Guest Author Natasha Larry talks about DARWIN'S CHILDREN

I am excited to PREMIERE the launch of Gary Starta's Writers' blog - a forum for novelists... I am guest hosting author NATASHA LARRY who paints a vivid picture of both creating her characters and bringing them to the page. Hope you enjoy it! The Glass Room I started writing Darwin’s Children after a two-year stretch of writer’s block. At times I would start to write what was originally intended for an adult audience, but all I had was my passion for the topic and a list of characters that were too hard to write. I almost gave up on my writing at the time until I had a very disturbing daydream. I was sipping coffee in my living room when suddenly; I saw a large glass room filling up slowly with dark smoke. As the smoke dissipated, I could see a man pleading with a beautiful young girl, who had one hand placed on the other side of the glass, staring inside, with her emerald green eyes. Then I saw a lithe, ivory figure with violet-blue eyes that clearly weren’t human, grab the man as he pleaded for his life. Her fangs extended as she bit into his neck viciously, and I knew that this was the vampire Sasha Gray. Here is the prologue that sparked a series of books. From the other side of the glass, Mason Lerner watched Haylee Mitchell circle the monster like an aerial hunter while Sasha Gray stood like a statue, waiting. The revulsion Haylee felt was visible in the air around her. Mason had to stop himself from going in there and killing the man himself – his perverted and cowardly thoughts were sickening. Mason watched Haylee’s mouth move. Her eyes were cold and unforgiving. She leaned over the man who’d stolen her very soul and whispered something that filled his face and thoughts with terror. Then silence filled the room. Mason could tell that Haylee had said everything she needed to say. He stuck his head in and met her eyes. There was something there he couldn’t place ... something that worried him. “Haylee,” he entreated, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. “I don’t think...” Haylee glared him to silence. He already knew she wanted to be there in the room when it happened. He hesitated until he saw the need in her mind. She had to do this her way. It was her battle to fight. He nodded to Sasha Gray and retreated from the room, closing the door behind her. He watched her move with an unsettling grace, like an undead ballerina preparing for the hunt. Her alien blue eyes flashed with thirst. Sasha gave Haylee one last questioning look. Haylee nodded, and Sasha went to her victim. It looked as if the vampire was simply giving him an intimate kiss, but Mason could hear her razor-sharp teeth ripping the flesh away from his neck. Mason had deliberately shut himself off from the man’s mind, but he could still see the utter agony in his eyes. Being burned alive by his own daughter would have been a serene death compared to this. Mason knew the pain accompanying a vampire’s bite was so incomprehensible that the living world held no equivalent to it. No one had even given voice to it. It was the physical equivalent to Haylee’s internal pain. Possibly even worse. The man’s face twisted in agony and, despite his psychic defense, Mason still heard a whisper of the scream inside his head that never escaped his lips. His body offered no relief. The pain was trapped inside. He couldn’t go into shock or pass out. He felt every ounce of his blood being sucked out of him. His organs gave out, one by one, and he quickly went mad from the pain. The dying man looked up at Haylee smiling down at him sadistically. As his body fell to the floor with a dull thud, he finally understood Haylee’s pain. His body was drained, and his life was over. So, I had to work backwards because I knew this was my book. I wrote the first book of Darwin’s Children, trying to explain the glass room. Within ten minutes I worked out that the reader wanted to watch him die, and as soon as I knew that, I knew how it would unfold. From then on, this has been the most fulfilling body of work I’ve ever written. The characters: Jaycie and Mason Lerner, Allison Young, John Gramm and Haylee Mitchell were so easy to write that it felt like I literally, put no thought into it. My experience writing this series has been indescribable and I hope readers come to love this world at least half as much as I do. I’ll leave you with insight from one of the five characters I listed above, because his insight describes the world his family lives in better than I can. John Gramm theorizes that, as the supernatural world increases in strength and number, the human race will, out of necessity grow more powerful with it. He also believes that the key to this change stems from the amygdala because “it is the heart of the human brain.” I hope readers find Darwin’s Children surprisingly original, and thank you again for having me here!