Introducing Billi SanGreal

Okay, some of you will have already met Billi, but this is for those in the US who have as yet not had the opportunity to meet her in Dark Goddess, since it comes out on the 25th.
For those of you unfamiliar (sign, there are such people in the world) with Billi, let me give you a few details.
1. She's fifteen and has had a unique unbringing. Her home-schooling program includes swordfighting, unarmed combat and occult lore.
2. Her favourite things are her 160GB Classic iPod, hanging out with friends, and kicking Unholy ass. She specializes in fallen angels and werewolves.
3. You do not want to be romantically involved with her. She has a fatal effect on boyfriends.
4. She will be taking ass-kicking to whole new levels in Dark Goddess.
5. In the new book she meets a Russian prince, Ivan Alexeivich Romanov (who should have paid more attention to item 3).
6. Her father, Arthur, was tried for the murder of Billi's mother. He's an ex-Royal Marine and just this side of psycho. He falls under the title of 'Very Bad Parent Indeed'. He's the one mortal the Devil himself fears.
7. Billi's a lot like her father.
Devil's Kiss was set in London, my home city. It was the perfect setting for the first book, grim, ancient, gothic. But I didn't want to repeat myself in book 2 so the action moves to Russia, to Moscow. Now that's a damn awesome city in it's own right. Very different to London, which is a walkable city. Moscow is MASSIVE. Monolithic and gloriously imperial. If Devil's Kiss was urban fantasy, Dark Goddess is my dark fairy tale. It's my Red Riding Hood myth. That's why Billi wars the red on the cover. She's the red the wolves should be afraid of.
Now, don't believe it's all about swordfighting and extreme violence! I have to tell you about the new boy in Billi's life, Tsarevich Ivan Alexeivich Romanov. Grey-eyed, elegant, cultured and extremely deadly he's heir to the Romanov throne and an exceptional warrior in his own right. Billi and he could do great things, if they don't kill one another first.
I'm madly excited about Dark Goddess. Billi's a changed girl from Devil's Kiss and her relationships in a mess, she's torn up by what happened, by what she did. But the stakes are higher than ever. An ancient evil has awoken, a goddess that has been feared by mankind since he lived in the caves. I'll tell you about her later...

The themes in Dark Goddess, love's legacy

As those of you who read Devil's Kiss will know, Billi suffered the loss of a loved one. I wanted to make sure such an event had deep resonance within Dark Goddess and looked at how Billi would cope.
It made me think hope any of us will cope. Sooner or later, we all suffer the loss of someone we loved. There are no easy answers to why they went, whether it was fair or all part of some divine plan. We try and make sense of their lives and how they touched and made us who we are today. What legacy does the loved one leave behind?
Is it in our nature to take love for granted? That we expect it from those around us who we share our lives?Only to realise what it meant when it's gone?
Billi has a poor role-model in Arthur. A man who could not cope with the loss of his wife so retreated from the world, built tall walls to keep the pain outside, but alas, left his daughter outside those walls too.
Billi has the legacy from him and the one she loved. I think I've made it clear who I believe is the greater hero. Arthur is strong, fierce and undefeatable. But the other was in touch with the world around him, more than he wanted perhaps, but was the greater hero because of it. What's been the best aspect of Dark Goddess is seeing how these two legacies play out in Billi's soul.
Such legacies are subtle at times. We do things unconciously, act on ideas and attitudes absorbed into our hearts from those hearts that once envolved and embraced us. Love wounds us most terribly, but they are the only wounds worth having.