Nine of the best vampire novels

Lorna Wallace has a PhD in English Literature and is a lover of all things science fiction and horror. She lives in Scotland with her rescue greyhound, Misty.

At Mental Floss Wallace tagged nine "vampire novels with a little less sparkle and a little more bite," including:

The Passage (2010) // Justin Cronin

Justin Cronin came up with the idea for The Passage after his nine-year-old daughter, Iris, asked him to write “about a girl who saves the world.” The story starts with six-year-old Amy Bellafonte being detained by FBI agents so that she can be used in a military experiment. The first half of the novel charts this experiment, which leads to a vampire outbreak and the downfall of civilization as we know it. The second half jumps forward almost a century in time to see how the remnants of humanity are surviving in this changed world. Cronin also penned two sequels: The Twelve (2012) and The City of Mirrors (2016).

Read about the other entries on the list.

The Passageis among Gabriel Bergmoser's ten top horror novels, C.J. Tudor's eight thrillers featuring a child with a mysterious supernatural power, Anthony Horowitz's top ten apocalypse books and Annalee Newitz's ten works of science fiction that are really fantasy.

--Marshal Zeringue