Favorite Vampire Novels: The Creature Feature

Those Who Hunt the Night (A James Asher Novel) by Barbara Hambley. James Asher, a retired member of the Queen’s secret service in Edwardian England, has settled into quietude as an Oxford professor of philology with his physician wife, Lydia. But his peace is shattered when he’s confronted by a pale aristocratic Spaniard named Don Simon Ysidro, who makes an outlandish claim that someone is killing his fellow vampires of London. (historical paranormal)

Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse Book 1) by Charlaine Harris. Sookie Stackhouse is just a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s quiet, doesn’t get out much, and tends to mind her own business—except when it comes to her “disability.” Sookie can read minds. And that doesn’t make her too dateable. Then along comes Bill Compton. He’s tall, dark, handsome—and Sookie can’t hear a word he’s thinking. He is also a vampire. (paranormal romance thriller)

The Dracula Tape (Saberhagen’s Dracula Series Book 1) by Fred Saberhagen. The never before told story behind the legend of Count Dracula! The story of the Count’s greatest love, Mina Harker, and the bloodthirsty vampire hunters whose cruel pursuit drove the master of the night to actions ever more ruthless. (horror/speculative fiction)

Sucks To Be Me: A Paranormal Women’s Fiction Novel (First Fangs Club Book 1) by Kristen Painter. When 49-year-old Belladonna Barrone’s mobbed-up husband does her the favor of dying in a car accident, she thinks she’s finally free of the crime family she unwittingly married into. Then the boss tells her that she has to complete her husband’s last job before that freedom is truly hers. No big deal, she figures. Until things go south in ways she never imagined. Her dreams of a new life disappear faster than wine at the book club as more problems arise from her husband’s dark dealings and the unbelievable complications caused by her supernatural entanglements. (mystery)

Nightshades: A Paranormal Thriller by Melissa F. Olson. Alex McKenna is the new Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office of the Bureau of Paranormal Investigations–the division tasked with investigating crimes involving shades. Or vampires, as they’re more widely known. (urban fantasy)

Bitten in the Midlife: (Fanged After Forty Book 1) by Lia Davis (Author), L.A. Boruff (Author). Jilted at the altar a month before her fortieth birthday. Poor Hailey. Midlife really does have a crisis. Or is it that midlife is the crisis? Either way, it sucks. Finding a job is challenging. With her savings depleted from the move, Hailey has to suck it up and take what she gets. After taking a job as a private nurse for an injured bounty hunter, things start to look up. Then a skip falls into her lap. With a little encouragement, Hailey takes on the task of tracking down the skip. It’s easy money. Right? Wrong. This skip is far more than Hailey bargained for. And her life is about to change in a very bloody and pointy kind of way. (cozy mystery)

The Vampire Knitting Club: First in a Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series by Nancy Warren. Lucy Swift travels to Oxford to visit her grandmother. With Gran’s undying love to count on and Cardinal Woolsey’s, Gran’s knitting shop, to keep her busy, Lucy can catch her breath and figure out what she’s going to do. Except it turns out that Gran is the undying. Or at least, the undead. (cozy mystery)

Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, Book 1) by Anne Rice. Here are the confessions of a vampire. Hypnotic, shocking, and chillingly sensual. (paranormal thriller)

Fevre Dream: A Novel by George R. R. Martin. Before there was Game of Thrones, there was Fevre Dream. Abner Marsh, a struggling riverboat captain, suspects that something’s amiss when he is approached by the hauntingly pale, steely-eyed and aristocratic, Joshua York who strangely doesn’t care that the icy winter of 1857 has wiped out all but one of Marsh’s dilapidated fleet; nor does he care that he won’t earn back his investment in a decade. York’s reasons for traversing the powerful Mississippi are to be none of Marsh’s concern—no matter how bizarre, arbitrary, or capricious York’s actions may prove. (horror/dark fantasy)

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. This is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family’s past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. (historical mystery)

The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold. (horror)

The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas. By day, Dr. Edward Lewis Weyland is a professor. But by night, he’s a vampire, and though he didn’t acquire his powers through supernatural means — his condition is biologic — his need to feed upon human blood hasn’t changed. (thriller/dark fantasy)

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, Book 1) by Deborah Harkness. Though it has ‘witch’ in the title, equal billing goes to the vampires. Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford’s Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. (historical fantasy thriller)

A Quick Bite (An Argeneau Novel Book 1) by Lynsay Sands. Lissianna has been spending her centuries pining for Mr. Right, not just a quick snack, and this sexy guy she finds in her bed looks like he might be a candidate. But there’s another, more pressing issue: her tendency to faint at the sight of blood . . . an especially annoying quirk for a vampire. (paranormal romantic comedy)

The Companion by Susan Squires. Ian Rufford was captured, enslaved, and then abandoned in the lonely dunes of Egypt’s desert. His tormentor was a woman of magnificent beauty…and the blackest of souls. Now, Ian prays for a death that will not come. Only after his rescue does he begin to realize how he has changed. He is carrying something strange in his blood known only as “The Companion,” and his new-found symbiotic partner will exact a terrible price in return for the gifts Ian is only beginning to understand. (dark fantasy/erotica)

Divine Madness: (The Divine Series Book 2) by Melanie Jackson. Down a dirt road that might have been a relic from the days of Cortez, Seraphina Sandoval fled her past. She was not often afraid, and never without reason. But someone in her position could trust no one—not even the sublime stranger she met on her way. When the Dark Man had found her in Paris, she’d been someone else, and she had bartered her soul not realizing the manner of its collection. All good things come to and end, and she had spent centuries on the run. She and her cat had ended here: Mexico—an arid land of tequila, ancient rites and vampires. (paranormal romance)

If you haven’t sated your craving for the paranormal visit Angels, The Good, The Bad, The Fallen.