KITCHENER -- A new novel with a bloody twist and a local connection is available at book stores.

"Terra Nova" features vampires at a Kitchener high school.

"I just have a lot of stories in my head and though, you know what, I am just going to try and do this and see if it works out," author Marlena Guzowski said.

Guzowski's debut novel is set right in Waterloo Region.

"The characters are all living in K-W, they're from K-W," she said.

Guzowski now lives in Saskatchewan but grew up in Kitchener and went to Resurrection Catholic Secondary School. She said the novel has specifics about the school, since the characters go there too.

"I wanted a high school where I knew the setting," she said. "I wanted to really be able to visualize what the classrooms looked like, hallways looked like, so it was realistic."

There are also landmarks like Watson Park in the book, which has a bloodthirsty twist.

"I created this world, where it's exactly what would happen if there's basically no people left, it's just an entire vampire society," Guzowski said. "How would they survive? What would they farm? What would they think?"

Guzowski wrote her main character with a blood disorder, following her own diagnosis five years ago.

"When I was being diagnosed, which was actually in Germany on exchange, I was in hospital for a while and I started coming up with these stories," she said.

The book was released in July.