Q&A with Kailin Gow discussion

I get inspired to write by real life inspirations. How much is PULSE based on real life?

What inspired you to write the Pulse books?

Mrs. Gow, there are many vampire books. What makes your vampire books different?

Lauren wrote: "What inspired you to write the Pulse books?"

PULSE was inspired by my personal experience dealing with blood or the lack of it. I've always been a vampire lore enthusiast and even more so when I visited Transylvania and Dracula's Castle when I was a young journalist. But when I had a major blood loss from surgery a few years ago, it made me think how precious it is for life, not only in vampire lore, but to humans. PULSE is really about Life's Blood...what if there was such a blood with that kind of power, allure, and influence in the vampire world? How would it affect individual vampires and the carrier of that blood?

The other real life tie-in to this is that I grew up in a family of biological and engineering professors. My uncle was a biologist who won a prize like the Nobel Prize in Asia for discovering some kind of heart medication that had to do with the blood condition. In Book 2 of PULSE, Life's Blood, it goes into the history of the mystical blood so in a way...now you can see where lore meets science in this book series.

Lauren wrote: "Mrs. Gow, there are many vampire books. What makes your vampire books different?"

In PULSE, the story revolves around the vampire legend of Life's Blood. Of course there is romance and action, but the main story is about the blood itself.

In Wicked Woods, without giving away the spoilers, the vampires are not what they seem. You'll see in the third book, Silver, that the vampires are not just vampires...

In the Stoker Sisters, vampires are based on what I was told by the locals of Romania, about Dracula, which is completely different than Bram Stoker's Dracula. It is a play on the entire vampire lore with a heavy dose on romance (heavy in Stoker's Dracula), Mina, and Dracula.

Then there's the middle grade book, Harold the Kung Fu Kid: A Date with a Vampire. Vampires and nerds clash in a battle to the death. It's meant to be a nod to the 80s and 90s vampire films.