Hey bookworm friends, I hope you’ve been enjoying October so far. If you, like me, are a big Halloween fan, I invite you to check out my themed book & song lists that I have so far. First, there came the werewolves and now it’s time for Vampires! If you’re fascinated by night creatures, drinking blood, and turning into bats this list is for you. But be warned: perusing this list might turn you immortal—proceed at your own risk 😉.
This list will contain 10 books (a mix of Read and TBR) and 10 songs that I love! For some extra fun, I tried to match up each book with the song that I felt matched it best. I hope you find something you like 😜!
Books & Songs That Will Turn You Immortal 🦇
📚 A Cruel Thirst – Angela Montoya
YA Romantasy; A fledgling vampire and a vampire huntress must work together to rid the world of monsters. Expected Pub Date: Dec 17, 2024.
🎵Moonflower is a new song from the Gothic/Symphonic metal band Blackbriar (feat. Marjana Semkina). It’s inspired by ‘Carmilla’ and tells the story of a sapphic romance between a vampire and a mortal.
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📚 A Vile Season – David Ferraro
YA Queer Regency Romance; A vampire infiltrates the duke’s marriage games to uncover a plot by clandestine vampire hunters. Expected Pub Date: October 22, 2024.
🎵The Vampire Masquerade by Australian composer Peter Gundry is a waltz and the perfect song to play at a ball on a stormy night.
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📚 Immortal Dark – Tigest Girma
YA Dark Romantic Academia Fantasy; A lost heiress infiltrates a secret society and must live with the vampire she suspects killed her family.
🎵Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was arranged by musicians David Eman & Pandora Journey into a darker, synth-layered version fit for vampires and classical music-loving villains.
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📚The Silver Kiss – Annette Curtis Klause
YA Paranormal Romance; Simon has been looking for revenge for his mother’s violent death 300 years ago. When he meets a grieving teenager, Zoe, he can relate to her loneliness and pain. Does he dare to ask her for help to escape his lifelong chase?
🎵 Night of the Wolf from Nox Arcana‘s Transylvania album (a tribute to Stoker’s Dracula) perfectly fits in this list. The title may feel like it belongs in the werewolf list but the dark wave atmosphere with creepy chanting definitely feels vampiric. Don’t forget that Dracula can turn into a Wolf!
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📚 The Serpent and the Wings of Night – Carissa Broadbent
New Adult Romantasy; The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn Vampire King is good at surviving in a world designed to kill her. But she’s tired of feeling like prey. So she enters the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death. To succeed in the tournament she allies with a mysterious yet handsome rival.
🎵Impossible to make a vampire-themed playlist without including Vampire Heart by the Finnish gothic rock band HIM. Due to Ville’s deep voice and aesthetics, everything by them feels like it belongs on this list (at least as far as I’m concerned).
More Vampire Books & Songs
📚 May Day – Josie Jaffrey
Paranormal Mystery; “If the murderer you’re tracking is a vampire, then you want a vampire detective. Just maybe not this one.” Set in Oxford, England, a vampire Seeker with a grudge against the local baron tries to pin a murder on him even though none of the evidence points to him.
🎵 Vampires Will Never Hurt You by the iconic emo band My Chemical Romance has one character asking another to stake them in the heart if vampires catch them. “I’ll never let them hurt you, I promise.”
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📚 Bless Your Heart – Lindy Ryan
Paranormal Mystery & Southern Horror; 1999, Southeast Texas. The Evans women run the only funeral parlour in town. But when the body of the town gossip rises from the dead, they realize that Strigoi are back and it’s up to them to figure out who brought back the original vampires.
🎵 Vampires Coffin by the rock band The Kentucky Vampires has an industrial and almost grungy feel to it. The band was started in Louisville, Kentucky and is known for including horror rock elements in its music.
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📚 Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Classic Fantasy Horror; Louis tells the story of his life and how he was made into a vampire by Lestat. We follow the course of his many immortal years through New Orleans and Europe.
