Category Archives: Amazon

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Ereader News Today Feature and Series Order

This past week, Vampires of the Scarlet Order was featured at the website, Ereader News Today. Since it was first mentioned on November 13, its sales rank at Amazon has been going up. I’m gratified to see the book finding new readers. If you’re one of those new readers who discovered the book through the Ereader News Today promotion, thanks for giving it a try!

Around the same time as the Ereader News Today promotion came live, I noticed that my publisher labeled Vampires of the Scarlet Order as book 1 of the Scarlet Order series and Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order as book 2. It’s an interesting choice on my publisher’s part, especially since Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order is actually set before Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

Of course, this begs one of the age-old questions of series. Which order should they be read in? In the case of these first two Scarlet Order books, I don’t really think it matters. Each novel is a standalone story. If you prefer your books to happen in chronological order, then you should definitely start with Dragon’s Fall even though it’s book 2. However, I don’t believe you’ll be lost if you start with Vampires of the Scarlet Order. In this case, “Book 2″ will give you some more history and insight into the characters you discovered in “Book 1.”

Another question raised by listing the books as a series is whether or not there will be a Book 3 and what it would be about. In fact, the cold, hard reality of the publishing business is that much depends on how well books 1 and 2 do. That said, I actually have outlined three more Scarlet Order books.

One of these three books continues the story of Draco, Roquelaure, and Alexandra started in Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. We see what happens to them as they get involved in the European wars of the 1600s through the 1800s. The second book outlined tells the story of the vampire Rudolfo as he travels to the new world and becomes embroiled with the Spanish conquest of North America. The third outlined novel is a sequel to Vampires of the Scarlet Order where the vampires learn more about the beings that created them and their place in the universe.

If you’ve read one or both of the Scarlet Order novels, I’d love to hear what you think. What’s more, I’d love to hear what you’d like to see next. Would you like more about the vampires in history? Would you like to see where they go in the future? Either way, please be sure to tell your friends about the series. That’s the best way you can be sure there will be a book 3 and beyond!

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Blog Hop

Shaunna Gonzales at http://shaunnagonzales.blogspot.com/ tagged me last week in her post. In this Blog Hop, I’ll answer a set of questions about my latest novel, then tag a set of authors to discuss their book next week. Of course, my most recent novel is Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order.

What is the title of your book?

My latest novel is Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order. It’s my seventh novel published.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea came from my love of history and folklore. In particular I was inspired by both the legends surrounding King Arthur and Vlad Dracula. King Arthur was known as the Pendragon, which basically means “the chief dragon.” Dracula means “son of the dragon.” I basically asked, what would happen if a Celtic dragon from the fifth century became a vampire and somehow got wrapped up in the story of Vlad Dracula, the real life prince who inspired Bram Stoker’s vampire

What genre does your book fall under?

The novel is a blending of paranormal romance and historical thriller.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Daniel Craig would be great as Desmond, the leader of our band of mercenaries. Lynn Collins from the series True Blood and the movie John Carter has the presence and strength to be the slave-turned-thief Alexandra. Orlando Bloom has the good looks of the mysterious Roquelaure and would be a great counterpoint to the serious Daniel Craig.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Three vampires forge a bond of love and blood, bring together a band of vampire mercenaries, and must ultimately confront what they’ve become when they’re hired by Vlad Dracula.

Is your book self-published or represented by an agency?

Neither. I sold the book without an agent. It is published by Lachesis Publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

The first draft was written for the National Novel Writing Month a few years ago. The manuscript at the end of that month represents about two-thirds of finished novel. That final third took another month. Once the first draft was complete, I spent another year polishing it into the final product.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The mix of history, romance, and vampires is probably closest to the Saint-Germain Books of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro or even the vampire novels of Anne Rice.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I was inspired by the desire to experience times and places that I can’t visit for myself. The virtual immortality of my vampires allowed me to tell a story that spanned centuries. The strength of my vampires allowed them to survive some of the most frightening periods in history. The tension of the situations allowed me to explore the concepts of love and evil from a perspective that isn’t really possible with mortal characters.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Dragon’s Fall is a novel in five acts. Act one is set in Hellenistic Greece. Act two is set in Arthurian Britain. In act three, the characters move across Europe, visit Constantinople and the Holy Land during the Middle Ages. In act four, we see the Norman Invasion of Britain. Finally Act five takes us to Transylvania during the reign of Vlad Dracula.

