About
Irina Argo is a pen name for two authors Irina Kardos and Jo-An Torres
Irina
Irina’s world is pretty dark. She works as a clinical psychologist in a Juvenile Correctional Facility dealing with the extremes of human behavior on a regular basis and takes care of her paralyzed husband who suffered a stroke several years ago. To bring light into her life she writes. Writing has always been her passion. She is originally from Russia where she was employed as a TV journalist.
Jo-An
Jo-An was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and has been an avid reader since pre-school dreaming to someday write a book herself. Currently resides in California with her 5 cats and husband.
Story Behind The Book
The Story Told by Irina
Vampire Elite began unfolding in my brain two years ago. I finally put it on paper. It just came to me at a time when I felt really challenged. My husband had a stroke and I was doing everything to help him to deal with his depression and the loss of his mobility. At the same time I was preparing for my licensing exam in clinical psychology and was working full time as a psychologist with people with mental illnesses and drag and alcohol addiction problems.
The pressure was intense. That must have been the catalyst for my mind to begin taking me into an alternate reality filled with unique and powerful people. These people were also going through challenges. Their challenges were much greater than mine so my own felt like a piece of cake compared to theirs. The story was unfolding as a sequence. It was a movie playing in my brain. It was happening when I was driving, sitting in meetings (extremely boring) or doing housework, which I do automatically. I was also dreaming about it and making notes in the morning. The characters were coming to life, events were happening with lightning speed. It seemed as though I was living in two parallel worlds.
In this world I was Irina with all my responsibilities; in the other world, I was four people simultaneously: Simone, Arianna, Theores and Anock. It was beyond thrilling. I’ve always been intensely interested in other people’s inner worlds. That is why I chose psychology as my profession. But one thing is listening to the people’s stories and being empathic during the therapy sessions and completely another experience is to actually live a life of your characters, even in your imagination. One day the story abruptly stopped and it did not matter how hard I tried to push it forward it just would not happen. It had a life of its own. Then there was a constant nagging thought in my brain that I had to breath life into this story by writing a book.
I was insecure about my proficiency in English and that caused my on-going resistance to even think about it. But the annoying thought about not writing was becoming unbearable. It was eating me alive. So I sat down in front of my laptop and began typing. In a few days the first few chapters of Vampire Elite were born.
Reviews
<p align="center"><strong>Readers’ Favorite reviewers on Vampire Elite:</strong></p>
<p align="center"><em>You’ve managed to restore my hope in the future of vampire books ...</em></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-left:1in;"><em>... a fascinating read and definitely a book for anyone who loves fantasy, romance and of course vampires.</em></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-left:.5in;"><em>… a spellbinding novel of action, suspense, romance, and conscience ... character development is superb ... the type of book that will make you read all day until you get to the end! It is deliciously addictive!</em></p>
<p align="center"><strong>For more reviews please check</strong></p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.vampire-elite.com/vampire-elite-reviews.asp">http://www.vampire-elite.com/vampire-elite-reviews.asp</a></p>
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