Say 'Young Adult Vampire Fiction' and, sadly, most people respond: 'Twilight'. Now I'm not going to Meyer bash, but there's a whole other world out there when it comes to books about the undead. I know most Twifans can't help it, they're very young. And I'm not expecting them to go back to the source and read Bram Stoker. But there's a lot of great non-Twilight books out there when it comes to teen stories revolving around vampires, angst and first love.

I've come across two writers who I think are particularly good. The first is Richelle Mead, who writes the Vampire Academy series (Penguin). Washington-based Mead is young and super-educated, and her books are addictive and original. She has constructed a world where there are full vampires called Strigoi, blood drinkers called Moroi and half-breed Moroi/humans called Dhampir. Strigoi are evil, Moroi are good and Dhampir are the guardians of the Moroi. Simple as this sounds, the books are anything but. The heroine, Rose Hathaway, is a Dhampir. She is at school, training to be a guardian. She's young, tough and in love with her mentor. There's nothing wishy-washy or pathetic about Rose. She's larger than life and blasts through her world battling the supernatural and her own demons. Fun, feisty and fabulous, she's an amazing girl with an extraordinary life. Rose is inspiring and the Vampire Academy books just get better and better with each one - there are four so far.


The Evernight series (HarperCollins), written by Claudia Gray, is my other new fave. Gray lives in New York and has been both a journalist and a lawyer. It's hard to write about this series without giving away the surprise in the first book, but let me just say there's no heartthrob vampire here. This time, the boy is the non-vampire love interest. Set at a school called Evernight Academy (in a gothic building, natch), this series is fresh with a couple of interesting takes on the whole undead mythology. There's mystery, suspense and a pair of star-crossed lovers. What more could you want? It's page-turning stuff and like Mead's work the heroine is strong and interesting. There's teenage angst for sure, but it's done intelligently and with humour. There have only been two books so far but two more are in the works.

A successful book always spawns a trend for novels in the same genre - Harry Potter, much? - but in the instance of Young Adult Vampire Fiction, all I can say is 'Yay!'. I'm loving all this new stuff and hope that there's heaps more to come.

Tomorrow's Topic: Adam's garden update
Our garden guru Adam updates us on his garden.