I’m delighted to be featured on my Mum, Rosemary Gemmell’s blog today, which reveals a bit more about the inspiration and research behind Young Blood. You can read full the post here

I feel very lucky having the support from my mum. We both write and it’s great having someone to share work and writing experiences with. You can view the full range of books my Mum has written on her website above. Even although we write quite different things, with a different style, I always enjoy reading and editing her work, and really appreciate the feedback I receive on all of my work. Without the support with editing, technical advice and lots more, I don’t think Young Blood would ever have made it to the final stages!

Here’s a snippet below from the blog post, where I talk about the inspiration behind Young Blood:

What was the inspiration behind your new book?

My initial idea for Young Blood stemmed from an article I read, about an American start-up company ‘Ambrosia’ founded by a medical school graduate, Karmazin, in 2016 which sold ‘young blood plasma transfusions’ (from young people into older people).

Charging a large sum of money for these transfusions, they claimed a range of health benefits such as offering treatment for Alzheimer’s. In a pitch about Ambrosia at a self-enhancement conference in 2017, Karmazin said, “We’re a company interested in making you young again.”

This sparked off the idea of having a powerful doctor set up a premium club for wealthy individuals to access pure plasma transfusions, capturing young people from the care system to be the donors, maintaining a super-controlled environment within ‘the house’.

In my day job I work with vulnerable teenagers on a daily basis. I see how much uncertainty and instability young people in the care system can face and how depressingly easy it could be for them to ‘disappear’ and for powerful individuals in authority to cover this up

Charging a large sum of money for these transfusions, they claimed a range of health benefits such as offering treatment for Alzheimer’s. In a pitch about Ambrosia at a self-enhancement conference in 2017, Karmazin said, “We’re a company interested in making you young again.”

This sparked off the idea of having a powerful doctor set up a premium club for wealthy individuals to access pure plasma transfusions, capturing young people from the care system to be the donors, maintaining a super-controlled environment within ‘the house’.

In my day job I work with vulnerable teenagers on a daily basis. I see how much uncertainty and instability young people in the care system can face and how depressingly easy it could be for them to ‘disappear’ and for powerful individuals in authority to cover this up

If you continue to read through the interview you’ll see I have a dream director in mind if my books were ever made into films (we can all dream!!). I love the bold, quirky and eye-catching directorial style of Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman, Saltburn), so if you are reading this Emerald, get in touch 😉 I was delighted to see a crime writer I know share a photo of Young Blood on social media last week, saying it was a captivating read and that anyone commissioning films should check it out, so you never know! When I’m writing books I often see the story ‘playing out’ in my head like a film.

I had a great launch weekend last week for Young Blood. I’m going to post separately about that later in the week with some photos.

For now I will leave you with my book trailer