After reviewing Thomas Emson's novel Skarlet last month (you can read the review here), I asked Emson if he wouldn't mind an interview. Luckily, he agreed and has been most gracious in answering my questions.
After reading Skarlet and reading the excerpt from Maneater, I was struck by what might be a shared world in your novels. As a roleplayer, I was exposed to the "World of Darkness" setting from a company called White Wolf back in the 1990s which had a similar approach to a shared setting for a variety of creatures from the dark. The first two series of game books they published were for vampires and werewolves, which is why the parallels struck me. Have you considered doing crossovers between your own series? Or do you consider them to be linked?
I don't think I would do a crossover - I can't see Laura Greenacre doing battle with Kasdeja and Kakash. I regard the novels to be linked in so far as they take place in real settings. Both Maneater and Skarlet exist in a modern Britain that is real. There are scenes in both books which take place in London, the same London, but there would be no reference in one novel to the other. What I try to do is put very unreal monsters into a very real world and see what happens. I don't want the characters in my real world to be comfortable with monsters, I don't want them to know they exist and then make an effort to live with them - having vampires and werewolves appear on your street would be utterly shocking and unexpected.
In addition, I'm quite fascinated by the resurgence of urban fantasy these days in the fiction market. I'm an avid reader of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, another author who mixes magic and the supernatural worlds to create a compelling setting. Do you have plans to expand beyond your The Vampire Trinity and Maneater series? If so, what might be on the horizon for your fans?
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