Penguin.com (usa)

Dear Reader:

I've always been a fan of historical romances, including Jane Austen's wonderful Pride and Prejudice, but at the same time I find myself intrigued by contemporary characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sydney Bristow of Alias.

Buffy and Sydney have it hard enough balancing their double lives in 20th-century America, but what would it have been like for them if they'd lived a century earlier—during a time when a woman was always chaperoned, could never go out alone at night, and whose main goal in life was to get married?

That was how I got the idea for "The Gardella Vampire Chronicles". It's a series about Victoria Gardella Grantworth, who, just before she is about to debut into 19th-century London Society, learns that she comes from a long line of vampire hunters.

Not only does she have to find a place to hide her stake, but she's got to figure out how to get out at night to stalk vampires in between pouring tea and filling her dance card—not to mention handle the inquisitive Marquess of Rockley, who's asking too many questions, stave off the mysterious Sebastian Vioget and determine whether he's friend or foe—and work with the arrogant Max Pesaro, who thinks women have no business being vampire hunters.

—Colleen Gleason