Ask most dark romance authors where a book began and you’ll hear about a trope or a couple. Vivian Murdoch started with the Purge, and a grudge against student loans. The movies spent their one lawless night on violence; she had other plans. “I’d hack into the system and wipe out all student loans.” What actually lodged in her head was a gap in the premise. “Why were there no sexual crimes?” Black Mirror sharpened the idea, and the omegaverse gave it somewhere to live. “I really got excited about the idea of doing a purge night, but make it sex.” The Wolf, her spicy novella in The Annual Game Night series, is what came out the other side. She had meant to write several short stories, but her other projects got in the way. “That’s why I opened it up as a shared world and anthology.”
Writing dark, on purpose
Vivian doesn’t flinch from the label, but she is precise about it. “I’ve always been a darker writer, and I feel my readers know to expect that at this point.” Her floor is clear: “I do say I’m dubcon minimum.” Even her lighter work carries it, “arranged marriages where they really can’t say no.” What keeps the intensity from tipping into cruelty is a reader contract she takes seriously. “I do my absolute best to put up trigger warnings to help those not familiar with my work to know whether or not they can handle my brand of love.”
Name the intensity up front, and the right readers opt in while the wrong ones opt out before page one. She even has a name for her lane. “I like to think I’m dark light. You’ll get the yummy dark stuff without actually harming the h.”
Letting the characters drive
Vivian is a self-described pantser, and The Wolf tested it. “I had the ending change on me at least three times.” The hardest part was not the heat; it was the family dynamic between stepsiblings Adam and Jocelyn. As an only child, she leaned on the one thing that never fails her, the characters themselves. “They become real people in my mind, and all I can do is write down what they tell me.” One scene arrived completely unplanned, Adam making a choice she describes with genuine surprise, until he had taken over the page entirely.
“It doesn’t matter how well I plan, the story will always change.”
The world she built, and where it goes next
The Annual Game Night is a shared world with other authors writing inside it, so standing out matters. Vivian’s edge is ownership. “I created it. I know it better than anyone else writing in this world.” She wrote “an extensive world bible for everyone to read,” though she’s honest that a bible only goes so far: “it’s different than actually living in this world in your head.” Her omegaverse is human, no shifting, with three dynamics, Alpha, beta and omega, and rules that flex depending on whether she’s writing contemporary, Regency, or dystopian.
Adam and Jocelyn’s story is closed, but the world is not. She has set up seven Alphas across the anthology and plans “at least another 6 seasons,” with a Regency omegaverse series on the horizon. First, though, comes a project that “latched onto me and is not letting go”: an alien abduction hucow series. And when she’s off the page, she’s on her Animal Crossing island, where a villager greets her every morning with “ABUNDANCE.” It fits.
The Wolf by Vivian Murdoch is available now. Grab your copy here.
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Frequently asked questions
What is The Wolf by Vivian Murdoch about?
The Wolf is Vivian Murdoch's spicy dark romance novella in The Annual Game Night series, a human omegaverse shared world built around a "purge night, but make it sex" premise. It follows stepsiblings Adam and Jocelyn.
How dark are Vivian Murdoch's books?
She describes herself as "dubcon minimum" and calls her lane "dark light," and she posts trigger warnings so readers can decide up front whether her books are for them.
What is Vivian Murdoch writing next?
She has at least another six seasons planned for The Annual Game Night, plus a Regency omegaverse series and an alien abduction hucow series.