In Grave Expectations credited to Charles Dickens and Sherri Browning Erwin, young Pip was a werewolf and Miss Havisham a vampire, while A Vampire Christmas: Ebenezer Scrooge, Vampire Slayer by Sarah Gray (Colleen Faulkner) pretty much spoke for itself.
Oscar Wilde teamed up with Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to investigate some bizarre killings in Gyles Brandreth’s Oscar Wilde and the Vampire Murders, while The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham was a gonzo mash-up of H. P. Lovecraft and Hunter S. Thompson by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas.
Gregor Samsa transformed into a kitten instead of a cockroach in The Meowmorphosis by Franz Kafka (who should be spinning in his grave) and the pseudonymous “Coleridge Cook”.
Maureen McGowan’s Sleeping Beauty: Vampire Slayer was a YA novel in the “Twisted Tales” series, but perhaps the year’s most interesting mash-up came from author Cecily von Ziegesar, who reworked her popular 2002 novel as Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer.
Charlaine Harris’ eleventh “Sookie Stackhouse” novel, Dead Reckoning, involved the telepathic waitress in the firebombing of Merlotte’s bar and a plot by her lover Eric to destroy his new vampire master.
In Hit List, the twentieth volume in Laurell K. Hamilton’s best-selling “Anita Blake” series, the vampire hunter found herself battling with the Mother of All Darkness once again for possession of her body.
The titular lawman’s job was to control the blood-drinking “Sunless” who lived in ghetto areas of London in James Lovegrove’s Redlaw, and a woman investigated her uncle’s murder in Piper Maitland’s Acquainted with the Night.
Although Trevor O. Munson’s Angel of Vengeance was the inspiration for the short-lived CBS-TV series Moonlight (2007– 08), featuring an undead private investigator, the novel had never been published before.
In S. M. Stirling’s The Council of Shadows, a follow-up to A Taint in the Blood, reluctant “Shadowspawn” Adrian Breze embraced his dark heritage to save his kidnapped lover.
Jacqueline Lepora’s Immortal with a Kiss was a sequel to Descent Into Dust and again featured vampire-hunter Emma Andrews, while Vampire Federation: The Cross was the second book in the mystery series by Scott G. Mariani (Sean McCabe).
The Moonlight Brigade by Sarah Jane Stratford was the second in the “Millennial” series about vampires fighting the Nazis in World War II.
Following on from The Strain and The Fall, The Night Eternal was the final volume in the vampire virus trilogy by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.
Set in nineteenth century Russia, The Third Section was the third book in Jasper Kent’s historical “Danilov Quintet”.
Hateful Heart was the fourth volume in Sam Stone’s “Vampire Gene” series and involved time-travelling vampires and the last remnants of the Knights Templar.
Memories We Fear was the fourth in the “Vampire Memories” series by Barb Hendee, and Crossroads was the seventh book by Jeanne C. Stein to feature vampire Anna Strong.
Set in seventeenth century Bohemia, An Embarrassment of Riches was the twenty-third novel in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s “Count Saint-Germain” historical vampire series.
Stay-at-home father Simon experienced some disturbing physical changes when he met a group of playground dads in Jason Starr’s The Pack, and the last known lycanthrope tried to evade capture from vampire monster hunters sanctioned by the Vatican in Glenn Duncan’s The Last Werewolf.
Wolf Tales 12 was the final volume in the erotic shape-shifter series by Kate Douglas.
2011 was definitely the year of the zombie. Film director Tobe Hooper collaborated with Alan Goldsher on the zombie horror novel Midnight Movie, which was based around a supposedly “lost” movie made by Hooper.
Acknowledgeing its debt to George Romero’s 1968 movie Night of the Living Dead, Daryl Gregory’s Raising Stony Mayhall detailed the life of the eponymous zombie narrator in an alternate world where the walking dead regained rational thought.
Set in the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, the titular bookseller’s blog formed the basis of Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux, while Colson Whitehead’s satirical novel Zone One looked at the repercussions of a zombie plague in a near-future New York.
Scavengers by Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes was a zombie novel from Elder Signs Press.
Steven Saknussemm’s debut novel The Zombie Autopsies was presented in the form of a series of scientific journals and other research documents, while Ray Wallace’s Escape from Zombie City had the format of a choose-your-own adventure.
A woman realised that she had become a zombie in Sophie Littlefield’s Aftertime, while a girl found she had the power to create zombies in Unforsaken, a YA novel from the same author.
K. Bennett’s Pay Me in Flesh was the first in the “Mallory Caine, Zombie at Law” series. No, really.
Dead of Night was a zombie novel by Jonathan Maberry, while Dust & Decay was a sequel to the author’s post-apocalyptic zombie novel Rot & Ruin.
Having been forced to kill his sister in Feed, future blogger Shaun Mason tried to discover who deliberately infected her with the zombie virus in Deadline, the second book in the “Newsflesh” trilogy by Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire).
A girl was the only survivor in her town of the “Feeding Plague” in Frail by Joan Frances Turner (Hilary Hall), the sequel to the post-apocalyptic Dust.
Originally published online for free in 2003 and in the UK in 2005, David Moody’s zombie novels Autumn: The City, Autumn: Purification and Autumn: Disintegration finally received their first American print editions from St. Martin’s Griffin. From the same author, Them or Us was the final book in the “Hater” trilogy.
Flip This Zombie and Eat Slay Love were the second and third books in Jesse Petersen’s humorous “Living with the Dead” series which began with Married with Zombies.
Xombies: Apocalypso was the third book in the series by Walter Greatshell, as was James Knapp’s Element Zero in the SF/zombie series which began with State of Decay.
Featuring zombie detective Matt Richter, Dark War was the third in the “Nekropolis” series by Tim Waggoner.
Abaddon Books’ Tomes of the Dead series continued with Chuck Wendig’s Double Dead and Tony Venables debut novel Viking Dead.
* * * There was a touch of Bradbury about Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel The Night Circus, which concerned a pair of rival 19th century illusionists and a mysterious circus where magic really worked.
In Deborah Harkness’ debut A Discovery of Witches, the first in a planned trilogy, a woman with powers she had long denied teamed up with a 1,500-year-old vampire to solve a series of mysteries.
In The Taker by former CIA intelligence analyst Alma Katsu, an ER doctor
