Looking Backward and Building for the Future in THE CALLING Vampire Novels

There are lots of things I love about writing vampires, but one of the most interesting things is the ability to look backward into their past lives so that I can build their lives in the future.  All those years of past life experience have really helped to create some very memorable characters for me.

You've seen some of that past life influence lately with Blake from FURY CALLS.  Blake's hard life as a coal miner's son totally shaped the kind of man he became as well as the vampire.  In DEATH CALLS and DESIRE CALLS, I hope you got a sense of Stacia, one of my all-time favorite characters.  A two thousand year-old vampire, she, too, has had quite an interesting life and I can't wait to explore it further next year in ARDOR CALLS.

Why can't I wait?  Well, I love history and creating the past lives of the vampires has really let me delve into past eras like the height of the Roman empire, the American Civil War and the Spanish Inquisition.  With a little tweak as in HOLIDAY WITH A VAMPIRE, I had Romans committing vampire genocide in much the same way that Hitler behaved during the Holocaust.

That history and those past lives have shaped my vampires just like our life experiences influence how we behave.  Of course, mutiply that experience by the many centuries in which the vampires have lived.

In HONOR CALLS, however, there's a bit of a twist and yet the past still influences the future of the heroes.

Michaela Ramirez has lived only one life so far.  At twenty-something, Michaela has already seen suffering in her past life.  She watched her mother be murdered by a vampire.  It's what has shaped her and provided her calling in life - she's a vampire slayer.

A determined one who still stop at nothing to vanquish vampires who attack humans.  That single-minded determination is her downfall.  It's the part of her history that I could use to build her future life -- one where she meets a man -- Jesus Hernandez -- who knows that justice is not so single-minded.

A conflict which is going to really impact on these two as their story progresses in future novels and hopefully, in one of their own.

I hope you liked this insight into a writer's mind.  Do you like seeing the past lives of the vampires?  Do you find that most of those past lives are unhappy ones?

Caridad Piñeiro
USA TODAY Bestseller, NY Times Bestseller
SOLDIER'S SECRET CHILD, December 2008, Silhouette Romantic Suspense
THE CALLING, a vampire series from Silhouette Nocturne
FURY CALLS, March 2009, ARDOR CALLS and VENGEANCE CALLS, 2010
Visit w