The best vampire books with bite
Author and BookTok favourite Hafsah Faizal on why we're drawn to vampire books, as well as our top reads to really get your teeth into.
Vampires are dead, every trendsetter says, and yet like the undead themselves, we resurrect them from the grave time and time again. Why are we drawn to them? They’re hardly the only paranormal type out there. We have zombies, ghosts, werewolves, and aliens, and yet vampires remain at the top of our lists. I’m guilty, of course. I never set out to write vampire books of my own, but they somehow shuffled their way between the pages and never left. They’re vain, almost always drop dead gorgeous, and so overly dramatic that it’s a marvel they can even survive an eternity.
I do wonder, however, if the reason we remain enraptured is because of how, of all the paranormal creatures, they’re the most like us. Some of the best vampire books are those that use the sanguinary folk to unravel the dark side of being human. To explore our monstrous tendencies that seemingly birth at death, when a human becomes a vampire. After all, it’s easier to look outward than it is inward. To see fangs growing with insatiable hunger, sinking heartlessly into the innocent, to read about bodies obtaining a permanence that’s almost bittersweet, and think, oh, we can never be like that.
You’re not here for an author’s musings though, are you? You’re here for recs you can sink your teeth into, and we’ve got you covered.