The novel tells the story of three vampires. The first is Lord Desmond who bears the guilt of destroying the holiest of books after becoming a vampire. He searches the world for lost knowledge, but instead, discovers truth in love. Alexandra is born a slave in Ancient Greece and craves freedom above all else. A vampire sets her free but then, she must pay the highest price of all … her human soul. Roquelaure is an assassin who lives in the shadows, cloaked even from himself, until he discovers the power of friendship and loyalty. Gathering other vampires around them, they form a band of mercenaries and find themselves employed by Vlad Dracula. However, Dracula proves to be the dark reflection of the Scarlet Order vampires and their ultimate nemesis.

Where can readers purchase your book?

The novel is available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009TJV65G and https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/dragons-fall-rise-scarlet/id569347884?mt=11 plus several other online bookstores. You can find a complete list at: http://www.davidleesummers.com/books.html#dragons_fall

Where can readers find your website/blog’s?

My official site is http://www.davidleesummers.com
My Scarlet Order vampire blog is http://dlsummers.wordpress.com
I also have a blog at http://davidleesummers.wordpress.com

I tag the following blogger to answer these questions next week about their most recent work or their work in progress:

Emily Guido and Marina Martindale have already participated in the Blog Hop. Be sure to drop by and check out the answers to their questions!

Update – December 5, 2012: I received two brand-new tags today. The first is by castle builder, poet, and all around amazing fantasy writer Marsheila Rockwell. I was also tagged by awesome thriller and adventure writer Sean Ellis. Go check out their stops on the “Next Big Thing” Blog Hop!

Update – December 12, 2012: Today, I’m honored to be tagged by Jeff Mariotte, author of more things than I can easily name. A few things he’s written include several Angel comics, the Covert Vampire Operations comic series, numerous weird western comics and stories, and several supernatural thriller novels. His Star Trek novel The Folded World will be published days before the release of Star Trek Into Darkness. Click here to read about Jeff’s next big thing: Season of the Wolf.

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Vlad the Impaler

When I shared the cover of my forthcoming novel, Dragon’s Fall: Rise of the Scarlet Order, I also shared the back cover text. The last paragraph of that text reads: “Three vampyrs, traveling the world by moonlight—one woman and two men who forge a bond made in love and blood. Together they form a band of mercenaries called the Scarlet Order, and recruit others who are like them. Their mission is to protect kings and emperors against marauders, invaders, rogue vampyrs, and their ultimate nemesis—Vlad the Impaler.”

Vlad the Impaler was more properly Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, also known as Vlad Dracula, which means Vlad, Son of the Dragon. He was Voivode of Transylvania on three separate occasions and fought to defend the Balkans from invasion by the Ottoman Empire. He earned his nickname “the Impaler” because of his reputation for impaling his enemies. Of course, Vlad Dracula achieved worldwide celebrity when he became the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s vampire Count Dracula.

Vlad Dracula is also central to the 2005 novel The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova in which the narrator traces the history of Vlad Dracula and discovers he may have been more than inspiration for Bram Stoker.

A year before the release of Kostova’s novel, I also had the idea that Vlad Dracula played a role in the development of the vampire legend. In my post Desmond, Lord Draco earlier this year, I recounted the scene from Vampires of the Scarlet Order where the vampire Mercy explains to Daniel how Desmond’s history intertwines with Vlad’s. What we learned was that Desmond fought with Vlad the Impaler.

So, how does Vlad the Impaler go from being comrade to “nemesis”? Well, that of course is part of the story Dragon’s Fall tells. But, I foreshadow some of that story in this snippet from Dragon’s Fall where Draco tells about his first meeting with Vlad. He has gone in to rescue the boy, who is being used as a puppet ruler for the Turks in the Balkans.

    I quickly scanned the room. Against the far wall was one of the short beds that were fashionable in those days. A half-asleep boy, about fifteen or sixteen years old, reclined against pillows, rubbing his eyes. As his vision adjusted to the darkness, his gaze fell on Roquelaure, just as he pushed back the red hood of his cloak. The boy opened his mouth to scream. I dashed across the room and covered his mouth with my hand.

    “Boy, we are here to rescue you from the Turks,” I whispered.

    He tried to bite my hand and smiled as I pulled it away before he drew blood. “I do not need to be rescued.” His smile turned into the cocky sneer of a teenage boy who thinks he knows everything. “I am the prince. These disreputable Turks are my servants. They do my bidding.”

    “You are a puppet,” I said. “The Turks pull your strings. If you want real power, then come with us. We’ll take you to your uncle in Moldavia, and you can rally the people to your cause. You can rise up and defeat the Turks.”

    He looked at me, then looked at the body on the floor. His eyebrows creased as though from a memory of pain. He seemed to consider something he had never considered before. “The Turks tortured me and my brother….”

