81 Books Like Something in the Blood

I love this book so much, I have read it at least three times. It is a classic gothic novel with an eerie setting and interesting characters, including those with psychosis that add to the mystery of he novel.

While the film version is undoubtedly a classic, the novel is by far better.

This book has engendered controversy for almost forcefully bridging the gap between the 15th Century Wallachian Prince Vlad III or Vlad the Impaler or Dracula. Stoker had already constructed his character, called “Count Wampyr,” before he learned of his future namesake. However, he quite clearly establishes a connection between the two through an explanation provided by Abraham Van Helsing. The Dracula of the eponymous novel is a heavily fictionalized version of the real-life figure, but so are most similarly positioned characters in literature, film, and television. Florescu and McNally provide a cursory overview of Slavic and Balkan vampire folklore, a biographical sketch of Vlad the Impaler, and illuminate the process by which Stoker adapted this violent, cunning, and sometimes brilliant nationalist and military tactician into a fictional monster.

Whereas Barber expounds upon the anthropological origins of the vampire myth, McClelland focuses on the practices, principles, and logistics of killing the dead. The most familiar form comes in the unearthing and mutilation of bodies. McClelland explains the whys and wherefores of that practice, but he also gives their killers more than their due, explaining the role of vampire slayers as shamans, village elders, and quasi-religious figures during Europe’s transition from its pagan roots to modern Christianity. He demonstrates that vampires fell into an uneasy space between a fading system of peasant folklore and the organized religious rituals and beliefs that ultimately took their place. There are no vampires in the Bible, so where was the church during the vampire hysteria of the 1800s and how did they regard these mythical creatures? McClelland answers that and more. He also includes an overview of our modern conception of vampire slayers from… show more.

The figure of the vampire has become very familiar through portrayals in literature, stage, and cinema, but where does the myth itself originate?

Many have speculated on the roots of the vampire legend, ascribing it to various diseases, like porphyria or rabies. But Barber stripped away the cultural additions imposed on the legend by its fictional interpretation and looked for origins consistent with the bare, original legend.

A nice piece of folkloric detective work, and one that influenced my own book.

Johnathan Newman is a novice hunter who teams up with a five-hundred-year-old vampire named Vic on a dangerous mission.

The town is plagued by mythological creatures in need of saving and they work together to solve the mystery. However, Vic’s secrets bring trouble, and their mutual attraction doesn’t make things any easier.

A Bargain of Blood and Gold is one of the best-written books I’ve ever read. There hasn’t been a book where every word was chosen so perfectly to my liking. It has the exact amount of descriptions and dialogue. The style is simply perfect.

Additionally, the characters were so vivid and fun to read. John and Vic had such distinguished ways of expressing themselves that I knew every time who was talking without being told.

They are easily one of my favorite M/M couples.

I found this book funny and different from what I expected.

There is a love triangle, suspense, and a twist between the three characters, which I found refreshing too.

It’s got that ‘new age’ feeling to it, based on a dating app, but with a delicious twist. 

Something that also caught my eye was that it is a standalone, so it's perfect if you just want a vampire romance to read and leave it at that. I usually read series, so it was nice to not have to mentally prepare myself to dive into a sequel. 

This book holds a very special place in my heart because this is the book I was reading on the day I decided to become an author. The way the characters, world-building, mythos, and action came together in this story was pure magic, and I wanted more.

I’ve since read the entire series, though it’s ongoing, and I haven’t been disappointed. The heart and soul of this book is how much the main character cares about her friends and how far she will go to keep them safe. Joining Mercy’s pack, even for just a few pages at a time, feels like coming home.

Auerbach’s book takes the vampire story into more contemporary territory and, some might say, into more treacherous waters. Although beginning again with Polidori, she follows the evolution of the vampire tale through to Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and Tony Scott’s 1983 film The Hunger (starring an elegantly wasted David Bowie). She shows how homoeroticism has been a part of the vampire narrative since its nineteenth-century inception, notably with Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla, and how readily the narrative lent itself as an allegory of the 1980s AIDS epidemic. I don’t agree with all of Auerbach’s interpretations, but she has some zinging one-liners.

Don’t let this quirky cover fool you. The pages of this book are smoking hot at times. This is book 1 in a novella series dedicated to hooking up paranormals. It kicks off a dating series with an opposites attract trope, featuring two paranormal beings who couldn’t be more different—a witch and a vampire. This is a light-hearted romance that leaves you thirsty for book 2 and wanting to know what otherworldly beings will be featured.

This book encompasses the good, the bad, and the ugly—it is both powerfully real and beautifully raw!

We think with our minds, we feel with our hearts, but we exist within our souls. And this book pried every one of those open for me. It was so gritty and hard-hitting, so raw and uncut, so reminiscent of what it is like to look deep inside oneself, face both strengths and weaknesses, conquer fears and inner demons, acknowledge everything without pretense, then continue fighting to reach one’s potential.

Yes, this novel taps into all of this and more in an extremely well-written, brilliant tale about a kick-ass vampire huntress!