My first vampire-themed author conversation on the show.
In this episode, I spoke with Sara A. Freites about her Rise of Midnight series and the challenge of building a vampire world that feels like a functioning society rather than just a familiar supernatural backdrop.
The story follows Autumn Hayes, a seventeen-year-old pulled out of ordinary life and forced into a hidden world of vampires, demons, and past-life power. What makes that setup work is the pressure at its centre: Autumn is needed by the vampires, but not fully trusted by them, and she remains human in a world that still sees humans as prey.
One of Sara’s more distinctive worldbuilding choices is that her vampires consume souls rather than blood. That gives the threat a different shape and changes the tension around Autumn’s place in their society. We also discussed magical limits, spellcasting, hierarchy, hidden influence, and the way rules and resource constraints help keep speculative worlds believable.
Another useful part of the conversation was hearing how the series developed over time. Sara began the story years ago as a teenager writing by hand, and later worked it into a published series. That long development process shows in the way the world has grown beyond a simple vampire premise into something with broader structure and pressure.
What interested me most was not simply the vampire lore, but the question underneath it: what happens when a human is forced to survive inside a society built for predators?
That is the strongest part of the conversation, and the strongest hook in the story.
Author links