I'm not ashamed to admit I didn't always ride the crimson tide of the vampire romance craze. At first the whole appeal of vamp heroes escaped me, because from what I knew, Nosferatu snoozed in dirt, tore into one's neck, then suckled one bone dry 'til d.e.d. dead. Not even when a girlfriend described to me the supposed sensuality of the vampire's bite as, ahem, the "ultimate zipperless --" well, you know, did I comprehend the appeal.
Some BN.com community paranormal fiction fans - one in particular, Derek, LordRuthven, lover of all things vamp - got me reminiscing about my conversion to the moist, wet, sanguine side of romance during a discussion at an Unabashedly Bookish post a couple days ago. BN.com Science Fiction/Paranormal fiction guru Paul Goat Allen asked BN.com viewers what they thought was the difference, if any, between paranormal fiction and para romance. Along the way, I remembered the scene from Emma Holly's "Courting Midnight ," in which her Upyr vamp's elongating fangs, radiating thrall and provision of super-sized orgasm for his partner during dental penetration made me a zealot for all things leech.
If you're a devotee of dark n' dreamy men and women of the night with bite - or today's kinder, gentler vamps -- you've got to check out a new place to discover, discuss and dissect all things vampire, VampChix.blogspot.com. Sure, they talk a lot of vamp romance, but they dig into classic vampire novels of all genres, movies, vintners, TV shows, vampire community news - if it's got anything to do with undead blood imbibers, VampChix dish it.
VampChix also sports "Bite Club," which notes, "We Read Books with Bite! First rule of Bite Club: Tell everyone about Bite Club. Second rule of Bite Club: Don't bleed on the freakin' carpet." This month, the Biters are reading "The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2 ," 30 short, bloody-passionate stories by authors like Diane Whiteside, Larissa Ione and Jennifer Ashley. Bite Club meets October 30 to start jawin' about the book.
One of my favorite things about VampChix is their joy in paying tribute to male vampires in all their evil-to-sanitized glory. They love to post hot covers from vamp novels of any ilk, like Jeaniene Frost's "First Drop of Crimson ," which is just so dern pretty, I had to share it above, left. Oh, don't thank me, just do yourself a favor and enjoy it with any zoom feature you've got available.
What do you love about vamp romance? When did you begin enjoying it, and what got you interested in novels with vampire themes? Who is your fave vamp of all time?
How the Southwest Was Won: New read in the best tradition of western-set fiction. Check it out at Unabashedly Bookish.
