Support us. What if vampires lived on Long Island? And some of them no longer want to kill? And they were determined to destroy a corrupt and vicious vampire government? The novel is an urban fantasy story, a subgenre that puts supernatural creatures into a contemporary setting. Parts of the book are set on the East End of Long Island, where the main character lives and the bodies of vampire victims surface around locales like the Peconic Bay.
The story follows Jesse, a veterinarian who becomes a vampire and joins a group of other millennial vampires trying to overthrow a vampire government, Devito said. Instead of sacrificing humans for blood, the vampires are taking blood pills to keep themselves satiated. The pills, however, come with the need to do shady — at times deadly — favors for the government. The main cast of characters are millennials who disagree with the ways of the older vampire generations — leading to intergenerational conflicts, Devito said.
Power dynamics between the characters and institutions like the blood pill industry and the vampire government — the titular Carnelian — help drive the plot, she said. You see all sorts of different people and all sorts of lifestyles. Devito, 52, grew up in Flanders and, after briefly living on the West Coast, came back to her childhood home to take care of her mother and raise her son.
The cover of the novel depicts a scene in a cemetery — which an artist based on a photo Devito took in Riverhead Cemetery. Devito has been wanting to write a story like Carnelian for years, she said. She started writing vampire stories as a student at Long Island University in Southampton. While taking a few pre-med classes in biology and physiology, she thought about how interesting it would be for vampires to have to manage chronic conditions — and ended up using that idea in her creative writing classes.
A massage therapist by trade, Devito said she has been writing stories since she was a kid. She started trying to sell her first novel in A little less than 15 years later, her dream was realized. She said it took her about six months to write the first draft of Carnelian, which she finished in She has spent the last few years working with editors, agents and publishing houses to get the novel published.
