Here is some of the feedback so far.
Negative feedback has not been ignored, there simply hasn’t been any so far.  If you would like to leave feedback about the book you can do so by emailing creature.author@gmail.com

V. Vayne via Amazon.com:

I was a little dubious about reading yet another book about vampires and werewolves…I wondered whether it was possible to read something new in this genre. But I am so glad that I opened this book and started reading. It IS different. It IS a new and refreshing take on the vampire/werewolf genre.

For me, there is nothing worse than feeling you know where the plot is leading so this novel didn’t disappoint…there were enough twists, turns and surprises to keep me intrigued and wanting to keep reading.
I loved the way it was written – dark, mysterious, somehow with not only a feeling of old but a modern feel too.
The main character, Constance, is a very interesting character and I found myself caring about her very much…I loved the way that who/what she is emerges slowly throughout the book.
I don’t want to give anything away (as I myself hate having preconceived ideas before reading a book) but I will say that this novel has so many levels – it has emotion, it can be unsettling and disturbing at times, there are exiting and `on the edge of your seat’ moments, and there is a depth to it that somehow comments on humanity….I felt that there was an underlying message and that as a reader we can take that or leave it, I didn’t feel that it was forced on me in any way. This novel, to me, is more than a story (but what a great story it is!).
I found myself hungering for more when I finished this novel…a sign of a good book indeed!

D. Hollywood via email:

NB:  Ms Hollywood swapped a copy of the novel for some of her “Urban Angels” amazing artwork.  Originally swapped for Angel of Piece, Ms Hollywood also included Angel of Dreams:  

I have posted your angel today.  I love your book so much I have given you another one.  It really means a lot to me this particular image it’s called Angel of Dreams.  As someone who can dream up such a great book I thought you should have it.  I only have 30 pages to go on your book and I am so sad I don’t want to leave the world you have created. You will have to get on and write another one soon.

L. Stanney via email:

I hope you dont mind the below but I just really wanna let ya know why I liked ya book.

Ok so just finished it!  I must say you have a really fresh theme to the book.  I must have read about 20 different authors of vampire books and they all have linking factors, the stories will have a few new ideas but are all based on the same concepts.  I really liked that yours followed a completely different view.  The first thing I commented on to my husband was after the first few chapters there seemed to be a lot of action happening and not much description- which is something I like, one thing that winds me up is , yes,  I like to get a feel for the places but sometimes the authors will give you the equivalent of 10 pages of describing the same place!  I appreciate it sets scene but its like “stop trying to fluff it up to make the book longer” which is what it feels like they’re doing.   How many words can i use to describe how this character is feeling. This to me never makes sense as for most books these creatures are detached from their emotions and yet they are describing how they feel more than I, a human does.  I LOVED the way that I felt like you wrote the book as Connie, not only through her eyes but through her perception and sometimes lack of feeling.  I’ve never had that from a book before from a character like yours, it was so refreshing.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me its not the first and only?  I’d love to read another!

Read the first few pages of chapter 1: About the Nature of the Dreams…

I did not think this story would start here, back once more, at the beginning. 

The hotel room was comfortable but sparse.  The window overlooked St Mary Redcliffe, lights played tantalisingly on the seemingly ancient stones in the pitch black.  An almost unnatural darkness thanks to the winter gloom in the night sky.  It had been a short walk from the train station to the hotel and that had been ideal.  I did not want to trek all over the city before being prepared to do so, I could only imagine how much it might differ from the last time I had been here.  As the cold night drew further in, I wondered quite what I was doing in Bristol at all, and what had called me back.  Because something most definitely had called me back, there was no mistaking that.  It had been many years since I was last in this city, and with a big world ahead of me I had planned on never returning.  But now there was something I had not felt before, a sort of tingle at the edge of my senses that had grown stronger, worse.  The first night my dreams had ceased to be nightmares, and thoughts had entered my head of leaving Egypt and returning to England.

