From Book Brunch:


Children's column: That's enough vampires

Nicolette Jones

Radio 4's Front Row on Wednesday night (28 October) was devoted to vampires – to the history of them in folklore and literature, and to the current fashion in books and especially films. No-one went into the proliferation, post-Meyer, of young adult vampire romances, so the following were not name-checked: L J Smith’s Vampire Diaries books, Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy, Rachel Caine’s Morganville Vampires, Sophie Collins’s How To Date a Vampire, Ellen Schreiber’s Vampire Kisses, P C and Kristin Cast’s House of Night novels... Not to mention all those proliferating black and red jackets, and apples, with or without a bite out of them. So that from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games to Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush (about fallen angels, not vampires, but still supernatural romance), the pitch is at the Twilight market.

Vampires in legend have always been, as the critics on Front Row said, about desire. They are creatures of uncensored appetite and impulse.