Mr Darcy, Vampyre will soon be available in Italian!
I'm really pleased about this because a lot of the book is set in Italy and it will be interesting to know what the Italians think of it.
Venice is such a beautiful city, despite its problems. It has the most fantastic buildings and history, and I tried to capture some of that in Vampyre. The picture at the right is of the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, with its famous spiral staircase. The love and artistry that have gone into this building are amazing. Just looking at the staircase lifts my spirits.
The Venetian palazzos are so beautiful that I knew I wanted to include them prominently in the novel. At first I thought I would have Lizzy and Darcy staying with some of Darcy's wealthy friends, but then I decided to give Darcy a palazzo of his own. Wealthy families often had property in Europe and although no European properties are mentioned in Pride and Prejudice, it would have been quite likely that Darcy would have had property abroad. The faded grandeur of the Venetian palazzos created just the atmosphere I wanted, something beautiful and opulent, but with a sense of decay underneath.
The Venetian floods feature in a dream sequence in the novel, which is the first thing I wrote. I don't usually write books out of order, but in this case the images of Elizabeth running through the streets with her red dress flowing out behind her like liquid flame, whilst the waters rose all around her, were so strong in my mind that I wanted to get them down before their vividness faded.
Fantasy and the supernatural flourish in times of transition and the dream sequence involves disorienting changes between past and present, night and day. Luckily for Lizzy, Darcy is there to wake her, but their problems are only just beginning.
