Redefining Evil
Dealing with an oppressive chain of losses in the lives of Julian Evereaux and his family isn’t easy when they must accept the protection of Danyil Kaehn, a vampire that has haunted Julian’s memories for years. Confronting the darkness with Danyil means fighting to be spared from the bloodthirsty threat of a possessed, mentally disturbed vampire, and in this battle, old prejudices and fears must be overcome.
2007-2012
manga & novel
1 volume & 69k words
inspiration
Redefining Evil began as a spinoff from Nikkei called “So Much for That!” where Julian goes to the U.S. to….visit his friend? See his dad before he dies? I’m not sure, but anyway, I got into the project when I was in the 10th grade and was required to do a year-long “thesis” of sorts for the gifted program I was in. I decided to tackle revisions for the first time by finishing and then revising this project and documenting the whole thing. Then, when I was in college, I decided after some failed attempts to update the manga to turn it into a novel. It went through a name change along with the cast getting a facelift and a shift from being Japanese to…you know, French. I ended up pitching it to an indie publisher that gave me a contract and put a lot of spotlight on me before ultimately withdrawing my contract (??) presumably because all of the Christian housewives beta reading my book were offended by the violence and sex AHAH. Anyway that basically killed the project once and for all, plus I’m not a Christian anymore.
recurring characters
Since this was a spinoff of Nikkei, it follows the same family and the same villains: the Satos (now known as the Evereauxs) and Danyil Kaehn. I gave the family the first name makeovers in what would become many, casting off their weird Japanese names from my cringey middle school days. Shani became Lacy, Myoku became Micah (forevermore), and T’Kai became Julian (forevermore). Since I’d realized before this that Eripmav was just vampire backwards, he became Danyil, a special name meant to transform when he is “reborn” at the conclusion of the book.
gallery
