In my last blog, I promised to tell you about Drake, one of my characters in Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny,
the book coming out on April 30, 2011 from Black Opal Books.
Drake’s one of my favorite characters. He a weretiger and the local pride leader in England. I created Drake from an Amur, or Siberian yellow tiger I saw at a zoo, and combined him with the leader of one of the teams my team occasionally worked with in Mexico. This guy, whom I’ll call Darrel, was something else. He was more than just gorgeous. On a scale of 1 to 10, he was easily a 12. He was tall—probably 6’5” or 6’6”—had rippling muscles, dark-blond hair that hung to his shoulders, and marvelous jade green eyes that seem to look right through you to your soul. To this day, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more beautiful man, at least physically, than Darrel. And he radiated a kind of male sexiness that, if it isn’t legal, it damn well should be. He was just too perfect to exist, if you know what I mean. This is the photo I’ve chosen to represent Drake. Unfortunately, I can show you one of Darrel, since I promised not to. Sorry.
When I decided to make Darrel a weretiger, it seemed only fair to combine him with an Amur tiger I saw in a third world zoo. This tiger was massive and rippling with muscles, like Darrel, but he was wonderfully scruffy. His fur was disheveled. He had mud on his paw and on one side of his butt. And he didn’t seem to care. He was lazy and appeared perfectly happy to look like a rag-a-muffin. My friend and I were at the zoo in the early evening and got to see the tiger get his supper. When they dumped the meat in the cage, he yawned and stretched, got up, laid back down, got up again and wandered over to the meat. Then rolled in it! I’m not kidding. He sniffed it then laid on it and rolled. After which, of course, he looked scruffier than ever.
I don’t have any pictures of the actual tiger, but these will give you an idea of what he looked like.
I thought combining this Amur with Darrel was poetic justice since most of us can’t look as good Darrel even on our best days. And Drake turned out to be a great character. He’s not really scruffy, he just not all that concerned about his looks. As the leader of the local weretiger pride in England, the unmated weretiger pride leader, he’s been demanding his own book. So I’m curious to see who I’ll come up with for a mate for him. If any of you would like to volunteer, just send me a bio.Visit my website: http://www.pepperoneal.com
Learn more about Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at: http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/
Read an excerpt of Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny at:
http://pepperoneal.com/blood-fest-series/excerpt-chasing-destiny/
Check out Sherry’s Duty Calls as well as other Black Opal Books publications at:
http://www.blackopalbooks.com
Pepper, Best wishes with your new book and thank you for sharing another set of fascinating characters, stories and background in your new book Blood Fest: Chasing Destiny ~ out on April 30th from Black Opal Books
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