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Vampire novels never seem to go out of vogue. As a teenager, I thought I saw their renaissance with Twilight, but, in the words of C.S. Lewis “there is a magic deeper which she did not know.” She being me, and the deep magic being the waves and waves of vampire renaissances before my time. Interview with the Vampire made its mark in the twentieth century, but before it, there was Dracula, and even before that, there was Carmilla. But the vampire romance, so to speak, definitely seems to be a more modern phenomenon. Because let’s be honest, in spite of some excellent retellings in recent years, I don’t think we can count either Lucy or Laura as fully willing participants in a romance. Dracula and Carmilla are both much too gothic for that. No, I think we’ve got Buffy and Twilight to thank for today’s version of romantic vampires.
Team Edward and Team Jacob have had their day, though, because the options for romancing a vampire are much more varied today. Instead of choosing between a romance with a vampire or a werewolf, why not a romance between the two? For that matter, why choose at all? In today’s vampire romances, polyamory might just be on the table. If Bella had only known!
I’ve included both capital-R-Romance novels with vamp leads and love interests as well as some recent romantic vampire reads that you might find shelved in fantasy or horror.
So enjoy our current vampire romance renaissance while it lasts, and remember: the vampire romance never really dies. Not even with a stake through the heart. Just wait around a few years and watch it take a new shape under the moonlight.
Lucy Undying by Kiersten White
Lucy gets to live out her full story in this lush, sapphic reimagining of Dracula. Told through Lucy’s diary entries, interviews, and the perspective of Iris, a present-day scion of the Godalming family, we see that being turned into a vampire was only the beginning for Lucy. After escaping the clutches of the men who supposedly cared for—and beheaded—her, Lucy ventures across the world and throughout history. But she’s still missing the one thing she’s always been searching for: selfless love. Will finding it finally sate her thirst for acceptance, or will it be her undoing?
Bride by Ali Hazelwood
Vampires and werewolves have always been enemies. The last attempt at a political alliance between the two ended in slaughter. Now Mercy Lark, the only daughter of a powerful Vampyre councilman, is set to wed werewolf alpha, Lowe Moreland. She fully expects the wedding to end horribly and probably in her own death. But Lowe actually seems hellbent on making this partnership work—and on keeping Mercy alive. Can a vampire really fall in love with a werewolf? Even if she does, can the werewolf really love her back?
Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco
How many times have you read a vampire book or watched a vampire TV show where everything would’ve been so much easier if the love triangle just turned into a polyamorous triad? Rin Chupeco answers everybody’s wishes in this fantasy love story about a vampire hunter, a vampire heiress, and her arrogant, vampire lord fiancé. Why choose which team you’re on when you could just cheer on all three?
This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings
In this friends-to-enemies-to-lovers vampire YA novel set during the Jazz Age, the once-human reapers and reaper hunters hold New York in a vice grip. Layla Quinn lost everything the night she was turned into a reaper, including her once-best friend and heir to a reaper hunting empire, Elise Saint. Now, when a terrible crime is pinned on Layla, the two are forced to together again. They might have been friends once, but there’s only hate left between them now. Hate isn’t the same as indifference, though, and as they get to know each other for a second time, it becomes clear that hate and love aren’t always at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
Looking for a little slow-burn enemies to lovers in your vampire romance? Well, look no further. Kidan Adane loathes vampires, maybe more than anyone. But she also just inherited a house—and a place—at an elite vampire / human university known as Uxlay. Her house also comes inhabited by the very vampire she believes kidnapped her sister. Now all Kidan has to do is pretend to be a model student long enough to prove Susenyos Sagad is a murderer and kidnapper as well as a vampire. The fact that they’re bound to one another by blood? That doesn’t mean anything.
