Wow. I’m on the moon. Or at least a part of me is. This is absolutely mind-boggling.

I’ve always loved science fiction. I was eight years old when I first saw Star Trek, a television program featuring space exploration, and fell in love with the idea of visiting far away worlds.

I was eleven years old when Apollo 11 first landed humans on the moon. I watched the landing live, enthralled by the possibilities.

It was also during these early childhood years that I first fell in love with the dark, tortured hero, the cursed man who seeks but cannot hold love, in the guise of Barnabas Collins, a vampire on the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.

And the desire to see the tortured hero get his “happily ever after” has haunted me all these years, until in 2009, I hit on an idea for a novel that appealed to me enough to dig in and stay with it to “the end.”

I started out writing Dark Wine at Midnight as a combination of two genres I love: science fiction and vampire romance.

In Dark Wine at Midnight a research scientist is sent to spy on the California town of Sierra Escondida. Nicknamed the “Hill,” the town’s protective walls conceal not only a community of exclusive vineyard estates, but a secret vampire society.

A secret society that is under attack by a vicious assassin.

I’ve written seven books so far about the love stories of its vampire vintners and their mortal mates who live in the fictional town where dark suspense and mystery abound.

The first four books in the series are included on the disk that was sent to the moon. I included them because they establish the romance between vampire Enrique “Henry” Bautista and research scientist Cerissa Patel, and combined, resolve a complete mystery storyline. After book four, the romance continues, but each book is a stand-alone mystery.