Thank you everyone who submitted questions for this Q&A. I’m excited to answer them for you!
First, the SPOILER tag. If you haven’t finished all four books yet, turn back now. Some of the questions I got deal with the ending of The Bonding Ritual, and I hold nothing back in my answers. If you haven’t read the book yet, this blog post will spoil all the surprises for you, so please, finish book 4 and then come back!
For the rest of you, here we go!
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Q: Why can’t vampires get into Nicky’s head?
A: Nicky doesn’t fully understand why she is the way she is, and since we are limited to her point of view, we don’t fully know either.
But we get some hints from things Falkon and Sergio say to Nicky about the way her subconscious locked away the most painful memories from her childhood.
Nicky is uniquely gifted at controlling her thoughts. It’s a strength she was born with, but also one she was forced at an early age to develop. The memory of what happened to her mother in Italy is so traumatizing to little Nicky that the only way she can deal with it is to stuff it so deep she’s completely forgotten about it.
Every day of her life since that horrible night in Italy, that memory tried to break free, but Nicky kept it repressed. Think about how good you would become at repressing your own thoughts if your brain was practicing it every day, all the time. Without even realizing what she was doing, Nicky was sharpening her mind’s ability to compartmentalize. By the time she had her first encounter with Melissa, her conscious mind was incredibly strong, because it had daily practice repressing subconscious memories that wanted to come out.
Of course, there was one notable time when a vampire did get into Nicky’s head, albeit in a roundabout way. When Sergio and Nicky danced, that repressed memory that had been trying to break free for years finally got out. If you’ll recall, Sergio told Nicky that, now that the memory was loose, she had to deal with it before it ruined her.
Q: Why didn’t Nikki give in to Serigo, it was apparent they had feelings for one another?
A: She definitely considered it. At times during that final semester, she was trying to rationalize the idea that it would be okay if she and Sergio bonded. She thought about how her mother became a vampire out of love for her son, and in so doing, saved the world, and told herself, maybe it’s okay if I become a vampire too. She thought, if I bond with Sergio, he won’t be making any new vampires, and isn’t that the whole point?
But she realized these thoughts were in conflict with everything her life had been up to that point, and had to make a choice about who she really wanted to be. Was she a vampire or a vampire hunter?
In the end, it was the memory of what the vampires had done to her mother, her father, her brother, and Frankie that helped her make the choice. She was absolutely in love with Sergio. But Sergio was a killer. If she let him live, thousands of innocent people would die to keep him fed. And if she bonded with him, thousands of innocent people would die to keep her fed too.
More than anything else, this idea of loving a vampire, but also recognizing that a vampire is evil, was the reason I wrote these books. From page 1 of the first draft, I knew Nicky and Sergio were going to fall in love, and Nicky was going to have to deal with the implications of what it meant to love a vampire. While many other themes and storylines emerged in the writing of the story, Nicky and Sergio was the big idea that got me excited enough to set aside all my other works in progress and write these books.
Q: What would have happened to Nicky if the Network found out she was ‘different’?
A: That’s a good question, and the best answer I can give you is, it depends.
If Jill knew the truth about Nicky and Sergio, she would have done everything she could to end the mission and get Nicky out of there. But Winnie, who holds more sway in the Network than Jill, would have seen it differently. To Winnie, nothing was as important as getting Sergio Alonzo and his ability to create a new vampire every year out of the picture. If Winnie thought that Sergio and Nicky might bond, she would have been all for it, and then she would have set the Network to killing Nicky as well as Sergio.
Q: If Nicky had bonded with Sergio, would the bond have held or would she have become like Sergio because of her mind? Why does she see his ghost at the end of the bonding ritual?
A: I’ll answer both these questions at once.
The bond would have held. The reason Sergio’s bond with Daciana didn’t take is because Sergio is one of those people who is truly meant for one person only. He was meant for Nicky. Had they bonded, it would have been the strongest bond in the clan. Ridiculous, obscenely passionate, absolutely true love—that’s what Nicky gave up when she chose to kill Sergio rather than bond with him.
That’s also why a ghost of Sergio lives on in Nicky’s mind. A vampire bond is a love so powerful it is all-consuming, and even though Nicky chose to walk away from it, a part of it will always be with her. The sad truth for Nicky (a beautiful sadness though, I think) is that she won’t ever be able to love again. In his way, Sergio will have her heart for the rest of her life.
Q: Was Mary just using Art, or were they a genuine couple?
A: I love this question, in part because I feel like I didn’t answer it adequately in the novel.
In early drafts of The Bonding Ritual, we learned a lot more about Art and Mary, but I cut it all out in the final draft. I thought the story moved more quickly with Art and Mary mostly on the sidelines. More importantly, I really liked the surprise of having Art giving the money to Mary, seemingly out of nowhere, with Jill, and hence the reader, only realizing what was going on after it was too late.
