Dobrenica
The origin of this series was Ruritanian romance--castles and swords in modern times, set in Eastern Europe. I read Anthony Hope's The Prisoner of Zenda as a teen, and also watched the black and white film, loving the panache, but resenting the fact that as usual, men got all the active roles. I also really disliked the ending. Come up a few years, and one night, when I was listening to a Eastern-European-inspired bit of folk music, Coronets and Steel unfolded like a movie in my head, and I wrote it down by hand as fast as I could. Adding magic seemed to be a necessary requirement, after I read about Maria Theresia, Empress of Austria, sending a deleration deep into that mountainous region to investigate the continual reports of vampires. . .
