From the Fey to the Vamp by Julie Kagawa

Meet Julie Kagawa (my all-time favorite author!)

Julie Kagawa, the New York Times bestselling author of the Iron Fey and Blood of Eden series was born in Sacramento, California. But nothing exciting really happened to her there. So, at the age of nine she and her family moved to Hawaii, which she soon discovered was inhabited by large carnivorous insects, colonies of house geckos, and frequent hurricanes. She spent much of her time in the ocean, when she wasn’t getting chased out of it by reef sharks, jellyfish, and the odd eel.

When not swimming for her life, Julie immersed herself in books, often to the chagrin of her schoolteachers, who would find she hid novels behind her Math textbooks during class. Her love of reading led her to pen some very dark and gruesome stories, complete with colored illustrations, to shock her hapless teachers. The gory tales faded with time, but the passion for writing remained, long after she graduated and was supposed to get a real job.

To pay the rent, Julie worked in different bookstores over the years, but discovered the managers frowned upon her reading the books she was supposed to be shelving. So she turned to her other passion: training animals. She worked as a professional dogtrainer for several years, dodging Chihuahua bites and overly enthusiastic Labradors, until her first book sold and she stopped training to write full time.

Julie now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where the frequency of shark attacks are at an all time low. She lives with her husband, two obnoxious cats, one Australian Shepherd who is too smart for his own good, and the latest addition, a hyper-active Papillon.

People often ask me if it was difficult to switch from writing about faeries to writing about vampires. While it wasn't exactly hard, it was very different. In the world of the Iron Fey, the setting and characters were almost surreal. I wanted the Nevernever to be a place where you weren't sure if you were dreaming or not; it was a haunting, dangerous place, and its inhabitants were just as beautiful and deadly. 

And then, we have vampires.

Even more then faeries, the vampire myth has changed tremendously in these modern times.  Where vampires used to be terrible, night-walking monsters, creatures you would never want to meet in a dark alley, they are now tortured souls who hate what they are and drink animal blood so they don't have to prey on humans.  They can walk in the sunlight, eat normal food, and blend perfectly into human society.  They are sexy and romantic and beautiful, and would do anything to protect the human female they inevitably fall in love with.  

There is nothing wrong with this type of vampire.  It just wasn't the creature I wanted to write about.

I wanted my vamps to be monsters.  The vampires of old, much like the faeries of old, were feared and respected, creatures that people took seriously.  A creature that would rip your throat out before it ever kissed you.  They may remember their human life, they might even feel human emotion at times, but these vampires are predators, and the Hunger for human blood overpowers everything else.  Their world is dark, filled with blood and violence, and that was my inspiration when I created the post-apocalyptic setting of The Immortal Rules.  A bleak and desolate world, and a perfect fit for the vampires who ruled as monsters.

Dun. Dun. Duuuuuun.

A world of vampires.... yes, I am 110% positive that I would not survive for more than five seconds.
In the fey world, I have Puck. That's all I need.