“Both medical thriller and science fiction, this fast-paced, captivating modern vampire story is enriched with biology and history. . . Entrancing throughout, but squeamish readers beware.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
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Some days you wake up, and you just have to write a vampire novel.
I know, I know, there is no shortage of vampire novels already out there. If you search Amazon for “vampire” you get 2,616 books to choose from. There are opera-loving vampires, horny vampires, southern vampires, emotional vampires, bondage-loving vampires, and (of course) Canadian vampires who solve crimes.
Maybe there are too many vampire novels, I thought. But that was part of the challenge, to see if I could do something that felt new and interesting, while still being full of bitey goodness. (Unsurprising confession: I am a Buffy fan.) So the book had to be original, but also icky, scary, funny, tragic, and (ahem) not sucky.
Besides getting a new take on the sunlight-impaired, my other big concern was that my vampires should actually make some sense as far as science goes. So I started doing some vampire research, reading a bunch of books about rats, parasites, bites and stings, and biology.
After consuming all there was to know on these subjects, I came up with the four important features that any vampire novel (of mine) had to include:
natural selection,
sexual attraction,
parasitic infection,
and Elvis memorabilia.
Okay, I can’t tell you much more without giving the whole thing away. But I’m very happy with the results. And the new cover, designed by Rodrigo Corral is certainly cool.
Peeps has a “companion novel” called The Last Days, which follows a different group of characters in the same time frame. Cal and Lacey, the two protagonists of Peeps, appear briefly in TLD, but the main story is a about a band trying to find their own sound as the world crumbles around them.
“Suspense, touches of humor, and eminently appealing characters.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“[An] intriguing, fast paced sequel to Peeps . . . a real winner.”
—School Library Journal (starred)
“[An] electric sequel. . . . Both new readers and Peeps fans will eat this up.”
––Booklist
Named a 2007 ALA Best Book for Young Adults.