Horror Author Loren Rhoads #Interview
Loren Rhoads Interview
1. Congratulations on your upcoming novel Angelus Rose! This is a sequel to Lost Angels, a book you co-wrote with Brian Thomas. Can you please tell us a little about the series and what we can expect with this much anticipated new book?
The As Above, So Below series explores the story of the succubus Lorelei who saw Azaziel in her master's nightclub and thought it might be fun to bring an angel down. She never expected him to possess her with a mortal girl's ghost -- and he never expected to fall in love with her.
Angelus Rose is your basic Romeo + Juliet story, if Romeo had wings and Juliet had a barbed tail -- and all the angels and demons of Los Angeles were trying to keep them apart. The angels were inspired by Chrisopher Walken in The Prophecy. They think they are the good guys.
2. What inspired this series?
My co-writer Brian Thomas found a burned-out church in LA and wondered who might have lived there and how he might have provoked Hell to set fire to his home. One weekend when I was down in LA visiting Brian, I noticed that one of the apartment buildings near his house was called The Lorelei. Pieces started falling together, almost like fate.
3. If this series was made into movies, who would play Lorelei and Azaziel?
Wow, casting Lorelei is hard. When we first started writing the book, we were inspired by Angelina Jolie, especially as she played Kate Libby in Hackers. These days, Elodie Yung (she played Hathor in Gods of Egypt -- definitely the best part of a bad movie) or Rosa Salazar, who has been in the Maze Runner movies and Alita: Battle Angel. Azaziel is easier. I envision him as Matt Ryan, who has played John Constantine on a couple of different TV shows.
4. How autobiographical is your work? Do you draw off real events?
There are scenes in Angelus Rose that are very autobiographical. Lorelei and Aza have a date in Westwood Memorial Park, the cemetery where Marilyn Monroe and several of the cast of the Poltergeist movies are buried. Brian took me there one evening. He meant to get us there about sunset, but we couldn't find the cemetery. It's really tucked in amongst the skyscrapers. By the time we found the graveyard, it had gotten really dark. Red vigil candles burned on some of the graves, but other than that, we couldn't see much. It was surprisingly quiet in the heart of the city. I was glad to be able to work that memory into the novel.
5. When did your love of the horror genre develop?
I grew up watching the black & white Universal horror movies on TV on Saturday afternoons. My mom pointed out that many of the monsters were inspired by books, so I read The Invisible Man and Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. I really fell in love with horror novels when I read Mina's baptism of blood in Dracula. After that, I was well and truly hooked.
6. What tips would you give newbie writers looking to break into the industry?
Join the Horror Writers Association and work with a mentor. It's wonderful to be able to have a professional who can answer your questions and help make connections. Mentorship is free, beyond the price of a membership.
7. What book(s) are you reading right now?
I'm reading E. M. Markoff's The Deadbringer. It's a Latinx-inspired dark fantasy about colonization, indigenous gods, and necromancy. It's completely unlike anything I've read before.
8. What is next for you? Anything in the works?
I drift back and forth between writing fiction and nonfiction. I think my next project will be to finish a guide to the pioneer cemeteries in the San Francisco Bay Area. The area's Western population began with the Spanish missions in 1776, then exploded with the Gold Rush. All kinds of people are buried here from Levi Strauss to survivors of the Donner Party to Wyatt Earp, Mary Ellen Pleasant, and Robert Ripley. The cemeteries are threatened by earthquakes and erosion, of course, but also by California's wildfires. I want to record them before they vanish.
9. Where can people find you online?
10. Thank you so much! This is you chance to say anything that wasn’t asked. Closing thoughts?
I've read some really great horror recently. Leigh Bardugo's The Ninth House was amazing. I just finished L.S. Johnson's story collection Rare Birds got better and better each story I read. I'm looking forward to Dana Fredsti's third Lilith book. This is such a great time to be a horror reader.
