Sucker Bet

Author Q&A

A Letter from Erin McCarthy

Dear Reader,

I hope you’ll join me for one last trip to Sin City with the fourth and final book in my Vegas Vampire series, Sucker Bet, where the vampire presidential election may be over but dirty politics is never out of style. Gwenna Carrick moved to Vegas to breathe a little life into her undead existence, but her brother and ex-husband, President and Vice-President respectively, would prefer to see her sitting at home sewing, playing the harp, and living to please them.

That’s just so thirteenth century, and instead of painting quite the passive picture they would like her to, Gwenna has worked to infiltrate an online slayer’s group with the intention of preventing a large-scale attack on Vegas vampires. Instead, the slayers themselves start turning up dead, and Gwenna finds herself being questioned about her potential involvement by one sexy and very mortal cop, Nate Thomas.

Maybe having an affair in the middle of an undead crisis isn’t the most logical thing Gwenna has ever done, but after nine hundred years she’s finally found her inner sexy, and she intends to embrace it enthusiastically. Only slayers don’t stop killing and ex-husbands don’t suddenly become willing to retreat, and all bets are off as Gwenna and Nate pick through the pieces of a vampire puzzle that could affect the Nation for eternity.

When I wrote the first book in the series, High Stakes, Gwenna Carrick appeared without warning at Ethan’s wedding to Alexis, and I knew I would have to write a happily ever after for her. Any woman who has put up with obnoxious Roberto Donatelli as a meddling ex-husband for three hundred years (300 years!) deserves a strong man to watch her back. And massage it, while he’s at it. Gwenna definitely hits the jackpot with Nate.

It’s hard for me to pack up my bags and leave Vegas but I hope the series has given you plenty of laughs along the way, as well as a sigh or two as the characters found their eternal soul mates. I also couldn’t resist tying up one last loose end… remember Sasha, the mortal wife of the crazy Russian vampire Chechikov? Look for her story, “Russian Roulette,” in the anthology First Blood (August 08).

Happy Reading,
Erin McCarthy