    The way he said “Turks” felt like the way I may have once said “Saxons.”

    Roquelaure stepped up and knelt beside the bed. “Here you think you have power over those who brought you pain.” He looked toward the door. Like me, he knew it wouldn’t be long before Rosen retreated from the front gate and the other guard returned. “Go to your uncle and you can have revenge on the Turks.”

    The boy’s eyes flashed from Roquelaure to me.

    “How do I know I can trust you?”

    I peered deeply into Vlad Dracula’s eyes. For a moment, I felt like I was gazing at a reflection of my younger self. I quieted his mind just as I would quiet the mind of my prey. “I can give you no reason to trust me.”

    Just as I said that, the image of Vlad’s father—throat slit and bleeding out—came to my mind. I hoped the boy could not see into my mind as I could see into his. “I simply give you no choice.”

    I stood up and looked at the boy, who stared slack-jawed into the darkness of the room. He would not remain that way long. He’d soon wake and we needed to act fast. I went to the window and threw it open.

    Behind it were bars. I nodded, thinking how much the boy really was a prisoner.

    Reaching out, I grabbed the bars and pulled them apart—wide enough for the boy to slip through. Looking out, I saw Alexandra and Nabila, waiting just as planned. Roquelaure scooped him up and brought him to the window, then unceremoniously pitched him out. Alexandra caught him deftly, just as the boy began to recover his senses. Fortunately, he seemed too shocked to scream.

Not much longer to wait now for Dragon’s Fall. Remember, you can pick up a copy of Vampires of the Scarlet Order at the following sources:

Order the print edition at:

Order the E-book edition at:

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Marcella DuBois

Marcella DuBois was first introduced in the chapbook “Bat Flight South of Roswell” released by Anxiety Publications in January 2002. It was a story inspired by a visit to the UFO museum at Roswell, New Mexico. I was struck by how much stories of alien abduction resembled older tales of vampire attacks. The story was reworked extensively and became the chapter “Incident South of Roswell” that appears in Vampires of the Scarlet Order. In this montage, we see Marcella as envisioned by artists Steven Gilberts and Nick Johns:

In “Incident South of Roswell,” Christopher Garrett is taking a vacation at Carlsbad Caverns when the following happens to him:

    Outside the amphitheater, on the trail back to the parking lot, I walked along looking up at the stars. Again, a bat buzzed me. I looked in the direction it flew and wondered if it was the same one that had divebombed us back in the amphitheater. Just then, I was shoved into the mesquite bushes lining the trail. Something pinched, or more like, stabbed the side of my neck. Disoriented as I was, I thought I must have been knocked into a Spanish Dagger Bush. Someone lifted me slightly. The stabbing sensation intensified and my head began to spin. My neck wouldn’t move. I turned my eyes and caught sight of black, spiky hair framing a pale forehead.

    With an effort, I was able to turn my head and look into the unnaturally bright green eyes of a pale woman as she lifted her head from my neck. A thin line of blood trickled down her delicate chin. She gazed into my eyes and I began to feel numb. The woman opened her mouth to speak, revealing a hint of a fang, when something pulled her attention away from me. I managed to turn my head away from the green-eyed woman.

Christopher has, of course, just met Marcella. His life gets even stranger when he sees what distracted her:

    Two bald, human-like creatures with pale, almost gray skin made their way through the brush like crabs scuttling across the ocean floor. Their eyes were solid black and bulged slightly glistening in the moonlight like rats’ eyes. The woman vanished and all I could feel was a strange scrabbling sensation around my chest, as though some small animal was crawling into my shirt pocket. I raised my arm to brush the animal away when one of the gray creatures leveled a weapon at me. An electric shock set my teeth rattling. My eyes rolled back and I fell asleep on the cold, hard ground.

Marcella tells the story of her origin as a vampire in the story “Pat, Marcella, and the Kid” which first appeared in Night to Dawn Magazine in 2002 and was adapted into a chapter in Vampires of the Scarlet Order.

Marcella says:

    It was early evening. A chill mist clung to the vines that hung low from the trees. I trudged through the swamp, a rude sucking pop sounding each time I lifted my feet. My body, once that of a sturdy Acadian woman was now a pitiful sight. Translucent skin barely clung to my bones. The blood in my veins was a weak rivulet that struggled, as I did, just to survive. My life as a vampire was off to a really bad start. You might even say it sucked.

