Recently, I was asked, "What is your manuscript about?" from someone who had known me a while.
I have always thought I did nothing but talk on and on about it, but this brought me up short. Maybe I am not as forthcoming as I thought I was!
So, here is my synopsis of
Dracula's Secret.
The Twelfth Annual Conference on Paranormal Citizen Affairs has called the entire world to Portland, Oregon. Celebrities, politicians, protestors, and special interest groups have flocked to the City of Roses to weigh in on the state of relations between the supernatural minority and the human majority.
Not everyone in town has the best of intentions. Valerie Tate, one of the few remaining vampires in the world, has come to Portland with a very simple goal: to kill Dracula’s brother, Radu Tepes. The murder is her last act in her own attempt at redemption for her sins.
Hitler’s alliance with the supernatural and the occult, most notably with Vlad Tepes, the infamous Dracula, did not win him the war, but it did, for once and for all, establish that Paranormal Citizens (PNCs) existed. The revelation forced a global ‘coming out’, and in the following years, PNCs, like other minorities, integrate into society with varying degrees of success.
One of the great success stories is the charismatic but shady Radu Tepes, Dracula’s younger brother and also a vampire. A so-called hero of the French Resistance, he rose from the devastation of the war to form the Consortium for Concerned Citizens (CCC), a political action committee dedicated to integration. The world anticipates him to announce his candidacy for President during the conference.
But on this fateful Halloween night, a man with an aura like sunlight comes between Valerie Tate and her prey. A former Army Ranger and chaplain, Lance Soliel is no stranger to the carnage of human and supernatural aggression. Tired of bloodshed, he retired to run the Tualatin Mountain Homeless Shelter, a privately funded mission that has been plagued with serious financial mismanagement. With less than twenty-four hours of funding left, Lance has nothing to lose. As a result, he single-handedly kickstarts the integration movement by inviting two homeless werewolves into his Shelter.
Valerie wrenches herself away from watching the little drama to continue her mission. But Radu’s vanity unwittingly saves his life. His fury at being upstaged interferes with Valerie’s tightly structured plan. Valerie scrambles to regain her advantage.
She rescues Lance from a Radu-backed attack on his life. In the resulting aftermath of adrenaline and surprising lust, their attraction leads them into a passionate embrace. Lance’s repressed sexual desire for dangerous women erupts; Valerie’s own dark and mixed sexuality explodes furiously to the presence and scent of a salvation bringer.
As attracted as he is, being involved with a vampire would ruin Lance’s career and expose his own past. Rather than consummate the attraction, they delicately interrogate each other during a drive in Valerie’s classic muscle car. Lance attempts to discover Valerie’s personal secrets and Valerie probes his past. They stonewall each other, but he reluctantly agrees to let her become his bodyguard. Valerie plans to use Lance as the bait in her trap for Radu.
Radu doesn’t rest in his attempts to remove Lance and the other powerful figures in his way. Violent and personal attacks break out all over Portland as the Conference begins.
The attraction between Lance and Valerie blossoms under the pressure of constant vigilance for his life, even as their secrets prevent trust. Sexually, they break all taboos and boundaries. Emotionally, Valerie refuses true intimacy by withholding her true identity.
For Valerie
is Vlad Tepes, Radu’s older brother. Six hundred years ago, Dracula had been born a woman. Her parents constructed the identity of Vlad for their daughter’s protection. She remained a man until World War II. During the fall of Berlin, Valerie engineered the death of Dracula. For the first time, Vlad hid by revealing her true self.
Lance’s commitment to less-violent solutions convinced Valerie to avoid fratricide. Final death would catapult Radu straight to martyrhood, furthering his unhealthy agenda of world-wide, violently enforced PNC hegemony. That epiphany fuels another: killing only leads to more killing. This radical idea forces even greater change than she was first willing to pursue. But her very existence hinges on this discovery. She vows to use all the skills she learned in the centuries she protected her real gender.
Radu tries to discredit Lance with a dark secret: his best friend, John Janté, had been severely damaged in a supernatural attack that Lance believes was caused by him. The guilt rode Lance his entire life, keeping him isolated and unable to trust his judgment.
What neither Radu nor Lance knows is that John is just fine. So fine, in fact, he has a job at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Physics). John arrives in Portland in just the nick of time to refute Radu’s claims that Lance would let someone else suffer for his mistakes.
His stock going down by the minute, Radu makes one angry, last attempt at Lance’s life. He lures Valerie and Lance to a mutual acquaintance’s yacht. Silver knives poison Valerie and throw her into the lake. Radu takes Lance hostage and threatens to keep him as a blood-slave.
John rescues Valerie just as she collapses from the silver poisoning. He charms her with his courage and wit. They ally in order to save Lance.
In the ensuing fights, Valerie’s devastating secret is revealed. Radu attempts to reconcile with his sibling, but she has changed too much to try to rule the world any more. As Valerie bleeds out, Lance feeds her his blood and unwittingly shares his own secret.
Lance knows sin even more than Valerie. He is one of the Fallen; a member of the Host that left Heaven with Lucifer. In order to earn his own redemption for his pride, Lance has ridden the Wheel of Life over and over, proving his willingness to serve the lesser beings.
Saving a vampire shows his final humility, and he is rewarded by being given back his wings and sword; the first of the Fallen to re-ascend.
The three heroes embrace, safe but uncertain as to their future. Lance has Divine work to do. Valerie’s quest for redemption has ended with Radu’s disgraces, and John has found people to love and protect. As Lance flies away with his fellow angels, he promises he will come to John and Valerie as soon as he can. John and Valerie hold each other as Lance ascends with the sparkling host.
(which is one of the absolute necessities for an author). It's a genius book and the chapter on rejection is one of the kindest, most life affirming pieces of advice I've heard in my life (and I've heard more advice than I can possibly count).