🎵 Before I’m Dead by Kidneythieves is from the soundtrack of Queen of the Damned so it’s a fitting accompaniment for an Anne Rice book. This industrial rock tune has haunting vocals.
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📚 Sunshine – Robin McKinley
YA Fantasy Horror; Sunshine just needed a spot where she could be alone with her thoughts. She decides to head out to the lake, after all, there hadn’t been any trouble there for years. Vampires never entered her mind. Until they found her…
🎵 There are many covers of the theme from the 80’s vampire movie ‘The Lost Boys’! My favourite rendition of Cry Little Sister is by Vomitron Feat Anneke Van Giersbergen. I love her voice!
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📚 The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova
Historical Fantasy, Horror; While exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds ancient letters. They’re all addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor,” and they reveal secrets of her parents’ past in connection to an inconceivable evil she never expected to find.
🎵 Dracula Has Risen From The Grave is a short and ghoulish song from the ‘Horror country’ band The Coffinshakers. If you’ve ever wondered what a Western and vampires sound like together, this is it!
Let’s chat in the comments!
Who is your favourite vampire? Or what other songs would turn you immortal?
I absolutely adored this post 😍😍 first, I love the inclusion of the songs and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the snippets. The mood they create is awesome and I will be coming back for a few to add them to specific playlists. I think Moonflower by Blackbriar might become a new obsession!
I have really gotten into vampire stories the past year so I obviously enjoyed getting to hear about them. Many of the YA stories, I hadn’t heard of but the plots sound really intriguing in an original way. I have heard great things about Immortal Dark and I look forward to reading it myself.
I really want to start Anne Rice’s Vampire series after loving the TV show!
Thank you for this post ~ again, I loved it! 🥰
Thanks so much Sophie, that makes me so happy to hear😍 Glad you liked some of the songs too, I love creating themed playlists too, it just tickles my brain in such a good way😂
Yes I only heard Moonflower recently because it’s a newer song by Blackbriar and I loved it too!
Oh nice well I’m glad you’ve been in a vampire-y sort of mood! 🦇 Which ones have been some of your favs?
Yeah I’m excited for these YA ones too!
& I want to watch the Anne Rice TV show because I loved the movie and the first book though I have yet to continue the series.
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It is a lot of fun to make playlists 😁
I listened to it on Spotify and heard more of Blackbriar, I really like the sound of their music!
I enjoyed Silver Under Nightfall ~ it feels like Castlevania fanfiction as the main character reminds me of Belmont a lot.
I loved the writing in A Dowry of Blood.
I’m currently reading Masters of Death which features a vampire real estate agent, I’m enjoying it a lot so far.
I’m glad you enjoyed the book for Interview with a Vampire and I hope you love the show one day 🥰
Yay oh my gosh I’m so glad you really liked Blackbriar! The first song I ever heard by them is Until Eternity and that’s how I fell in love with them.
OH I have Silver Under Nightfall, really need to read it! I love Castlevania and Belmont is awesome so that’s a great way to get me to read that haha 🙂
Masters of Death has such a fun premise, I’m so glad you’re enjoying that one too!
Thank you ♥!!
ah… lovely, I will definitely give that song a listen soon!
I hope you end up enjoying Silver Under Nightfall (and I love Belmont too)!
Thank you! ❤️
haha okay cool 😀 & Thanks so much!
Fun post! Interview with the Vampire was probably my first “modern” vampire book, and I’ve loved so many since then! Sunshine is a favorite, and I love seeing it mentioned!
Thanks 😄!! Oh, cool that was probably one of my first too since I read it so many years ago! Yay, I’m so glad you love Sunshine it’s on my tbr and it’s been calling my name for years but I have yet to heed its call, oops! 😂😑
I love vampires, they were one of my first bookish obsessions, so I’m thrilled to see you’ve done a post about them too.
