Riot Recommendation

60 (!!!) of Your Favorite Vampire Books

Vanessa Diaz

Managing Editor

Book Riot Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz is a writer and former bookseller from San Diego, CA whose Spanish is even faster than her English. When not reading or writing, she enjoys dreaming up travel itineraries and drinking entirely too much tea. She is a regular co-host on the All the Books podcast who especially loves mysteries, gothic lit, mythology/folklore, and all things witchy. Vanessa can be found on Instagram at @BuenosDiazSD or taking pictures of pretty trees in Portland, OR, where she now resides.

This Riot Recommendation of favorite vampire books is sponsored by Penguin Random House Audio.

New York Times bestselling author Renée Ahdieh returns with new series set in 19th century New Orleans where vampires hide in plain sight.

In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans is a safe haven after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent in the middle of the carnival season, Celine is quickly enraptured by the vibrant city, from its music to its fancy soirées and even its danger. She becomes embroiled in the city’s glitzy underworld, known as La Cour des Lions, after catching the eye of the group’s enigmatic leader, Sébastien Saint Germain.


We love us a book about blood-suckers: the old and creepy, the young and sparkly, and everything in between! That’s why we asked you to share your favorite vampire books with us and HOLY VAN HELSING did you deliver! We’ve got to say: these books really suck, and we love it. Here are your faves!

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Vampire Hunter by Hideyuki Kikuchi

The Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Dracula by Bram Stoker

The Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore

My Soul to Keep by Tananarive Due

The Black Dagger Brotherhood by J.R. Ward

A Small Charred Face by Kazuki Sakuraba

The Argeneau series by Lynsay Sands

The Last Vampire series by Christopher Pike

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson

The Hellsing series by Kohta Hirano

Rulers of Darkness by Steven Spruill

The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlmann

The Necroscope series by Brian Lumley

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

The Strain by Guillero del Toro

Stoker’s Wilde by Steven Hopstaken and Melissa Prusi

They Thirst by Robert McCammon

The Elemental Mysteries series by Elizabeth Hunter

The Night World series by L.J. Smith

The All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness

The Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot

The Gilda Stories by Jewelle L. Gomez

The Casa Dracula series by Marta Acosta

Vampire Files by P.N. Elrod

The Dracula series by Fred Saberhagen

The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas

Blood Lines by Tanya Huff

Moonshine by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Vlad by Carlos Fuentes

The Vampire of New York by Lee Hunt

Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite

The Diaries of the Family Dracul trilogy by Jeanne Kalogridis

The Pine Deep trilogy by Jonathan Maberry

The Darkangel by Meredith Ann Pierce

The Blue Bloods series by Melissa de la Cruz

The Hunger by Whitley Strieber

The Greta Helsing series by Vivian Shaw

The Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill

The World of the Others series by Anne Bishop

The Guild Hunter series by Nalini Singh

The House of Night series by P.C. Cast

The Jane Yellowrock series by Faith Hunter

Soul to Keep by Rebekah Weatherspoon

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

The Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris

The Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurel K. Hamilton

Wander this World by G.L.Tomas

The Love at Stake series by Kerrelyn Sparks

The Immortals After Dark series by Kresley Cole

The Morganville Vampires series by Rachel Caine

Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin