Lore & Lust is a tale about heritage, love, and knowledge, and the power they have. It comes in the form of a delicious slow-burn gay vampire romance that will melt your heart while keeping your adrenaline up all the way through. The author, Karla Nikole, sat down with us and we got to have a chat about all things vampire, self-publishing and future projects. Make sure to get your copy of Lore and Lust soon, so you can join our overwhelming excitement for book two in the series!
If you had to describe Lore & Lust in three words, what would they be?
Sexy, modern and refreshing.
Lore & Lust is a Vampire Love story – what was your inspiration behind that?
I’ve always loved vampires, and romance as a genre. But I could never quite find the exact story I wanted to read—something truly romantic with the sex appeal of vampires. I also really wanted two balanced main characters with believable chemistry—not because the author told me they’re “destined” or “soul mates.” But because I can see it and feel it as they interact. So I decided to write the story I wanted to read!
You have built a world in which queerness is just as normal as heterosexuality and in which homophobia doesn’t exist. Was this intentional/important to you?
This was very intentional and important to me. Honestly, nothing in this book is by accident. I wanted to create an environment where Haruka and Nino’s queerness was natural, and not something they needed to “come to terms” with, or explain or justify. I wanted to be free to explore and express their love and who they are as characters, without constraints. I asked myself, “If we lived in a world where love truly is love, what would that look like?” This is my humble interpretation of that.
In the book, the reader gets to visit Italy, England, and Japan. What made you want to set your story in these three countries?
These three countries hold a special place in my heart! Japan pretty much dominated the decade of my twenties. I lived and breathed the culture as my escape from my (at the time) boring, stressful corporate job. I was always at bookstores buying manga, ordering music CDs from overseas, watching anime and TV programs (Ninja Warrior will always be a personal favorite). Eventually I took language classes for fun at a local community college, then after a two-week vacation where I officially fell in love with the culture, I moved there as part of the Japan Exchange Teaching Program for two years. While my experiences with Italy and England aren’t quite as extensive (although I have traveled to both places), these two countries also hold a kind of magic in my mind—particularly the landscapes and architecture.
Lore & Lust is only the first book in a series. How many books will there be in total and when can we read more about Haruka and Nino?
As of now, there are three completed books. I can see there being more, potentially, down the road. But these three books essentially poured out of me, so I’m sticking with them. I’m aiming to release book two by April 1st at the latest. But being the ambitious person I am, I might try to push it out a little earlier.
It is very rare to read a story where vampires feed from each other instead of humans. Where did that idea come from?
In creating Haruka, I wanted him to have a true, equal partner. The dynamic of a human-vampire pairing is always such that the vampire is more dominant, older, powerful and so on. I didn’t want that element in the story, or the moral conflict and arguments that come with it. But this isn’t to say that a human doesn’t show up as a main character at some point. Wink wink.
In general, the vampire community is very set on mating, intimacy, feeding, social standing – much like us humans can be. However, both Nino and Haruka live differently to that. Did you draw parallels to human societies in that particular story line and if so, what made you choose for Nino and Haruka to break these social norms?
This is all me, because personally, I am quite the contrarian. I think in any established society, there are certain rigid expectations for how a person should be living their life. In my geographical society, for instance, we hear that you should have a house and kids by a certain age, or you shouldn’t be watching cartoons anymore at a certain age. You need a full-time job with benefits!! I am a huge proponent of doing what feels right for YOU in your own time, and never mind what society says or thinks. So of course my characters reflect this.
Lore & Lust is a self-published book. What do you think are the advantages of self-publishing and was it a conscious decision?
Again, yes, this was a very intentional choice I made. In self-publishing, you can control everything. That has good and bad points, of course. For me, for now, the good outweighs the bad I can make my characters, stories and plots how I want. I can choose the cover artists I want… I like having control (and not having a boss or hard deadlines), and I like learning about this process.
I think the big benefit in traditional publishing would be to let someone else do the marketing. I’m not bad at marketing and I enjoy some aspects of it, but it’s like a switch in my brain that I have to flip on and off. Also, distribution. A publisher could help with audio books and language translations (I would love for the books to be in Italian, Spanish or Japanese someday). I can only do so much, but so far the ride is incredible!
What was your writing progress from the first idea to the final book?
Oohh it was tumultuous. I actually re-wrote the first book four times across two years. I’m talking complete and total re-writes (six drafts if you count my adding new elements and taking things away). But I got much better with books two and three. Both only took two complete re-writes because, you know, I finally learned how to PLAN my story arcs.
I started writing this book for fun—something to share privately with a couple friends. So I wasn’t thinking anything about substantial plots and true character arcs or development. It was just whimsical word vomit on a page. But they really liked the whimsical word vomit and pushed me to dive deeper and get serious. My writing has improved a lot in that time, but I still have so, so much more to learn and I’m excited about it.
Are you working on something new at the moment or are you still emerged in the Lore & Lust universe?
I’m working on two new projects, but I still have one foot in the Lore and Lust world. I’m hoping to publish an eBook of a quirky, witchy and magical male/female romance in December, and my next luxurious, world-building project is a merman story, which will be male/male and enemies to lovers. Hopefully I can push that one out by fall of next year!
Will you be picking up Lore & Lust? Tell us in the comments below!
