Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, starring Rhona Mitra, is the third instalment of the vampire-versus-werewolf epic, and traces the origins of the ancient feud between the aristocratic Death Dealers and the Lycans they’ve enslaved.

Slated for release January 2009, the prequel story traces the origins of the centuries-old blood feud between the aristocratic vampires known as Death Dealers and their onetime slaves, the Lycans. In the Dark Ages, a young Lycan named Lucian (Michael Sheen) emerges as a powerful leader who rallies the werewolves to rise up against Viktor (Bill Nighy), the cruel vampire king who has enslaved them. Lucian is joined by his secret lover, Sonja (Rhona Mitra), in his battle against the Death Dealer army and his struggle for Lycan freedom. (and we all know how well that turned out, right?)

Golden Globe winner Bill Nighy stars as evil vampire king Viktor in the film, which is slated for a January 2009 release.

Mitra plays Sonja, the secret lover of Lycan leader Lucian (played by Michael Sheen), who must help battle the Death Dealer army to win the werewolves’ freedom.

Get ready for the new movie by catching up with the story so far…

click here to order Breaking Dawn from Amazon.com

EW.com have released what they claim to be a big spoiler for Breaking Dawn. You can read the full story here Remember if you don’t want to know don’t read!

Spoiler below:

[spoiler] Bella and Edward get married apparently quite early on in the book [/spoiler]

Remember this is one big romance, even though it spans across four books, so if you know anything about the romance formula, you will not be surprised by how it ends for the romantic hero and heroine.

Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

Ok so it’s not exactly about vampires but for once we are making an exception because some of these authors do write about vampires… just not in this book.

Published in October 2008 and just in time for Christmas orders, we have Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur, and Carrie Vaughn—along with eleven other masters of the genre—offer all-new stories on werewolves and the holidays, a fresh variation on the concept that worked so well with birthdays and vampires in Many Bloody Returns.

The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone. They are particularly hard for lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest and saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.

Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year’s morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe.

Published 7th October 2008

Here’s a complete list of authors included:

Charlaine Harris, Toni L.P. Kelner, Patricia Briggs, Keri Arthur, Carrie Vaughn, Donna Andrews, Dana Cameron, Karen Chance, Alan Gordon, Simon Green, JA Konrath, Nancy Pickard, Dana Stabenow, Rob Thurman and Kat Richardson.

Personally I’m looking forward to the Simon R Green* story and we’ll see about the rest. Some of these anthologies are just not that good, let’s face it, so until I’ve read it, let’s just leave it there shall we.

*Simon advised he had sold this short story almost a year ago so just shows how long these things take sometimes!

Ok now this is when I wish I lived a lot closer to New Orleans, just so I could go to things like this *le sigh*

Akasha, Queen of All who are Damned, is stirring from her millennia long slumber. The call of the Ancients and the music of Lestat’s Grand Vampiric Celebration in New Orleans has reached her ears and her heart is quickening once more. The Twins beckon us as well. Images of her and the Twins flood our minds. Have you had the fever dream of the Twins and Queen Akasha? Have you heard the music in the night air, sweet music just out of reach of your waking world? We know you have. Akasha and Lestat are calling out to you to join them in New Orleans this Halloween for “The Queen of the Damned Ball”! We celebrate the Mother of all Vampires and Lestat’s Vampire Ball this year is in her honor!

Honor your Queen as she holds court by dressing as her or one of the Ancient Ones, bring your fledglings or human minions of choice and experience a night of exotic treats for the eyes and beautiful music for your ears and souls. Your Queen commands your presence! See you in October…

For more details please click here to visit the Lestat Fan Club

click here to order yourself a copy of Up In Smoke by Katie MacAlister

Katie is giving away a free ARC (advanced reader’s copy) of forthcoming release Up In Smoke (the second silver dragon book).  Contest runs from 2nd July – 2nd August 2008.
How to enter: E-mail to katie@katiemacalister.com with “contest” in the subject line and include the following information:

1. Your name and e-mail address
2. A statement of which hero (mortal or immortal) from one of my books is your favorite, and why you should have exclusive dibs on him over all the other readers who probably wouldn’t kick him out of their respective beds. Your statement can be as short or long as you desire, will not be judged on either grammar or spelling, but the more inventive your reasoning is, the more likely you’ll make Katie giggle. And giggling is good.

You have until midnight 2nd August 2008.  There are ten ARCs to be won and winners will be drawn by 5th August.  You gotta be in it to win it as my mum says!

PS if you are not lucky enough to win a free ARC, why not order a copy for yourself using the above link.  Go on, you know you want to!

Katie MacAlister, author of the Dark Ones vampire series, has a great range of free stuff available to all you fans.

Click on the link to visit her freebies page where you can find a selection of goodies including bookmarks, postcards, temporary tattoos, door hangers, fridge magnets, myspace banners and more!

If you are not familiar with her vampire books, here’s a selection below.

A little behind the scenes look at the forthcoming series True Blood, based on the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

Get ready for the series by reading the books first!

Buy it now, click the cover

Interview details : Laurell K. Hamilton talks about Blood Noir, the 16th book in the best-selling Anita Blake series, and her 27th book overall.

This episode is all interview, and covers almost everything!  LKH talks about books, characters, writing, getting published and a whole lot more – as well as about the latest book.

I listened to this and it was a pretty good interview.  I’ve heard her say a lot worse,  Interview lasts for about 33 mins.  Enjoy!

Click here to listen to the podcast interview

Tru Blood - available in a flavour to suit everyone

I’m a big fan of the Southern Vampire Mysteries or Sookie Stackhouse series (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) by friend of the site, Charlaine Harris. The books feature a telepathic waitress living in Bon Temps Louisiana after she meets her first vampire – Vampire Bill. Vampires have come out of the coffin, thanks mainly to the development of a new synthetic blood, and are living among us.

The show is scheduled to premiere on September 7th, 2008 on HBO, but it seems that not one but two versions of the pilot episode have been “unofficially” leaked – or should that be “officially” leaked? Anyhoo, here are a couple of links that will enable you to watch the second, and more complete, version of the pilot below.

and

*neither of these are hosted on this site*

Starring Anna Paquin as Sookie and Stephen Moyer as Bill.  Anna looks good as Sookie, if perhaps a little too much like a retarded cheerleader, and Stephen Moyer IMHO is perfectly cast as Bill!  You can also check Stephen out in a short-lived British vampire series called Ultraviolet, which unfortunately only ran for six episodes, but was bloody (no pun intended) brilliant.

So there are things I don’t like about it, but it has a lot of good points so I’ll willing to keep an open mind until I see more of it.  BTW none of the good points include Tara 1 or Tara 2, both are really obnoxious!

Pay very close attention to the scene where Sookie swings the chain to see who just might be arriving in Bon Temps a little earlier than expected!

Click the link to order Acheron

Acheron (Dark-Hunter, Book 12)

To celebrate the forthcoming release of Acheron (August 5th, 2008), the publishers are offering a free e-book copy of Seize the Night absolutely free!

To obtain your free download, please click here to go to the site

Formats available are .pdf, html and Mobi. Link of the format of your choice will be sent to you by email but you have to be quick. The offer is only available until 3rd July 2008!

Get downloading now!

*Also available on this site, free Acheron wallpapers, cursors, banners and screensavers.  check out the extras page at the above link or click here