The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles (Box Set Books 1-4) Paranormal Romance by Michelle Drier ➱ Book Tour with Guest Post & Giveaway
Follow Maxie Gwenoch as she takes the job of Managing Editor for SNAP Magazine, the world's largest and most popular gossip media covering celebrities around the globe....owned by a family of vampires
The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles Box Set
Books 1-4
by Michelle Drier
Genre: Paranormal Romance
This boxed set includes Books One through Four of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles: Book One, SNAP: The World Unfolds; Book Two, SNAP: New Talent; Book Three, Plague: A Love Story and Book Four, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder.
Follow
Maxie Gwenoch as she takes the job of Managing Editor for SNAP
Magazine, the world's largest and most popular gossip media covering
celebrities around the globe.
First,
she finds the owners of SNAP are a family of Hungarian vampires, then
she discovers she's the reason for an escalating war between the
Kandeskys and their archrivals, the Huszars.
Book One, SNAP: The World Unfolds
SNAP, a multinational celeb TV show and magazine, is the holy grail for Maxie Gwenoch. When she snags the job as managing editor, she's looking for fame, fortune and Jimmy Choos. What she finds is a media empire owned by Baron Kandesky and his family. A family of vampires. They're European, urbane, wealthy and mesmerizing. And when she meets Jean-Louis, vampire and co-worker, she's a goner.
The
Kandesky vampire family rose in Hungary centuries ago. They gave up
violence and killing to make a killing on the world's commodities
markets and with that beginning they built SNAP, an international
celebrity multimedia empire. Now cultured...and having found food
substitutes for killing...they’ve cornered the world market for
celebrity and gossip journalism.
They
haven't fully left the past behind. Their Hungarian neighbors and
rival vampire clan, the Huszars are starting to ramp up attacks,
maybe looking to start a war to take over all the Kandeskys have
built.
Maxie
believes she's found her ultimate career. She doesn't realize that
she's found a family feud like none other, a centuries-old rivalry
between vampire families, with her as the linchpin. Bells ring with
Jean-Louis, but she doesn’t realize they’re alarm sirens until
she learns that Jean-Louis is second in command of the
Kandeskys...but by then it's too late.
Book Two, SNAP: New Talent
In the second book of the SNAP Kandesky vampire series, Maxie Gwenoch, media-savvy editor of the multinational celeb gossip magazine SNAP, is pummeled in Paris and kidnapped in Kiev as the Huszars ramp up the race to oust their centuries-old rivals, the Kandeskys.
SNAP's
owners, the Kandesky family of vampires, built the world's most
popular celeb coverage empire but this isn't just a business
take-over. These powerful vampire families lived with an uneasy peace
for four centuries until Maxie came in to boost SNAP's coverage and
started making inroads into the Huszar's traditional hunting
territories.
Although
Jean-Louis, Maxie's lover, vampire and second-in-command of the
Kandeskys, tries to keep her safe, Maxie is determined to do things
her way, a way that may lose her her job, her love and her
life.
This
is a new edition. It has been reformatted and contains
additional bonus material.
Book Three, Plague: A Love Story
The third book of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles begins the saga of the family's start during the chaos of 14th century Hungary. When Stefan's wife and infant son die in a minor plague outbreak, he has nothing to live for, so Theron's turning him to a vampire is just a way out of his anguish.
Until
he takes over the estate of a merchant, recruits Jean-Louis to teach
him business and meets Lady Penelope Kandesky.
Plague
returns to Budapest and this time paves the way for Stefan to become
Baron Stefan Kandesky, a businessman who builds a trading empire with
the help of Jean-Louis and Pen.
Book Four, DANUBE: A Tale of Murder
The Kandesky management trio, Stefan, Jean-Louis and Pen, find themselves embroiled in a war with their rivals, the Huszars, which is bad for PR and bad for business, but after a judicious assassination they hammer out a pact.
This
fourth book of the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles tells of peace
agreements with their rivals and the growth of their
now-international business ventures.
It
also follows Jean-Louis as he meets and falls in love with a young
artist, Magda, who desires travel and adventure but never imagined
the world the Kandeskys inhabit
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SNAP: The World
Unfolds
It was blood. It looked like somebody dropped a
cup or glass. It puddled in front of the sinks and filmed out on the
bathroom floor.
I was startled; usually the bathrooms at SNAP Magazine were
spotless.
It didn’t smell like fresh blood, that odd, kind of tangy,
metal-y smell, but for sure I wasn’t going to touch it to see if it was warm.
