Five years ago I was toiling as a part-time cashier when, lo and behold, I had the most spectacular thought of my young life...

"What if Selena Gomez had short hair and hunted vampires in the Old West?"

I saw stars, and for the remainder of my shift, I wrote down notes on the story that formed in my head on the back of receipt paper. Upon using a notebook like a normal person to take down my notes, Sundown began to take form. A surprisingly dark form that seemed to have come out of nowhere. I, after all, can scarcely get through an episode of The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones without being uncomfortable with the darkness of the narrative.

The writing process of Sundown as long and painful. From the moment of conception to finally finishing, it took me three years. Much of those years were spent agonizing over each chapter, chaining myself to a computer desk and listening to every piece of advice my favourite authors could give me. (I still wrote notes on the back of receipts.)

Sundown is a tossed salad of genres. It’s a Western supernatural-horror dark-fantasy with elements of romance, because why not? Perspective shifts between characters, but the focus of the story is on both Serenity Collins--a young woman who has a grudge against the vampires of Sundown after the brutal killing of her family--and Brady McRae--a former outlaw turned into a vampire by Jackson Drago, the former leader and founder of Sundown.

While the tropes of a typical supernatural story are there, I’ve tried to give them a unique bent. There are zombies, but nobody really knows what they’re called. There is a werewolf, but he’s tied directly to the near-extinct tribe of Natives who live in hiding in the hills around the desert. And while most of the vampires are on the side of antagonist, some of the humans in the story can be just as cruel as the bloodsuckers they fight against.