I shook the thoughts from my mind and approached the large mirror on the bedroom door.  I certainly looked different to when I had last been here.  My hair had not grown, it fell in loose wavy curls around my shoulders and my face seemed the same.  But my eyes had aged, the deep brown seeming darker by the day, and my build was slighter.  I had never been heavy set, but I had had flesh on my bones, now there was just muscle, the fat had all gone.  It would have been easy for me to look underweight and undernourished if not for my natural athletic build, that even over time had helped me look more human.
Looking in the mirror I saw a sudden flash of my past.  My mother had the same eyes, hers were never as dark, but there was still the same look in them, a hint of sorrow that would never completely fade.  I shuddered and looked away from my reflection.  I knew I would see ghosts of my past everywhere in this city, it was part of the reason I had stayed away for so long.  I knew if I looked back now my mother would still be looking at me through my eyes, and I would remember why that sorrow was there.  I had watched them grow weary of this life, watched them grow older and die younger than they should.  These thoughts haunted me more here than any other place I had lived.
A distant anger kept me from looking back to the mirror as I emptied the few contents of my bag onto the bed.  A few clothes and essentials, and the one thing I took everywhere – an old and discoloured picture of my parents.  But I found I did not want to look at it any more than I wanted to look back to the mirror.  I did not want to have to see her eyes, that unsettled feeling I found myself too often fighting bubbled up inside of me and I cursed the dreams that plagued me.

There really was no reason why that day, almost two months before, should have been different than any other day from my past.  Since childhood I had been plagued with nightmares, sometimes coming night upon night.  It was often the case that I awoke with my mind in turmoil.  That night it was almost the same dream I always had, except this time there was something else.  Something happened that never had before and somehow it made the dream less bleak than usual, less of a nightmare.

I saw the man’s face.

The vision had always been the same, I was chained naked in the middle of a room.  It seemed to me to be everything I had imagined hell to be – not proverbial, but a raw, naked, fiery hell.  Metaphorical or real that is where I spend my dreams.
I was surrounded by tormentors who would lash at my body with whips for no reason other than to punish me for something I could not change.  The whips always cut deep through my flesh – that white-hot pain and then stinging and then numbness, sometimes so real I woke aching.  I would plead, I would try to reason, I would try my utmost to escape, but my strength… all that strength I had was useless and I was always held fast in the chains.  These dreams had always wrenched my mind apart and left me waking in agony and sweat, reeling from the anguish and insanity that came of torture.
For some years there had been something different – on occasion a man would arrive.  My assailants would retreat from the room and at his touch the chains would melt away.  I would drop to my knees in sobs of thanks as the relief washed over me, and he would place his hand upon my head and say “I am here, I am your salvation”.
I had once believed that dreams were a message from god, all those years back when I was almost innocent and thought I believed, but not now, now that all my faith had gone.  I had ceased analysing them and instead accepted them as my lot.  In my waking hours they would sometimes play on my mind, the last reminders of the days of my innocent past.  Maybe it was right what the Sisters had told me, I was cursed and I should repent to save my soul, but they never really understood that it was never my choice.  Either way, repenting would likely have done little to help me.
But this time it was different, I felt different.  For the first time in an age, this small and yet significant change set a fire through me.  Perhaps it was the insanity that came with them, but I reasoned that the difference in the dreams had to mean something.  Seeing for the first time his face, as I looked up blinking away the tears, the face of my salvation.  After all these years it somehow lifted my heart to see it, as though there actually could be some sort of deliverance; a strange feeling when I was asleep, and a totally alien one when I was awake.
That night I had finally rolled my shattered body and mind from my bed into my beige room and went to the window.  I could see the silver moon, over half full, shining through the curtains and the street below.  I remembered that first different dream now and the strangeness of the Cairo street that I had looked out into.  Why had I expected it to be Bristol when I looked outside?  That question came back to me again and again over such a short amount of time that it became clear, as the tingling at the edge of my senses increased, I needed to return to England.
And even so I had not done it immediately.  For weeks I was torn between the life I had made myself and the thing that was drawing me back.  The intangible thing that finally took hold of me and brought me back across the world.
Looking out the window in the hotel, a darker, colder scene confronted me.  The heat of the African Continent that I was grateful of was now gone, along with its colours and fragrances, and had been replaced by hard grey stone and the high ringing cry of gulls.  It was Bristol as I had always remembered it to be, drab and cold, the same as it had been when I left it over a century before.  Finally I pulled myself from the uneventful scene below to the shower.