I couldn’t scream, but I was suddenly queasy. My
makeup didn’t need a touch-up that much. My knees shook as I spun
back through the door and headed straight to my assistant’s desk to have her
call maintenance or whoever and clean up the mess.
She looked up at me. “There’s what on the bathroom
floor?”
“A big puddle of blood,” I whispered. “Come see
for yourself.”
I didn’t want to run, didn’t want to incite concern in the
rest of the staff and have it spread out through the cubicles, but we walked
fast. When we got across the office and down the hall, I pushed open
the door and said, “Look!” with a flourish.
“Look at what?” Jazz’ eyebrows disappeared up under her
bangs.
I turned my head and saw...nothing. No blood, no
remains, no pink sheen, not even water on the floor.
EXCERPT Two
When you get to the top
savor it; it’s a long way down, my mother’s mantra, hummed through my head
as the elevator rose. On the eighteenth floor, a muted sound chimed
as the doors slid open, and there it was. The headquarters of
SNAP, the newest, cutting-ist edge gathering-of-information machine covering
people who matter in the world.
As I stepped into the lobby I was deafened by the
silence. Two receptionists sat behind the black marble counter,
showing only their heads with headsets. They were murmuring
something, but so quietly I couldn’t hear words. The famous SNAP
logo etched into the wall-to-wall, ceiling-high mirror reflected the backs of
their heads.
The reflection only showed my head and shoulders, my body
disappearing as I neared the black slab. The receptionists were both
blonds, so fair their skin had a translucent pale blue tone sliced by mouths
slathered in Russian Red lipstick. At least I hoped it was lipstick.
Writing a series as a pantser
By the definition, a pantser is a writer who writes “by the
seat of the pants”, someone who doesn’t outline and lightly plans a book.
I’m a panster, the one who in school wrote the paper first,
THEN outlined what she’d written.
This allows me to create all kinds of scenarios, add
characters along the way, set up action on the fly. And might become iffy as I
find I’m writing series.
The one thing I’ve done with all of my series is to keep
track of the characters! I list their names, occupations and which book they
appeared, a must with the paranormal romance books which are littered with
close to a hundred Central and Eastern European characters. Most of the time, I
can’t even remember the spelling.
I have three series, the traditional mystery Amy Hobbes
Newspaper Mysteries, the Stained Glass Mysteries and a paranormal romance one,
The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles. There are three Amy Hobbes extant, Edited for
Death, Labeled for Death and Delta for Death; two (so far) in the Stained Glass
Mysteries and eleven in the Kandesky Vampire Chronicles. These are like Topsy,
they just grewed
I planned ahead a bit in the mysteries and always
intended them to be a series. The main
characters are the same, the actual plot changes with a different
murder/mystery in each book. The planned-but-unwritten ones have a general
mystery plot (who ends up dead and why) but nothing more.
The Kandeskys I initially saw as a trilology but as the
characters developed, I had to keep establishing plots. Because the series are
character-driven, a roadmap isn’t necessary. The characters can find themselves
in the middle of a variety of situations which don’t have to be plotted out
ahead of time. My only roadmap for this series is to continue the thread of the
characters…they tell me what’s going to happen. My suspicion is that Lee Child
didn’t sit down to write all the Jack Reacher books knowing he had a “roadmap”
and Janet Evanovich keeps devising quirky situations for her characters. If you
have a plot-driven book, although I’m hard pressed to come up with a series
like that, some advance plotting might be necessary, but character-driven? No.
Think Danial Silva, Robert Crais, Elizabeth George, Agatha Christie…etc. and ad
infinitum.
The Amy Hobbes and Stained Glass Mysteries are complete in
each book…well, I do have a couple of romances simmering. The Kandeskys on the
other hand have loose ends and one GIANT cliff-hanger in book two, SNAP New
Talent.
My initial publisher didn’t pick up the Amy Hobbes series so
I don’t know if it would be different. I indie-publish for lots of reasons and
this might be one of them. I like my characters (well, I love some of the guys)
and would continue their story any way I can.
All of my books have some romantic tension. None of the
female characters are particularly interested in getting married or even having
a relationship, but as they meet a man in the course of their work, they become
interested. The romantic tension in the Kandesky Chronicles kept the two main
protags going for ten books. Now I need to figure out if Amy Hobbes (Amy Hobbes
Mysteries) or Roz Duke (Stained Glass Mysteries) are going to get totally wrapped up in their male
characters.