In those early drafts, in the scenes that got cut, we learned that Mary got together with Art because she needed someone. She thought she was on her way to dying alone. This is a girl who grew up wealthy, beautiful, and popular, but after Jill gave the Ransom money to Samantha, Mary found herself totally abandoned. In last place in the Coronation contest, in a position where even her wealthy father couldn’t bail her out, Mary became isolated from everyone at school and her family. They all treated her like a pariah.
Mary and Art didn’t have a healthy relationship. They both were just so lonely. Mary needed a companion. Art, as we know from earlier books, is a bit of a raging inferno of hormones. Mary insisted they keep the relationship a secret, and Art was happy to comply.
Because Mary entered the relationship with Art in a headspace where she thought she was going to die, once she knew she was going to live, she quickly started losing interest. By Ryan’s funeral, she and Art aren’t officially broken up, but you’ll note Art is nowhere near her, and she doesn’t think about him even once. In my mind, she ended it with him shortly after Ryan’s funeral.
Q: Won’t people be suspicious of two boys coming out of nowhere to attend Thorndike, after the same thing happened with Nicky?
A: Eddie and Patrick won’t be nearly as out of the blue as Nicky was. With all that happened in the clan after Sergio and Daciana died, Thorndike has come a little unglued and lost quite a bit of its luster. Families in Washington are still eager to send their children to Thorndike because they’re still holding out hope that somehow, the old ways will return. But outside of Washington, the wealthy elite are looking in at Thorndike with more skepticism now. They’re fearful of getting close to the chaos surrounding the clan.
When Nicky got in, the idea of an outsider taking a coveted spot was unheard of. But now, the school is eager to take anyone who is willing to pay the steep tuition, and the clan is in such disarray that Jill’s little spies will be ten steps ahead of Fu Xi and the other vampires before they even think to look.
Q: What color was Dumbled… oops, wrong book!
A: Ha! For those who didn’t already know, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, not just in a fandom way (although I did attend midnight release parties when the books came out), but also as a writer. I spend a lot of time studying my favorite authors to figure out how they make their books so great, and there’s no one I’ve studied more than JK Rowling.
At the risk of getting a little off topic here, for anyone out there who wants to write fiction or get better at writing fiction, here’s something I do. I not only read and re-read my favorite authors (and re-read them again), I also open up their books sometimes and start typing down the words as I read them. Here’s why.
When I was a kid, I was really into playing the trumpet, and I wanted to get better at playing jazz. I took some lessons from a jazz musician in Albuquerque, and he told me to put on Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong CDs and learn to mimic them exactly. He said this was a technique that all the great jazz artists used. Learn to play along with Miles Davis, playing the exact same notes, with the exact same tone and inflection and dynamics, and the ability to play like Miles will translate into your own improvisation.
I never got very good at improvising jazz, but that same practice technique has helped me immensely with my writing. Something about writing down JK Rowling’s actual words (and Jonathan Franzen’s words, and Jonathan Lethem’s words, and Susanna Clarke’s words) makes your brain more attuned to what they are really doing. Suddenly you start to see little tricks they’re playing with their sentences, and hints at future plot points that are so subtle the reader may not even see them, but will still get the effect.
I’m rambling here, I know, so I’ll wrap it up and just reiterate that, to me, JK Rowling is on the highest pedestal, and jokes that reference her books are always welcome on my blog!
Q: Did you always plan to finish it in 4 or was it a trilogy that grew?
A: I actually planned to finish it in 5 or 6 books. The idea of a trilogy is something that reviewers and bloggers started to say and I didn’t do enough to clarify for them. I really need to post more here on this blog and on my FB page, I know. As soon as people started talking trilogy in Amazon and Goodreads reviews, I should have written a post saying this is planned to be larger than a trilogy to make my intentions absolutely clear. To any of you out there who bought Rose Ransom expecting it to be the final book, my apologies for not communicating more.
When I began The Bonding Ritual, I thought I was writing a book that might end with Sergio’s true intentions for Nicky being revealed as a cliffhanger that led into Book 5. One draft in, I knew the book would be better if I revealed Sergio’s intentions early, and then made this book as long as it needed to be to take us all the way to the end.
I also didn’t have the game with the safe and the numbers when I started the book. Originally, Daciana was going to have the students play a murder mystery sort of game where someone actually got killed, but that game wasn’t really working. Once I decided that I wanted to write one book that carried us through the entire second semester, I started thinking about Coronation events that could last for the entire book and tie everything together. That led to the game with the numbers and the safe.
Q: Did Renata kill her bond?
A: Yes.
Q: What happened to Shannon?
A: Poor Shannon is a mess, as she has to be. She has a lot to overcome. Her parents are liars who will do anything to make a buck, even put their daughter’s life at risk. She learned some of that behavior from them, and probably inherited some of it in her genes. And right before her senior year of high school, her family had to fake their own deaths and disappear. She had to go to a new country and learn a new language, and just as she was starting to get her feet under her, her parents were murdered. Then, the people she trusted in Brazil robbed her and left her to rot on the streets.
