vampire series in Bath,
England, which is your home base. Bath seems like a nice, quiet, historic city,
the kind of place not prone to drawing vampires. Besides knowing your city well, what other
reasons do you have for setting novels there?
JNM – Yes, as a teenager visiting night clubs,
in the early hours of the morning the city held the most magic, like a backdrop
from Sherlock Holmes. The Georgian houses, cobbled streets and antiquated
street lamps fueled my imagination.
In the Royal Victoria Park, massive stone
lions guard the entrance. So this was the perfect backdrop to a vampire story,
and along with it, a wealth of history predating Roman times, all with its own
folklore and legends, which I researched and used in my books, especially for
magical scenes.
NK - Lots of people watched the Hammer films
but not everybody rooted for the monsters. Why did/do vampires, Frankenstein's
monster and his spouse, and all the other supernaturals appeal to you more than
the 'heroes', aka 'humans'.
JNM – I asked myself this recently, why do I
love vampires, werewolves so much? Aside from their power, strength,
immortality and unyielding beauty, and usually wealth, I think the core attraction
is strength. If I were a vampire, or dating a vampire, then nobody could hurt
me, the apex alpha male! I would be safe forever from harm. I guess as well,
they have all this but are outsiders. I’ve never been one to run with the pack.
It’s not something I tried to do, I just never fit the box.
NK - You have a 'real' job and you are a
writer. Do both parts of your life impinge on one another?
JNM - Yes, it’s frustrating having to do the
day job but I work around it. I commute for an hour three times a week, so I
write on my phone, (probably about 600K words so far) using Google docs and I
write on my lunch breaks.
I don’t get ideas for characters in my day to
day life, my characters are too big for that. But that said I do work with really
lovely supportive people, and as such have recently started teaching creative
writing as a volunteer which my Department Head is fully supporting. (I get
special paid leave for this) but the opportunity came by chance, through work
helping homeless and vulnerable people.
I absolutely love it! And I get other
personal development opportunities to help with confidence/communication and
business skills that transition into my business. This goes both ways. Cheesy
as it is, I invest my time as much as possible. Time, after all, is all we got.
NK - You've described your novels as
containing 'a
smattering of the philosophical'. Having read your vampire series, I'd say
that's an understatement. Your main
characters, especially Anthony, seem to think about how everything does and
doesn't fit together and how it all came to be.
This is reminiscent of Anne Rice's vampires, but with a big difference:
most of your undead are working-class or middle class, not the highbrow elite
of Rice world, which is refreshing. Can you say how these type of characters
fit into your world view?
JNM –
With my first book, I thought if the main character was the guy next door, it
would be scarier and readers could relate easier. Most of us don’t know Princes
or Lords, (and in the UK, in real life they’re usually seen as pompous, to be honest!).
My
vampires try to justify their existence and as a writer, I’m looking for the
balance between fantasy and reality, so if you were a vampire, chances are at
first you’d battle with your humanity. But over time, after losing all your
friends and family this humanity would become eroded, leaving you emotionally
cold and perhaps searching for some semblance of it. Existence alone would be chilling
indeed.
I
grew up on Aesop’s fables, so often I’ll add messages in dialogue that I’ve
learned, and aim every day to live by, for example not living from hate, and a
biggie, even when you’ve done everything wrong, failed, how you live after that!
You can use that to turn life around, to make an impact.
So,
it was natural that my vampires, to justify themselves, to be righteous and feed
only on the evil...well that could change in my current work in progress!!
NK -
Besides vampires, tell us about your newest series that includes: Wolf Born; Dragon Born; Shadow Born.
JNM –
I have two new series being released this year, both trilogies, both with
female protagonists.
Again,
my main characters are ordinary women thrown into extraordinary circumstances. The Blood Moon Series starts off loosely based on Red Riding Hood, and features
lots of British and Scottish Folklore, most of which readers won’t be familiar
with, (I always add additional information in the Author Notes).
Book 2, Dragon Born features Luke Philips, (he’s in most
of my books—I forget he’s not real!) He’s a dragon shifter, but this story has
Greek, Scottish and British mythology woven together, again with some mythology
not often written about. A lot of the story was set under the sea! Fascinating
research for this, and my main character, Emma, really is pushed beyond her
limits.
Shadow Born is darker, taking historical religious
sects and knights from history, along with theology—Grigori angels, or The
Watchers, and pushes my main character to her limits. I took ideas from kung
fu, where when a person fights and is completely at one with everything, Mushin. A person’s mind is free from
anger, hate and the complexities or the nonsense of life. The kung fu theme
runs through my books because I used to do it. It also represents living
outside constraints pushed on us or, living outside ‘the matrix,’ though we all
get pulled in from time to time.
The
other series, The Blood Oath trilogy
is based in Bristol. I got the idea a few years ago on my commute, passing a small
patch of woodland that was set in front of a rough-housing estate...I could almost see the monsters! This main
character is a paramedic and does martial arts, also fast-paced, with a side
helping of romance.
I
should state that though the latter series have romance in them, there’s no
time for much and heads roll, and hearts are ripped out. Literally! It’s still
dark fiction.
JN Moon contact
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