All the characters grow and change, primarily in the way they
understand themselves. In the mysteries, Amy is learning to cope with the hurt
her ex-husband incurred when he left her for another woman. She’s rebuilding
her life and her trust in men, but slowly. In the Stained Glass Mysteries, Roz’
husband has been murdered in a drive-by shooting. Although the gunman has been
caught, Roz harbors a nagging question: Why was her husband at that mall where
he was shot? In the Kandeskys, Maxie must make the decision of whether she’s
willing to trade eternal life as a vampire for losing all she’s ever known. And
the men, 500-year-old vampires all, must learn to love a 21st century career
woman, a creature they’ve never met before.
During the writing of the series, the mysteries have shifted
slightly. Amy Hobbes is the managing editor of a smaller daily newspaper in
Northern California. The plots have changed as the focus of the economy has
changed. Each of the books’ central plot centers around a real contemporary
issue…but are they important enough to kill for? The Stained Glass Mysteries
don’t rely on contemporary issues as much, although the first book, Stain on
the Soul, hinges on pedophilia in the priesthood.
The Kandeskys have shifted quite a bit. Initially, the
violence and tension was from a war with another vampire family. That family
has died (or been killed) off and now the Kandeskys are up against
international political issues. They’re living in Kyiv, Ukraine and are
fighting off Eastern European thugs and gangs hired by the oligarchs. In SNAP:
Pandemic Games, the danger is from Russia trying to break up the EU and NATO.
In a new book, I usually begin with the characters. What are
they doing now? What challenges are they having? In the mysteries, this leads
to a premise of “What if?” which leads to the plot, or mystery. In the
Kandeskys, I usually begin with the events affecting global tensions because
SNAP, the Kandesky family’s flagship company, is a multi-formatted
international celebrity gossip television show and magazine. And they may be
moving toward covering more news instead of gossip.
For me, one of the delights in pantsing, particularly a
series, is the unknown. Although I almost always know the ending (not always
the murderer), the plot can take interesting twists and the characters surprise
me!
Coming in 2023, Resurrecting the Roses, Book Three in the
Stained Glass Mysteries.
The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles is a series of four novels that follows the story of the Kandesky family, a clan of vampires who have been living in secret among humans for centuries.
The series is told from the perspective of several different characters, as well as points in history.
The first two stories focus on the current time period whereas the last two novellas give us back story
The plots are fast-paced with plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing.
In the beginning, it felt a bit hollow - I think I might just be greedy but I wanted more "them" time
Max was a strong lead character
Overall I really enjoyed the series and the author's unique take on Vamps and the supernatural
SNAP: The World Unfolds Book 1
The story of Maxie Gwenoch, a young woman who lands her dream job as the managing editor of SNAP, a multinational celebrity TV show and magazine. However, Maxie soon discovers that SNAP is owned by a family of vampires, the Kandeskys. Maxie is initially skeptical of the Kandeskys, but she is soon drawn to Jean-Louis, a handsome and charming vampire who is second in command of the family. As Maxie gets to know the Kandeskys, she begins to realize that they are not the monsters she thought they were.
The Kandeskys are not without their enemies. A rival vampire clan is determined to take over the Kandeskys' empire. As the two clans clash, Maxie finds herself caught in the middle.
Maxie is faced with new challenges as she tries to keep SNAP afloat. The Huszars, a rival vampire clan, are determined to take over the Kandeskys' empire, and they are targeting SNAP. Maxie must also deal with the fallout from her relationship with Jean-Louis
This takes us back in time and is Stefan's story. This is a short read that just gives a bit more history to the Clan.
This is Jean's story as well as an introduction to some of the other characters in the series
Michele Drier is a fifth-generation Californian and spent better than 20 years as a reporter and editor at California daily newspapers. She is the past president of Capitol Crimes, a Sisters in Crime chapter; the Guppies chapter of Sisters in Crime, current president of NorCal Sisters in Crime, and co-chaired Bouchercon 2020.
Her Amy Hobbes Newspaper Mysteries are Edited for Death, (called “Riveting and much recommended” by the Midwest Book Review), Labeled for Death and Delta for Death. A stand-alone, Ashes of Memories was published May 2017.
Her paranormal romance series, SNAP: The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles, was named the best paranormal vampire series of 2014 by PRG. Book Eleven, SNAP: Pandemic Games was published in 2022
Her new series is the Stained Glass Mysteries, Stain on the Soul and Tapestry of Tears, and she’s working on the third, Resurrection of the Roses.
She lives in Sacramento with her cat, Malley.
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