    Sorry, I try not to descend into puns, but I deserve some slack. Those early days are painful to remember. The year was 1874 and I’d been in the swamp for about four months with no blood other than what I could get from the occasional snake or swamp rat. I was simply too weak to try to drink the blood of one of the many alligators that were all around me. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that the August before that dreadful night, I was a respectable schoolteacher in Bayou Sorrel, Louisiana. Late one afternoon, I’d gone to the schoolhouse to read up on things and straighten up my classroom before the students arrived for the fall. Time got away from me and it was dark by the time I got hungry and decided to head for home. As I locked the schoolhouse, I noticed a tall, thin man in a
    red smoking jacket leaned up against the building. A pencil-thin mustache framed his easy smile.

The tall thin man proves to be one of the founders of the Scarlet Order. We’ll learn more about him in the next installment.

Marcella is featured in Vampires of the Scarlet Order, available as:

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The Penny Dreadful

So-called Penny Dreadfuls were a type of short fiction publication that started in Britain during the 1830s. Each one typically contained a chapter of a serialized story. The hastily written stories were often sensational and even lurid, but they were cheap, hence the moniker they earned. Despite that, the Penny Dreadfuls appeared during a time of rising literacy in Britain and being popular fiction probably helped contribute to that literacy.

One of most famous Penny Dreadful series was Varney the Vampire.

It’s not entirely clear who wrote the serial. The chapters were published anonymously, but most often, they are attributed to either James Malcolm Rymer or Thomas Preskett Prest. Rymer and Prest are also the likely authors of A String of Pearls: A Romance, the Penny Dreadful series that introduced Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. One might be tempted to believe the anonymity is the result of some shame on the part of the authors. I think that’s a misunderstanding of the period. At the time of the Penny Dreadfuls, authors did not “own” their stories or characters like modern authors. These were simply works made for hire and the “brand” was the title.

What makes Varney the Vampire interesting is that it was the first story to introduce many of the familiar vampire tropes. Sir Francis Varney was the first vampire with superhuman strength and the first vampire to mesmerize his victims. He left two puncture wounds on the victim’s neck and, in fact, he’s the first vampire to appear at the window of helpless young lady’s boudoir. He was also, arguably, the first sympathetic vampire. There is one interesting feature of vampires in this story that I haven’t seen explored elsewhere. Although Varney heals from horrible wounds, he needs the light of the full moon to do so. This would be something fun to explore in a story.

If you’re curious about Varney the Vampire you can download the first half of it for free, with or without the original illustrations, at Project Gutenberg.

I’ve always liked the idea of cheap, serialized fiction. It’s a great way to keep people engaged with a story over time. It strikes me that the Penny Dreadful could make a resurgence on the internet.

Dragon's Fall: Bondage
Dragon's Fall: The Dragon's Quest

The vampires in Dragon’s Fall explore and twist many of the tropes introduced by the author of Varney the Vampire. Beyond that, I see Dragon’s Fall as a successor to Varney the Vampire in the sense that it was designed to be inexpensive, serialized fiction. Of course, each installment that’s been published costs a little more than a penny and I hope you don’t find them “dreadful!” Nevertheless, reading the first two installments is a good way to sample the novel and get a taste of the work as a whole.

To buy part one of Dragon’s Fall visit:
http://www.amazon.com/Bondage-Dragons-Fall-ebook/dp/B004HILXKC/

To buy part two of Dragon’s Fall visit:
http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Quest-Fall-ebook/dp/B005DLNWTC/

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What Is a Vrykolakas?

My story, “The Vrykolakas and the Cobbler’s Wife” is scheduled to be released in issue 66 of Cemetery Dance.. So you may find yourself wondering exactly what a vrykolakas is.

Here’s an explanation from Montague Summers’ The Vampire in Europe:

    It must be borne in mind that in actual usage of all Slavonic languages save one, the vrykolakas is the exact equivalent of the English werewolf, and it seems certain that the Greeks originally borrowed the name in this sense, whence it passed by an easy transition to the meaning “vampire,” since there is a general belief among Slavonic peoples that a man who has been a werewolf in his life will be a vampire after death.

A little later, Summers writes:

    Hanush records that he was plainly told by a Greek of Mytilene that there were two species of vrykolakas, the one kind being men already dead, and the other individuals who were yet alive but who were subject to mysterious trances or somnambulism and were seen abroad at night particularly when the moon was at its full.

In essence, this is the explanation I give in my story for a vrykolakas. If you survive a vrykolakas attack, you become a werewolf. If you die from the attack, you become a vampire — or by extension, if you die after becoming a werewolf, you’ll become a vampire.

I didn’t intend “The Vrykolakas and the Cobbler’s Wife” to be part of the Scarlet Order canon when I wrote the story, but on reflection, I think the story actually fits in with the Scarlet Order stories.

