Vampire books for Halloween
17 October 2025
Sink your teeth into these.
We love Halloween here at Village Books. It’s the perfect time of year to curl up on the sofa with a warm drink and read something scary. Here is a list of some of our favourites from all genres and ages. Sink your teeth into some of these blood sucking thrillers.
Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu
In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. – The Sapphic story that inspired Dracula.
The Vampyre by John Polidori
John Polidori’s classic tale of the vampyre was a product of the same ghost-story competition that produced Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Set in Italy, Greece, and London, Polidori’s tales is a reaction to the dominating presence of his employer Lord Byron, and transformed the figure of the vampire from the bestial ghoul of earlier mythologies into the glamorous aristocrat whose violence and sexual allure make him literally a ‘lady-killer’. Polidori’s tale introduced the vampire into English fiction, and launched a vampire craze that has never subsided.
Woman Eating by Claire Khoda
Lydia is hungry. She’s always wanted to try sashimi and ramen, onigiri and udon – the food her Japanese father liked to eat – but the only thing she can digest is blood. Yet Lydia can’t bring herself to prey on humans, and sourcing fresh pigs’ blood in London – where she is living away from her Malaysian-British mother for the first time and trying to build a career as an artist – is much more difficult than she’d anticipated.
Interview with the Vampire
In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life – the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. The start to one of the best selling vampire series of all time, Interview with a Vampire is a true modern classic of the genre.
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Of course there are tales of strange happenings – but no more than in any other such town. Ben Mears has returned to the Lot to write a novel and exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood – since the event he witnessed at the Marsten House. He finds the house has been rented by a newcomer, a man who causes Ben some unease. And then things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed – nothing unusual, except the list keeps growing…
Dracula by Bram Stoker
When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to advise Count Dracula on a London home, he makes a horrifying discovery. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman’s neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the arrival of his ‘Master’, while a determined group of adversaries prepares to face the terrifying Count. A list of Vampire novels is truly not complete without Dracula, a novel that defines a genre.