Do you remember Lamp & Mirror?

I talked a little about this story (LaM) several weeks ago. It was intended to be a stress reliever story that I slowly serialized here for everyone to read and enjoy. Well, I learned pretty quickly that the plot I had for the story was very thin and not good reading and it was hard to write so I scrapped it pretty quickly. I didn't have any plans to continue it in any regard.

But last night an old idea I had rose to the front of my mind as I fell asleep. And I realized I actually really wanted to tell this little gem still, even though I haven't thought about it in a few years. My problem with this story? I didn't have the characters for it. I knew the roles for the main characters, but I didn't actually have people willing to fill it.

And then I realized= LaM was missing plot, old idea was missing characters... would it work? So I played with the idea in my head all night and GUYS IT WORKS SO WELL. So, so well. Everything fit like a puzzle and the story blossomed from a short story/novella to a full fledged trilogy and I added two new characters that didn't even exist in my head before and it's awesome.

I normally don't give out descriptions for things before I've at least begun writing them, but I'm so excited right now I just need to share at least part of this story, so I'm going to share how all the characters connect.

Alexander (Alecks) Lamp is adopted by the Mirror family after his own parents, who have been faithful servants and guardians for the Mirrors for nearly a century, are killed unexpectedly. The Mirror's raise Alecks alongside their son, Edward (Eddie) Mirror, who is only a year younger than Alecks. One night, when the boys are nine and ten respectively, vampires (a monster everyone is aware of and is afraid of- think Dracula meets Vampire Diaries for an idea of this version of vampires) break into the house and kill nearly everyone. Alecks keeps Eddie safe during the attack, even though he takes brutal injuries himself, and they are the only two left alive in the house when Eddie's oldest sister finally arrives to save them. From that point on, Alecks promises to be Eddie's guardian and protect him from every threat.
The two are inseparable until the night, when crossing a bridge, Alecks tries to keep a drunk Eddie from walking along the edge to prove his bravery. Out of nowhere thugs arrive, completely human thugs whose only real threat is a knife. Alecks is able to take care of them easily, but not before Eddie is pushed into the river below, his body never found... by humans.
Sebastian Locke is handsome, wealthy, and arrogant- he's also a violent and ruthless vampire who finds Eddie and turns him into a vampire after keeping him in a stasis state for three years.
Meanwhile, Alecks has been miserable since that night when he seemed to lose all purpose in life. He's taken a few jobs here and there and is employed as a small-time bodyguard meant to keep vampires out of a bar when he finds a homeless girl with no memories of who she is except her name, Caragh Bronwing. He takes her to his home, forsaking his job. Charmed by her, he agrees to help her find out where she came from.
But Alecks and Caragh's journey quickly intersects with that of the city's most violent vampire and its youngest.

The trilogy is planned to take place in London, I'm thinking a version of Victorian England, but that might change (certainly not modern, and not too far in the past). I plan to start writing this after I've made some headway with Wheel and Cog, and I'm so excited.

One thing about the romance- a large part of the plot for the book is actually built around romance (but I'm not saying who's with who!) and it is going to be integral to all four of the main characters during the course of the series. While it's not necessarily the driving part of the books, this series is more of a romance than the other two projects I've been working on lately. Side note: there are no love triangles.