Tag: vampire novels

Top Ten Vampire and Werewolf Novels – Top Ten Tuesday

2 Comments

It’s another week of Top Ten Tuesday hosted by the lovely ladies at The Broke and The Bookish. This weekly meme brings book bloggers together to discuss weekly topics and themes. This week it’s the Halloween freebie.

3910a-toptentuesday

I wish that picking vampire and werewolf novels wasn’t so cliché as it’s become in a post-Twilight world. And, just for the record, if you think Twilight is going to be on this list, it’s not. Instead, I’m going to share with you my favorite vampire and werewolf books that I read before it became a “paranormal romance” section in bookstores (Thanks again for that, Twilight…).

I’m going to include the years these books were published too, so you can see how far back vampire books have gone to prove that some of these were pre-Twilight.

Vampire Books

  1. Dracula by Bram Stoker. (Published 1897) Because what good is a vampire list without THE vampire at the top?
  2. Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde. (Published 1995) This will always be my favorite vampire book. It’s not everyday your little brother forgets his teddy at the laundromat, asks you to pick it up, and you get caught in the middle of a vampire hunt (not knowing that that’s what’s happening).
  3. The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause. (Published 1992) The chapters alternate between the female protagonist and the vampire. Zoe and Simon have this weird bond or connection because her mother is dying… it’s an interesting relationship.
  4. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. (Published 2005) I’ve only read a little over 200 pages of this book, which is about 25 percent of the book, so I can’t speak to how it ends, but this is an emotional roller-coaster to say the least. A young girl is left on a historian scavenger hunt about Vlad the Impaler and who he was… or is.
  5. Den of Shadows Series by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. (“In the Forests of the Night” Published 1999) This author began wrote this book when she was 13. The entire series (and really, most of her books that I read) are captivating. For someone so young to have such a grasp on storytelling is jaw-dropping. I’ve also only read the first four books, so I can’t speak to the whole series.

Werewolf Books

  1. Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. (Published 1997). The movie didn’t do the book justice.
  2. The Changeling Prince by Vivian Vande Velde. (Published 1997). This was a little interesting and kind of dark… The werewolves were like slaves but not, and were only allowed to become human when the sorceress deemed it acceptable.
  3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. (Published 1999) Hey, this totally counts as a werewolf story. Also, uh, spoiler alert.
  4. Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #3) by Charlaine Harris. (Published 2003). I chose #3 on purpose because it’s the book in which Alcide was introduced. Cue swooning.
  5. N/A!

Well, I was close to listing 10 books, but fell short of one.

Do you have any favorite vampire or werewolf novels or series? Excluding Twilight, of course. Because even I wouldn’t go there to make my list hit 10!