A Dark Side

“I can’t believe you write dark stuff.”

Hello, my name is Chris Marie Green, and I use the fairly innocuous name of Crystal Green as a nom de plume, as well. I'm the gal smiling as I chat with people at parties. I'm the guest wearing a light dress and holding a foo-foo drink. I'm also the writer who's been the recipient of the opening comment many, many times. Maybe it's because people just don’t expect a gal who also tells stories for Silhouette Special Edition to have a twilight alter ego. Most find it hard to believe that I’ve written about a vampire huntress who ends up making the ultimate sacrifice for the man she loves at the end of the tale (THE HUNTRESS, Bombshell, 2005). Or that I just came out with a graphic murder whodunit (BAITED, Bombshell, and it’s on shelves now, you all!).


Crime? Mayhem? Wait until they read my upcoming Vampire Babylon series!

How did I develop a dark side? I have no idea. Maybe it has something to do with my inability to fall asleep unless covers are swaddled around my neck—I got that from seeing a clip from NOSFERATU when I was little. But the hints were always there, even though I couldn’t stand the sight of blood on a movie screen until high school, when I watched FRIDAY THE 13th for the first time. Years later, I got the idea for THE HUNTRESS. I loved writing it, although it didn’t necessarily jive with my Special Edition—or Blaze—careers. Still, I had so much fun that I developed a bigger idea, one that couldn’t be told during the course of a single book. I needed a trilogy.

And that’s when Ace bought my Vampire Babylon series (NIGHT RISING is pictured above.). Here’s the blurb:

Welcome to Hollywood—after dark…

Stuntwoman Dawn Madison is a girl with a lot of attitude—and a lot of issues, mostly about living up to the legacy of her mother, a world famous movie star/sex symbol, whose untimely death left Dawn to be raised by her dad Frank, nobody’s notion of single-father-of-the-year. Now that she’s all grown up, she and Frank aren’t on the best of terms, to say the least.

Still, he is her dad, and when he vanishes while investigating the bizarre sighting—caught on film—of a supposedly long-dead child star, she comes home to Tinseltown to join the search for him. Working with his colleagues—a psychic short in stature but big in dreams of stardom, a beautiful Latina techno-geek, and the P. I. firm’s never-seen boss—she discovers an erotic and bloody underground society made up of creatures she thought existed only on the screen.

They are devious. They are deadly. And some of them are dangerously attractive…


I’ve been having an extra good time with this series because not only are these noir-fantasy novels about vampires, they include mysteries, too. And I continued my whodunit fascination with BAITED, which is about a pseudo-Pearl Diver who ends up on a deserted island where there’s a killer on the loose; she must rise to the occasion and track the culprit. (To see a video teaser for the book, click here. It's cool!)

Outside of writing, I'm well behaved, so I hope you come to the chat tonight, where we can talk all about romance, fangs, and thrillers! (And there’ll be a prize or two, as well. My light side demands it!) You can also check out my work at www.crystal-green.com or www.vampirebabylon.com. Hope to see you tonight!