***

I grabbed my jacket and left the hotel room to walk the dark streets.  Walking along the river I considered that a century ago this had been one of the most industrial parts of town, now it was a modern metropolis.  Life had moved on, evolved.  This city had been my home.  I remembered it so clearly – the facades had hardly changed, if anything they were better than new.  As with many things the greater changes were all on the inside.
The cold night air was biting and fresh, as it always was in an English winter.  It was something that I could never miss.  I had lived in other cold places, experienced winters colder than any in Bristol and yet somehow it seemed colder at that moment.  Maybe it was the greyness of the surroundings or perhaps the chilling memories.  I kept walking, with each step recalling more of the dream, and the feelings disturbing and thankfully brief, that accompanied it.
I had followed the river and diverged up towards the Downs, strolling absently through the streets of Clifton before wandering back towards the city, only the changing sky hinting at the passing of time.
Finally, I was standing in front of that beautiful town house where I had once lived, where I had spent my childhood years with my parents.  Much of it had even been happy.  As with the rest of the city, the façades around this area had not changed a great deal, and hauntingly the windows were hung with thick beautiful curtains similar to those of my parents.  Above the solid front door hung an ornate sign reading ‘Winslow Art Gallery’.  I peered in through the window and saw row upon row of cards and wrapping paper of a small gift shop, not the familiar front rooms – the sitting room and my father’s study in the perfect place to catch the afternoon light.
Winslow.  I rolled the word over in my mouth, tasting it to see if it really fit.  It was a nice, clean word, but it was not home, after all my parents had not lived there for a long time.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my ineffectual jacket, turned my collar up against the cold wind and started to walk slowly back to the hotel.  I had not planned to end up there when I had left the hotel, but it soon became obvious that I must.  Even so this evening had not been what I had expected.
I was not sure exactly what I had expected.  More.  Something definite – a glowing neon sign saying ‘Connie, this is why you are here’.  So far all I had encountered was resurfaced memories I had managed not to consider for a very long time.  There were no answers, and really I knew that there was no way it could be that easy.

***

Drunks staggered from the pubs and found taxi’s to pile into, shouting their lewd off-colour comments and trying to remain upright.  It was the same old Bristol, exactly the same; there was no glorious past, not really.  None of that golden age nonsense.  Even in the past the upper-classes pretended that nothing untoward ever went on, even amongst themselves.  There had always been the same bad element here, anywhere and everywhere.  It had been here on these streets that I had for the first time truly realised what humanity was.  It was not some sort of higher feeling of morals and ethics and the want to help others – that was not really the essence of a human being.  Even all the innocent, those free of curses in their lives still were not moral, no matter where you go people are all the same.  The cities and towns and villages, anywhere the people gather, they have their ‘bad element of society’.  What is that if not really the true nature of humans, if not their humanity… you can change the colour, the language, the culture, but they are all the same, it is still inside them.  As is the will and hypocrisy to hide it.  It left me at a loss to understand humans.
It was difficult to live in a world rife with ethics and morals that nobody held.  Trusting in a system of law that did not work, and yet they would consider the lives of those like me abhorrent.  It was a depressing thought that I tried never to consider, alternatively I would forget about it and try and live around them rather than with them.
I heard once a phrase, a long time ago that stuck in my mind, ‘the human condition’, I never really found out what the exact definition was supposed to be, but I find I am not a big fan of humans or of their condition.  On reflection, I felt that the Creatures like me were much more likeable on some level, more honest, though I may be bias.  I missed living amongst them.  After all, the things they did they did by instinct, their bodies drove them to it.  We had laws to govern us, and they were rarely broken.  Humans are different.  I have lived through wars and everyday life and seen more cruelty and evilness from them than from the Creatures like me.  Some of my kin have been known to revel in pain, that of humans or other Creatures alike, something they did for fun, but that was the way things were.  We would never deny it.  There was none of this human concept of right and wrong, that they so often went against themselves.  We could be many things, but seldom hypocritical.
I was pulled from my memories once more as the last of the inebriated thugs finally got into a taxi and it pulled away into the night.  A police officer had been standing on the corner across from me, watching them, now watching me, assessing me as I continued on my way back to the hotel.  A young woman walking the dark foreboding streets alone at pub closing time.  I could practically see his mind working, wondering what I was up to as we continued to watch each other.  I could practically feel him tremble, and knew it was not due to the ever lowering temperature.  My lips drew into a slight smile, if I called him over, if he came closer I could enthral him.  Catch him mentally and then do anything I wished.  I shook the thought out of my head.  I was hungry, the full moon was approaching, as was clear from these thoughts.
When I looked back he had turned and walked away.