Is it any wonder she isn’t good at relationships?
Shannon and Annika needed each other when they got together, but in truth, they aren’t a great match. Shannon needs to work through her own issues before she’ll be able to have a functional relationship with anyone. When we left her, she had enough money to live off of for the rest of her life if she’s careful with it, but she won’t be. In a couple years, she’ll have spent it all. Fortunately for her, a couple years is enough time to get acclimated to her new life, to master the language, and to get settled enough that, when the money runs out, she won’t be destitute like she was before. I see a future for Shannon where she takes a long time to grow up, but eventually does. By the time she’s in her forties, she will have it together, living a middle-class life in Brazil, hopefully with a wife who is right for her. She’ll always be bitter about what her life might have been, but over time, she’ll learn to be thankful that she didn’t die in that house with her parents.
Q: Does every bond that doesn’t ‘take’ create a ‘gigolo’ vampire like Sergio or was he just unique? What are the odds of a bond not taking?
A: Yes, when a bond doesn’t take, you get a libertine. It’s a very rare occurrence, like once in a thousand years sort of thing. And when it happens, it’s dangerous to the whole order, which is why Daciana’s decision to let Sergio live was totally taboo.
Q: Who is your favorite character?
A: With these books, I was trying to show young adults being strong and courageous. Nicky, Ryan, and Jill are all examples of what I think good people are and what strong, courageous people do. Nicky is someone who had the worst childhood imaginable, but found a way to get through it and use it to motivate her to do good. Ryan had to give up the girl he loved when Kim blackmailed him with the truth about Jill’s mother, and he did it. Then, when circumstance required him to sacrifice himself for Jill again, he did it without hesitation.
Jill, in her way, had the most to overcome. She was born into a family and a world that was offering her everything anyone could want, but she knew it was all laced with sin and greed. She chose to do the right thing, even though doing so was against everything her family stood for.
I guess I’m saying I love all three of our heroes in Girls Wearing Black. Of those three, it’s probably obvious that my favorite to write was Jill. She and Nicky were supposed to share the limelight throughout the series, but Jill kind of took it over. For Nicky, being a spy was easy. For Jill, it was terrifying, and I enjoyed writing her because I admire someone who can face her fear and get on with what needs to be done anyway.
But the character I most looked forward to writing about was always Kim Renwick. By the last book, when Kim’s story was done, I looked for opportunities to let her take the reins just because I think she’s a great narrator. Kim’s snarky attitude allowed me to see Thorndike and Washington in a way that was amusing to me, which made it all a lot of fun.
Q: I’ve never read a series like Girls Wearing Black before. It was fast-paced and fun, like popular fiction. But it was also thematic and literary. Can you recommend another book or series like yours for us to read while we wait for your next novel?
A: First of all, thank you for your kind words.
My first recommendation to people who like Girls Wearing Black is The Passage by Justin Cronin. It is book 1 of a trilogy. It’s a story about a vampire apocalypse. It’s a more challenging read than my books, but well worth the effort. The third and final book in the series comes out this fall, and the first two books are BIG, so if you start this month or next, you’ll be finishing up with Book 2 just in time for Book 3 to come out.
Q: Will there be more books in this universe?
A: Probably not. As much as I enjoy all these characters and this world, sometimes I think it’s best to let the stories end. On this, I apply what I will call my Dexter vs. The Wire Rule of Writing, based on two popular TV dramas.
When the TV show Dexter started on Showtime, everyone thought it was brilliant, and rightly so. The first four seasons of that show were incredibly compelling.
But every season of Dexter after that just got worse, and the final season was just terrible. To top it off, the series finale was confusing, rushed, and infuriating to everyone.
Contrast that with The Wire, which the writers planned to run for five seasons, and ended at the end of the 5th season.
Today, when people talk about the greatest TV drama of all time, The Wire is always in the conversation and Dexter isn’t, even though Dexter had much higher ratings and those first four seasons of Dexter were critically acclaimed.
Although I would never claim that my vampire books reached the level of writing on The Wire, I still would prefer to follow their model. Leave a good thing alone.
I’m onto the next story, in the next universe. Speaking of…I hope I can bring all of you with me on the next one, even though we’re about to jump mediums. My next release won’t be for your eReader, but rather, your smart phone. I’m not done writing novels…not by a long shot. But recently I became very excited about the potential for smart phones to allow for a new kind of storytelling, and have been working closely with a European company to make something. Although we don’t have an official release date yet, I’m thinking September is a possibility. Watch here for updates.
And keep asking questions! I always answer reader email and Facebook messages. Thanks everyone who put in questions for this Q&A. I love you all. The audience for Girls Wearing Black is a small one, but, in a way, I’m glad for that. I feel like I get to interact on an individual level with lots of you, and I mean it when I say, it’s a special experience for me. You all are the best. Have a great weekend everyone!
