Welcome to Stephani Hecht's guest blog

Look Inside my Twisted Mind


When people find out that I write about angels, demons, vampires, elves and even a sea serpent who lives in the Detroit River, the question is always the same, “Where do you come up with your ideas and what kind of meds are you on?” I’m happy to report that I’m on no medication, I am just blessed with a very overactive imagination. So the question remains, how is it that the ideas in my head become a book?

The idea for my Archangel Series started simple enough. I wanted to write a book about angel warriors who live amongst humans. Simple enough, right? I spent four years researching angels and weapons. Four years of planning on how this book would go and how the angels would act. Four years knowing exactly how everything would be. Finally I sat down to write it and then that’s when it happened.

Cam.

He started off as a simple side-kick. The one who was supposed to introduce the hero to humans and Earth. Little did I know Cam would not be happy just sitting off to the side like some wallflower. He took over and before I knew it I had a smart-ass, cocky son of a gun who suddenly decided he was going to run the show. How did I realize that? My first clue was when I wrote this:

“Stop it.” She laughed. “Don’t you have one of those human college courses to go to?” For some insane reason, Cam insisted on enrolling at the local college. He always said it was because he wanted to learn as much as he could about humans. Gabi knew better. Cam loved the human race and truly enjoyed mingling with them, being one of them.


“Yeah, I have religious studies.”


“Cam, you’re an angel. You are religious studies.”


“I agree.” He shrugged on his backpack. “But Ana insisted, and I must always obey my big sister.” With that, he grabbed a Coke out of the fridge and turned his iPod on. He flashed her a peace sign, then ran out the door.


That wasn’t the end of it either, before I knew it Cam had seven brothers and one sister and they were all just as unusual of he was. They fought, they swore and basically did everything that traditional angels were not supposed to do. Then the real shocker happened when Cam lost his virginity to a succubus. Suddenly my series went from being about angels who were all holy and good to angels who humped and cussed. Not what I had been dreaming for those four years, but that’s what happened and I knew there was no way I could change it. It worked for me and I couldn’t imagine my angels any other way.

Once the books were released I was stunned to find that most people embraced my unconventional angels, so of course I had to push the bar once again. Thus the Drone Vampire Chronicles were born. I wondered to myself how it would be to have vampires who totally went against every stereotype, ones who were poor, unwanted and at rock bottom? Then the Toren brothers came to me. Three brothers who are fresh from spending ten years at a paranormal prison, broke and struggling to survive. The first book in the series, Blood Lust, starts off with them in a parking garage, hunting kobolds, because it’s the only job they can get.

“Why do parking garages always smell like piss and ass?”


Kane barely held back the groan at his brother, Dante’s, whispered question. The idiot may as well have shouted it in the deafening silence of the garage. First, because the creatures they were hunting could hear the smallest of noises, and secondly because the question was so annoying it grated on Kane’s very last nerve.


That’s not the garage you’re smelling. It’s your breath backfiring on you, he replied via the same telepathic link he’d shared with his brothers since they were small children. Now, let’s keep all of our conversations in stealth mode, shall we? The last thing we need is for these bastards to know we’re here.


Dante raised his hand and huffed into the palm, testing his breath’s foulness for himself. He must have found nothing because his dark eyes narrowed in a scowl. You suck, Kane, and not in the normal vampire way either.



The chapter ends with the three brother feeding the bodies of the kobolds to a sea serpent who lives in…you guessed it, the Detroit River. In the book you also find out that there are two classes of vampires, the Pure Born, who are vampires from birth and considered upper class, and the Drones who are consider inferior because they were once human. The Drones are segregated into clans, have no basic rights and face growing persecution.


Yes, my books can be a bit different, but I honestly think I don’t have the power to change that. I write what’s in my heart and I’ve discovered my heart is a bit twisted and demented at time.


Now it’s contest time! Leave a comment and I will pick a winner at random. The prize will be a free PDF download of anyone of my past releases, winner’s choice.


-Stephani