***

I woke the next afternoon, a long sleep brought on by a combination of the travelling, the time change and the huge amounts of darkness in the wintery England.  I was not sure how many hours I had slept, but I did not dream.  The full moon was drawing nearer.  My dreams always seemed less around this time, a relief.  I would savour the quietening of my mind until the night of the full moon would strip me of anything human once more.  The cycle would start again.
As I sat in the hotel room I thought through what I should do next.  When I had decided to leave Cairo I had not fully considered what would be waiting for me in Bristol and what I might do.  My first thought was that I would visit the gallery again at some point, whether or not it held any answers to my return, I longed for the opportunity to see inside.  More practically, I would have to feed before the full moon to make that night as easy as possible.  And I would, I should, perhaps head to Purgatory.
Technically I had not been banished from that other world of the Creatures, and there was no reason to believe that any there would refuse me entry.  Even so, I would need to remain cautious and aware of the stories they may have heard.  I could possibly sneak in and take a look around, I doubted anyone I had known would remain there, any old enough would likely have moved to The Vineyard in Southern France where the Elders preferred to reside.  At the very least I would like to get a feel for the place.  As with my visit to the gallery, perhaps it would help me understand why I had felt the need to return to my place of birth.
Of all these things I needed to feed and the dimness of the day, cloudy with storms, would suit an afternoon venture.  I walked back out onto the streets.  They were all so familiar, down to every last smell.  Over the years it had picked up that ingrained odour of petrol, but underneath was still the blood and sweat of the people, animals and Creatures that inhabited them.  Life has always had that unmistakable smell.  There was only one place where life smelt even stronger and ingrained deep in the walls as if they had been built on it, and that was Purgatory.  Where the blood smelt stronger and there were more sweat and tears than anywhere else in the world, unknown to the human senses.  ‘Hell’s Waiting Room’, they jokingly called it.  It was a place where everything cursed could live, and this was the only place like this is in the whole of the world.  There were always places that Creatures gathered, the Vineyard in France, a few pockets with a semblance of community here and there, but not in these numbers and often not for long.  After all even Creatures get lonely for company, others to feed with.
At one point in my life the place held some comfort, at others none at all, despite this I often thought of what it would be like to rejoin my kind.  This call to return had come at a time when I had grown used to my lot and accepted that I had to live amongst humans.  It made me eager to be within Purgatory, but that in itself made me cautious.  I could not afford to be careless and as I walked through Bristol’s darkened streets I knew it was too soon – I had to judge my re-entry into that world.  I had to go back – the feelings that accompanied my dreams told me as much.  But I had not left under the best circumstances and despite what I told myself, I knew deep down that I could not take chances.  Accept it as I might, it was not the same living with humans but it had become necessary to my survival, and if there was one thing Creatures were good at it was surviving.  I looked forward to the overdue and welcome relief of my old world.

