Meet KALAYNA PRICE author of ONCE BITTEN

Bell Bridge Books published our long-awaited first adult dark fantasy title this month-- ONCE BITTEN. We think the book is fabulous, of course. But we also think the author is special, too, and wanted you to have a chance to meet her. Help us welcome, Kalayna Price! (BTW, you might be interested to know this novel began life as a National Novel Writing Month book--NaNoWriMo.)

  Hi everyone, and thank you Debra for inviting me to the blog today.

When you tell people you write, there are a couple questions that are almost inevitable. One of the big ones is “Where do you get your ideas.” This is a tricky question, and there is no good answer for it, but since my first book, ONCE BITTEN, recently hit bookstores, I thought I’d try to explain some of the thoughts that went into birthing the book.

I wrote the first draft of Once Bitten in the winter of 2005, and at that time, the sub-genre of Urban Fantasy was just taking off. I loved the sassy, kick-ass heroines, the scary (but many times alluring) paranormal creatures, and the way the books kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole read. I knew I had to write one—I just wasn’t sure about what.

I have a deep fascination with vampires (founded most likely when I read Dracula at age ten) so I wanted a story including the undead. But, not just vampires—I wanted a world filled with the things that go bump in the night: mages, demons, shapeshifters . . . It was when I was thinking about the disproportional amount of werewolves to werecats in fiction that story ideas really started clicking into place. I’m not sure why wolves are the popular lycanthrope creature. Wolves howl in the night, which admittedly adds a level of creepy, especially if you think you are the prey, but isn’t the silent predator—the lion hiding in the Savannah grass, the jaguar stalking from a tree—much creepier? Plus, cats have not only sharp teeth, but claws too. All and all, a big cat sounds like a pretty impressive creature to transform into.

This line of thought led me into my initial world building for Once Bitten, and to my main character, Kita. But, while I wanted Kita’s line to include these impressive big cats, I decided Kita should be something at odds with her world. Something small. Something less dangerous.

A house cat.

I once saw a video of a cat chasing a bear up a tree. Attitude—the average house cat has it in abundance. When I watch my cats, I know there is a part of them that has never been fully domesticated. There is still a bit of the wild in them, a staunch independence, and more than a drop of defiance. I incorporated these traits into Kita, and then loaded her with things her human side had to deal with, like responsibility and living up to other’s expectations. In the beginning of the book, Kita has run from all of her responsibilities, leaving her kind and her clan behind. But, as so often happens, responsibility catches up with her and brings a friend—trouble, and lots of it in the form of an overly curious vampire, hunters on her trail, and demons after her soul.

Writers spend a lot of time asking “What if?” What if your house cat could shapeshift? What if she was pretending to be a pet only because she was on the run from hunters? What if there were worse things than hunters after her? What if they caught her?

I had a lot of fun coming up with Kita and the world she lives in, and I hope people enjoy reading about her as much as I enjoyed writing about her!