Music wise I knew one song this time 😂 the MCR one. Tbh I don’t think I’d listen to it anymore but I do still like some of the songs from the two albums that followed. I’m not familiar with the rest but they definitely have a vampire feel about them. I listened to the last one before reading your thoughts and vampire western was exactly what I thought too 😂
I haven’t read any of these which considering my love of the sub genre is pretty bad. But I’m hoping to treat myself to Serpent & The Wings Of Night soon and I’ve owner Interview With The Vampire for years, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet as I tend to pick up sequels at the same time and it’s a pretty long series. I did adore the movie although I’ve somehow never seen the later one.
I’m also really intrigued by Immortal Dark & The Historian, although I’m also slightly nervous about the second one as I’ve seen mixed reactions to it.
I’ve added some of the others to my TBR as they were new to me. May Day sounds intriguing & I didn’t realise McKinley had a vampire book although I have others by the author on my TBR.
I can’t pick a favourite vampire, it’s so hard. Klaus from TVD/Originals came to mind first so I’ll say him but I adore a lot.
As for songs I love Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo. I also associate Enjoy The Silence (the Anberlin version) with vampires thanks to Damons dance scene 😂
Oh that’s so awesome I’m glad to hear you love them too😁!
Omg yay, I love that you knew a song this time!! 🎉I was obsessed with MCR for so many years & I still love them a lot. Yeah I kind of know what you mean, while I love several songs from this album I much preferred the ones that followed it too 😛.
Ahaha Nice, okay I absolutely love that we both described that song in the same way in our heads 😂😂
In your defence, a few of these haven’t even come out yet! & I have not read them all either several are on my tbr (If I only picked books that I’ve already read my lists would be much shorter 🤫😆)
Yeah that’s true you are good at keeping up with series, or at least much better than I am lol and that’s a whole commitment!
Yeah, I’m nervous about The Historian too because I have it and I want to read it but it’s huge and I’ve heard some people complain it’s slow but I’ve been known to like some “slow” books so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I actually saw another blog post about May Day, I believe it was A Dance With Books. & I have another book by McKinley too, one of her fairytale retellings.
haha I’m sorry I know it’s a hard question😛 But oh that’s a good choice, I kind of remember him from TVD but I never watched Originals.
Ohh let me go listen to both of those right now! 🙂 Wait, I recognize Anberlin, I used to listen to a song by them years ago wow I’m super curious now. Thanks! 🖤🥰🖤
Definitely 😍
It had to happen eventually 😂 I know I used to love one song from this album but I’m not sure if it’s too heavy for me now music wise. I think I listened to some of the ones from Black Parade enough to know most of the lyrics though 😂
It’s kind of hard not to as it majorly gives off those vibes 🤣
Yeah I saw the dates for a few and same here. I always tend to throw in unread books or have a list that’s entirely made up of them 😅
Thank you but I’m not sure that’s true 🙈 to be fair I should probably be sensible and split that one into parts for some variety in-between. Same with The Hollows which is even longer.
I’ve got the ebook so didn’t really know what size it was. But I’ve heard the slow thing & also that parts were repetitive. I’ve seen a rave review too though and slow books sometimes work for me as well. Hopefully we’ll both enjoy it whenever we get to it.
Ah right. I think I have one of those too, as well as something else which I should remember having updated my list earlier today 🙈
I really want to rewatch both sometime. And finally watch Legacies as I’m sure I saw it was being shown or streamed somewhere in the UK finally. That’s literally the only song I know by them but I should probably look them up as i adore it 😂
Ah it’s so interesting the way music tastes change & evolve for people as they grow older. My fav was Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (I remember my cd got stolen in high school and I was so sad about it lol) but I adore the Black Parade too!
There’s just something fun about the possibilities of a TBR! Ahaha well I can see the appeal of variety in between long series but I also loved the excitement of getting lost in a series and reading nothing else until it’s all done, I miss that!
Ah okay yeah it’s about 700 pages. Yes, here’s hoping!
Hehe oops oh well 😆I’m sure you’ll remember at some later point lol.
OH wow I’ve never even heard of Legacies! that’s a good idea you might like some of their other songs. The one I used to listen to is called Godspeed but I don’t know any others 🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️