I knew I was edging close to Purgatory.  The scent was stronger, almost palpable.  The smell would have tweaked even a human’s nose, though they would not have known what it meant.  To me it was almost as though the blood was thick in the air, like tasting the rain before it arrives.  I moistened my lips.
“Are you lost?”
I had caught the scent of the Creature in the shadows, and gave him my attention as he stepped from them.  I could tell he was young, he surely could not have ascertained so soon whether I was a threat or a feast, and yet he had made himself known to me.  Had it been me at that age and I thought for a second there was a human stupid enough to wander these parts alone at night I would have killed them before they even noticed my shadow fall upon them.  That was why the people had stayed away.  They never clearly knew why, but they knew to stay away.
I decided to play the game.
“No, I used to live around here.”  I stepped forward a little, the feel of the hunt coming alive in me.  I could see the look in his eyes, and I knew immediately that now he could smell what I was.  He his look of confusion gave way to one of fear.
“What…”  The word emerged as a stutter and he fell back a few paces.
“Something very different…”  I smiled gently.  I could smell his fear.  I sensed around me but could feel the presence of no other Creatures.  “Where is the rest of your clan?”
I walked around him, looked him up and down, tasting his fear in the back of my throat.  He did not know what to make of me at all – confusion gripped him.  He was very new to this life, possibly did not even have a clan at all.  I sniffed the air, savouring the sweet aroma that filled my nostrils.
“You’ve just fed…”  I commented.
He shifted nervously, before deciding on the next course of action.  He lowered his eyes in a characteristically animalistic way, becoming submissive.
“Just some guy.”  He murmured, “Around there, just outside the Waiting Room, a tramp I think… his blood smelt clean, there may be more…” I focused on the scent, it was stronger now, the blood was clean, non-diseased, but old, still a good meal.  From the smell of it this Creature had bled him completely dry, another trait of youth.  Opportunistic and careless, feeding on the bottom of human society, and killing needlessly – bringing attention to our kind.
I found him a curious Creature, so scared and unsure, yet reborn into this world an adept killer, one driven to hunt to survive and it did not really seem to suit him, poor thing.  I could almost feel sorry for him.  The laws that governed us kept us from being known by the human world, feeding from humans was always risky in the open.  He was obviously desperate to do so… But to kill a Creature is different I always felt.  After all they were not protected by our laws, how we dealt with each other is a matter of personal taste, not justice.  Guilt and innocence, those are not things we could ever easily understand.  And with this Creature standing in front of me I had my own justifications.  This would save me from breaking any laws – we must, after all, lead by example.
I grabbed the Creature by the throat before he had a chance to react, by now the blood would be seeping from his stomach into his circulatory system, if I concentrated I knew I would be able to almost feel it and visualise its journey.  I balled my fist and thrust it into his stomach.  I was much stronger than any of the other Creatures, the skin and organs of those newly born were so easy to tear, and crush.  My fingers had sliced easily into his skin – I could feel it give and tear apart.  I felt the warm fresh blood on my hands, smelt the faint tang of what little stomach acid his body could still produce.  His face was twisted in shock and pain.  Agony stole his voice as blood thrust itself upwards through his throat and trickled over his bottom lip.  I snapped his neck with my free hand and he slid to the ground.  I still held his warm stomach in my hand, as he dropped it pulled out of the cavity along with some of his digestive tract.
It was no way to live, but it would do for the night.  I did not usually require a lot of blood but the fact that it was not directly sourced would make it less satiating, and the coming moon always increased my hunger.  It made me hungrier and less focused.  Harder to be around humans.  And so this meeting seemed fortuitous.
I put my hand to my mouth and sucked the fresh blood from the already dying flesh, it did not taste good but it quelled the hunger.  When I was finished I dropped the dried organ back down onto the now decaying body rotting rapidly in the gutter, and continued down the back streets.
Perhaps I was harsh, but in my day such a Creature would not have survived long – no clan allegiances, no protection, feeding on humans outside of Purgatory.  It was a wonder to me that such a Creature had come to exist, and it was best that he did not.  I did feel some remorse.  The Creature had not asked for nor expected this fate, and in truth I did not have to kill him.  But at one time it would have been remiss of me to allow such behaviour to continue.  At the end of the street I stopped and looked down the next alleyway.  I could see the entrance to Purgatory, two Creatures guarding it.  I kept to the shadows and made my way back to the human city.  I thought more on the Creature’s death and although I justified it as necessary, I knew there was more to it – I did not want to risk being discovered.
It was all about survival.

~~~

What inspired this novel?
I actually don’t really remember what originally sparked it but I do remember just having the character of Connie in my head, and the story coming from there.  I started to write the story in 2002 when I was living in Australia.  I originally set it in London, but I don’t really know the place well so I later changed this to my home town of Bristol.  This was fantastic as it opened up a whole new world for the story – I’ve tried in a subtle way to bring into it some of the history and locations of the city, including the underground tunnels that a lot of people don’t know about.  So in some ways there have been lots of small sparks of inspiration along the way, creating a richer context and story over the years.