In my world, vampires are shapeshifters and some vampires can shift into wolf form. In the story “The Vrykolakas and the Cobbler’s Wife” all the vampire/werewolf action happens “off-camera” — I think it’s scarier that way. In the Scarlet Order world, it seems likely people who saw a shape-shifting vampire would call it a werewolf.

Even if that explanation isn’t completely satisfactory, there’s another point to consider. In my books and stories, vampires were created by a well-meaning alien race that began tampering with humans on a cellular level. I have never directly addressed the issue of lycanthropy in the Scarlet Order stories, but I do have stories that suggest this tampering could have happened more than once. There’s no reason there couldn’t be werewolves in the Scarlet Order universe and no reason that such werewolves couldn’t turn into vampires after the infected human died.

If you’d like to check out “The Vrykolakas and the Cobbler’s Wife,” you can order it at: http://www.cemeterydance.com/page/CDP/PROD/_cd066

You can pick up a copy of Vampires of the Scarlet Order at: Amazon.com. The book is also available as a Nook Book at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vampires-of-the-scarlet-order-david-lee-summers/1013538009?ean=9780975453360

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Who exactly is D.L. Summers?

Before I answer the title question, I want to take the opportunity to apologize. It’s been far too long since I’ve posted anything here. Some of that has simply been a lack of news about my vampire stories and books. Some of that was a hectic 2011 in which my wife underwent a battle with breast cancer — and by all accounts she won the war. Some of it has been working with the owners of Lachesis Publishing and Sinful Moments Press evaluating the best way to release and market my second vampire novel, Dragon’s Fall. This last point brings us right back to the title question.

If you have visited this blog at any point in the last year or so, I don’t think there’s any mystery that D.L. is short for David Lee. Over the last decade I have written a vampire novel and numerous vampire short stories under the name “David Lee Summers.” I have also written four science fiction novels and one steampunk novel under that name. Although all of the novels are written for an adult audience, one of the science fiction novels and the steampunk novel are also suitable for young adult audiences. However, Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Dragon’s Fall are not intended for younger readers at all.

Another consideration was that both Vampires of the Scarlet Order and Dragon’s Fall are written in the form of journal entries, a form I adopted as an homage to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Some of the journal entries are written by men, some by women — again the same as Stoker. I grew to like the idea of leaving my gender ambiguous, so readers wouldn’t hear a man’s voice reading the journal entries ostensibly written by women.

Three years ago when I negotiated my contract for Dragon’s Fall, I raised these issues with my publisher. She agreed they were both valid points and we decided to release Dragon’s Fall under the name D.L. Summers.

The problem that both my publisher and I should have realized is that anyone looking for a “David Lee Summers” vampire story or novel, is unlikely to find a “D.L. Summers” vampire story. Also, as time went on, I began to realize that I had over thought the whole issue of younger people getting the books for adults. As I mentioned earlier, all of my books are for adults. It just so happens that younger people can also read an enjoy two of the others.

Now, in the period since the contract was negotiated, the publishing company has gone through some management changes. In discussions with the management, we decided two things. First, instead of bringing Dragon’s Fall out as a five-novella series, we’d bring the whole novel out at once. Second, we’d bring the novel out under the name “David Lee Summers”.

Christopher Lee

Montague Summers

It feels good to be back as “David Lee Summers”. Not only is it my given name, I’ve always liked the way it plays homage to two of the greats in the history of vampire lore — Christopher Lee and Montague Summers. Of course, Christopher Lee played Dracula in many of the great Hammer films. Montague Summers wrote extensively about vampires around the turn of the 20th century.

So what will happen to this blog? Well D.L. Summers is still me and I figure this is as good a place as any to talk about things of interest to vampire lovers. So it’ll stick around for the time being. I plan to post more regularly — look for Sunday afternoon posts in the coming month. Remember, I also have a page for my vampire stories on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Scarlet-Order-Vampires/159599227447475.

Finally, for those who don’t want to wait to start Dragon’s Fall, the first two novellas are still out in ebook — under the name D.L. Summers. Here are links to where you can pick up the novellas:

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Dragon’s Fall 1 & 2 Now on Kindle

The first two books of the Dragon’s Fall series are now available for your Kindle.

Dragon's Fall: Bondage
Dragon's Fall: The Dragon's Quest

Dragon’s Fall: Bondage is at http://www.amazon.com/Bondage-Dragons-Fall-ebook/dp/B004HILXKC/.

Dragon’s Fall: The Dragon’s Quest is at http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Quest-Fall-ebook/dp/B005DLNWTC/.

This just makes one more place you can dive in and learn about the origin of the Scarlet Order vampires!