4

Teen Series: Old and New

With the massive popularity of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga and the growing popularity of L.J. Smith’s Vampire Diaries (now with its own show) it is pretty clear that vampires have a huge teenage fan base. But, the two big series mentioned above aren’t the only great young adult vamp books out. If you were to check out the young adult section at the bookstore you will see a huge chunk of the books are vampire related. Don’t worry; I won’t cover all of them, just two, an older series and a newer one. Twilight’s success tends to shadow other books worth mentioning, so today we’ll give props to Claudia Gray’s Evernight series and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ Den of Shadows quartet.

First up is Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ Den of Shadows quartet, these four books have been out for a few years and were books I absolutely loved as a teenager (I swear I read Demon in My View dozens of times, I always preferred the sexy badass vampire romances over the whiny emo ones). Amelia wrote the first book, In the Forests of the Night, when she was 13 and has won a few awards for it, which is pretty impressive for one so young. Each book is separate than the others, all set in the same world but with a new story.

In the Forests of the Night: Three hundred years ago Risika had a family—a brother and a father who loved her. Three hundred years ago she was human. Now she is a vampire, a powerful one. And her past has come back to torment her.

Demon in My View: Jessica isn’t your average high school student—she’s an acclaimed published author of vampire fiction. Now two new students at her high school strongly remind her of her favorite characters. But those characters only live in her imagination—right? (This book has one of the best kiss scenes ever!)

Shattered Mirror: Christopher Raneva and Sarah Vida may look like a normal high school couple, but he’s actually a vampire who’s sworn off human blood and she’s an incredibly powerful, vampire-hunting witch. As if that weren’t enough to prevent their love, his past and her future collide when they get tangled up with Nikolas, one of the most reviled vampires ever.

Midnight Predator: Once a happy teenager, Turquoise Draka is now a vampire hunter. Her current assignment is to assassinate Jeshikah, one of the cruelest vampires in history. But to do that, she’ll have to enter Midnight, a fabled vampire realm, as a human slave.

The second series i’ll cover is the new and ongoing series, Evernight by Claudia Gray. So far two books in this series have been released, Evernight and Stargazer. The third novel in the series, Hourglass, is due to come out March 9, 2010.

Evernight is about Bianca, who has been uprooted from her happy, comfortable, uneventful life to start anew at an elite boarding school where her parents will now be professors. Bianca doesn’t feel she is the Evernight type – rich, beautiful, or gifted. Then she meets Lucas the rebel and knows right away that like her, he is an outsider.  As time goes on they develop an intense romance, however, they both have a deep dark secret that could divide them forever. Can their love survive the truth? Read the series and find out.

And there you have it; two awesome series for you young (or old) vampire lovers to check out. I swear after you read about Amelia’s vampire character Aubrey you’ll be saying “Edward who?”

– Moonlight