You’ve been writing the novel since 2002, why are you getting it published now?
I wrote the first half of the novel in 2002 and 2003, but I was still at university at the time and so it would be in fits and starts around and between studying.  I worked on it briefly in 2004 and 2005 when I was studying my Masters degree, but again, there wasn’t a lot of time for it.  So I didn’t start working on it again until after I graduated.  It was at that point that I changed a few things – put in the Bristol angle, and essentially went back to the beginning to bring that aspect into it.  Over the years I’ve worked on it on and off but I never finished it.  I had it in my head, but never got it down on paper.

Then in November 2010 I took part in NaNoWriMo.  It was the third year I had attempted it – it’s a writing challenge where you have to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  Looking back I still have no idea how I managed to do it.  But what helped was that instead of writing something from scratch (as I had attempted in previous years), I started to write the sequel to About the Nature of the Creature.  This meant that I already knew the characters, and as I had always planned it as a three of four book series, I knew where I wanted to take it.  As a result of completing the challenge I was given a voucher to a print on demand independant-publishing service.  I had never considered this before, but as someone concerned about the environment, I was swayed by the idea of print on demand.  I have since read interviews with other independantly published authors who say the reason they do it is because they are too busy writing to worry about finding a publishing agent, publisher, etc.  I have to say, that’s pretty much my feeling on it too.

I had someone ask me if this was vanity publishing.  I had to look up what they meant, and I think not.  I am not doing this to see my words in print (although that’s nice).  I work in marketing, so for me I realise that its as much about me selling the book as how good the book is.  I love books, I read all the time, and I have read more than a fair few that have made me wonder how they got published.  I may be blinkered, but I believe in my story, I just hope others enjoy it too.

Is the story exactly as you had envisaged it when you first started writing?
Yes and no.  The overall essence of the story is as I had imagined it.  When I first finished writing it I felt there was a disconnection between the half I originally wrote and then the half I went onto complete.  Reading it back whilst editing though, the disparity wasn’t there – it completely gelled.  For me I can feel the differences in my life reflected when writing the two different halves.  But I think this has only served to make it and Connie richer and more complex.  Although the story itself has the ultimate goals achieved by the end, it pretty much wrote itself – sometimes surprising me with the directions it took me in.  So although the end result was what I had expected and hoped for, the journey there was a little different than I had planned.

What makes a really good supernatural novel?
I think that’s a really difficult thing to quantify.  My story concerns vampires and werewolves, and there are a lot of those stories out there at the moment.  Ultimately what makes something good is the same thing that makes people enjoy reading it and that varies from story to story and reader to reader.

Concerning vampires and werewolves there are so many different types of novel out there and writers who have used known mythos and those who have invented new ones.  Anne Rice, Kelley Armstrong, Charlaine Harris, Stephanie Meyer and Laurell K. Hamilton, to name a few, all have a completely different take on the supernatural and all are completely valid, and to their readers, all are equally enjoyable.

Were there any cliches you wanted to avoid?
I think, when writing about vampires and werewolves, it is pretty much about writing cliches.  I mean, it has been done so many times in so many different ways.  And as different as the stories might be, there are always similarities that run through most of them in terms of how vampires and werewolves are portrayed.  I think the key is to make the cliches work.

Which authors inspire you?
In terms of vampires and the supernatural, the books that really spoke to me and have been favourites of mine for years are those by Tom Holland.  In The Vampyre he rewrites the life of Lord Byron as a vampire.  As someone who has studied Byron, it is a pretty compelling and flawless piece of work.  This was followed by Deliver Us From Evil, about Jack the Ripper and The Sleeper in the Sands which takes us to ancient Egypt.  To date I think these are the most innovative and brilliantly written supernatural stories.  But equally, I am completely hooked on Charlaine Harris’s Southern Vampire Series and Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series.

Outside of the supernatural, per se, I have a passion for Michael Crichton, especially his techno thrillers and the technological and scientific aspect he pulls into them.  I truly think he is one of the best writers of our time, and I could never hope to write anything like he has.  To quote a line from Jason Stackhouse in the True Blood TV show – I’d like to lick his mind!

What are your hopes for your novel? 
I guess as with any writer, I hope some people enjoy it.  For me it is a story that was inside me and had to find its way to paper.  But in that respect it was only the first of a series.  I am hoping to continue to write Connie’s story, and more importantly the story of the world around her and her impact on it.  The focus in this first story was on Purgatory, where the vampires and werewolves live, but her life and the repercussions of it go much wider than that.  I hope I get to tell those stories of how Connie’s existence effects the entire world.