Evelyn M. Byrne: How I Fell in Love with Werewolves

Today I have the privileged of having best selling author Rebecca York tell us just how she fell in love with werewolves.

Rebecca has written over 125 books and novellas in her career. Not alone does Rebecca write some great paranormal romances and mysteries, she also has some fabulous cookbooks published under her real name of Ruth Glick.

Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us how your werewolves came to be.

As a teenager, I read fantasy and science fiction. In fact, I didn’t know the romance genre existed. One book that grabbed me was DARKER THAN YOU THINK, by Jack Williamson. It was about a man awakening to his werewolf powers–with the help of a sexy werewolf woman--and I loved it. In fact, it made me want to BE a werewolf.

Later I read and loved another werewolf book, THE WOLF’S HOUR, by Robert McCammon.

Both those books stuck with me for years, and I wanted to write a werewolf book of my own. But when I started thinking about the story that became KILLING MOON, paranormal was very much out. Still I started planning a werewolf detective who used his wolf senses to solve crimes. Even though I doubted I could sell the story, it simply wouldn't let me go. Finally a good friend told me in her blunt way that she was tired of hearing me talk about the idea. So I should either write it or shut up. I accepted the challenge and started working on a synopsis of the story.

There were many different directions in which I could have taken the book, but I stuck with the genre I’d come to love, romantic suspense. I was pretty sure that to sell single-title paranormal romantic suspense, I'd have to write the whole book, not just do a proposal. So I worked on KILLING MOON around my Harlequin Intrigue schedule. Cindy Hwang at Berkley, loved the story and asked me for more werewolf books. That's how I found myself with a werewolf series that I hadn't planned for.

In addition to the nine Moon books, there are two novellas--“Burning Moon,” published in an anthology called CRAVINGS, with Laurell K. Hamilton, and “Huntress Moon,” in the anthology, ELEMENTAL MAGIC.

In the first few books, I stuck with this universe. But I wanted to expand the type of stories I could write. “Huntress Moon” introduced an alternate time line, running parallel to our own. Until 1893, the history was the same. But in the other universe, a man came to the Chicago World’s Fair and claimed he could give people psychic powers. In that United States, it was true. Many people emerged from his tent with new mental abilities. The psychics and the non-psychics fought great battles that destroyed civilization. In that time line, all technology has been wiped out, and people live in city states for protection. Psychic abilities replace machinery, and special schools are set up to help talented children develop their psychic abilities.

I’ve written several Moon books, starting with NEW MOON, where characters go back and forth between these two worlds. My next werewolf story is in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF HOT ROMANCE, which will be out in August. It’s about a woman and a werewolf caught in the terrorist attack on an isolated resort. Currently, I’m working on a werewolf story, DARK OF THE MOON, that will either be a novella or a short novel.

Available Now

Killing Moon (The Moon Series, Book 1)