The other week I wrote about what my beloved thought of Beckoning Blood. This week, I want to share some comments from my 91-year-old grandmother. Like my partner, I was anxious about showing the book to my grandmother, but for different reasons.

NOTE: This is not my grandmother. Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

NOTE: This is NOT my grandmother.
Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Anyone who’s read my book (or even the blurb) knows that it’s not exactly light fluffy reading. There are vampires who splash around in a lot of blood and wreak a lot of havoc. And it’s a gay paranormal romance which means there’s explicit guy-on-guy action.

I should state that I have a very close relationship with my grandmother and the whole gay thing is not an issue. Hell, she even liked watching Queer as Folk — and that show doesn’t hold back. Still, it’s one thing for her to watch a bunch of actors on TV getting it on. Totally another for her to read about it when it’s written by her grandson.

I sent her a copy of the book when it became available and got my sister to set it up on my grandmother’s iPad. She’s never read a book on an iPad before and has always said how she loves the feel of print books and the connection with them. Still, to her credit, she gave it a go.

For a while I didn’t hear any reports of her reading it. I wondered if the technology had beaten her and I was considering options to get it printed. Even worse, I thought she might not like it. Vampires weren’t really her thing.

But then I got an email from her. Here’s a snippet:

Vampires were never my cup of tea, but they are now. It’s so exciting I can’t put the book down, but I don’t want to rust through it.

And then the bit that made me blush:

The sex, well, we thought that Lady Chatterley was very daring and yours is much more explicit. But life and writing have moved on and the almost savage sex is part of the story.

When I spoke to her on the phone a little while later, she asked how I managed to write such a thing (in a good way), saying how this couldn’t be her quiet grandson.

Of course she’s my grandmother and totally devoted to me so her opinions were always going to be skewed in my favour, but beyond that, I’m just so glad she enjoyed it. And enjoyed it so much that she’s reading it again.