Vampire Kisses Series By Ellen Schreiber

What You Need to Know Before Starting the Vampire Kisses Series

The Vampire Kisses Series By Ellen Schreiber started back in 1997 with the first book and ran for about two decades, clocking in somewhere around twenty-plus titles depending on which edition you're counting. The main character is Alex Craft, a vampire who doesn't want to be one. His family moved from Transylvania to suburban New Jersey, and pretty much everything that happens is filtered through his reluctant, sarcastic point of view. That's the whole thing in a nutshell. I've read through the entire run at this point, and here's the thing most people miss: the early books are genuinely decent urban fantasy with actual tension. The vampire lore is loose and weird, which works in its favor. Things get messy around book seven or eight, which is where the continuity starts to fracture. I lost track of the timeline during the Rosemary Valley arc and just stopped caring about the chronology. That's normal, not a bug.

Vampire Kisses Series By Ellen Schreiber: How It Actually Works

The series follows a straightforward structure. Alex gets thrust into situations involving vampire politics, his own family drama, romance complications, and occasional supernatural threats. Each book roughly covers one major conflict. The writing style stays consistent throughout — first-person present tense, heavy on internal monologue and teenage snark. Reading order matters more than you'd think. Schreiber introduced characters and backstory details in earlier books without re-explaining them later. If you start at book three, you'll be confused about three different characters and won't know why anyone cares about half the plot points. Start at the beginning. It takes about four hours for the first two books. Worth it. One specific problem I ran into: the later books assume you remember minor details from six books ago. There's a subplot involving a character named Marissa whose motivation shifts between books without explanation. I literally went back and reread books four through six to figure out what actually happened to her. The workaround was just accepting that some threads get dropped and moving on. Don't overthink the gaps.

Download Options and Availability

You can find physical copies at most bookstores, but they're often out of print or sold at premium prices on secondhand markets. The series was published by multiple imprints over the years, so paperback editions vary. If you want digital, Amazon has most of them in Kindle format. Google Books carries several titles. The quality of the e-book editions is acceptable — no major formatting issues that I noticed, though some early editions had slightly awkward chapter breaks. I prefer paperbacks for this series because the pacing benefits from physical page-turning. The books are short enough that reading on a screen feels too fast. But that's a personal preference, not a requirement.

What to Expect: Strengths and Weaknesses

The series works best when it's focused on Alex's personal conflicts rather than sprawling vampire wars. The political storylines in the middle books are the weakest part. They feel like padding. The character development in the early and late books is stronger than the middle section. That's the pattern. Here's a counter-intuitive point: the romance subplot is not the main draw, even though it gets marketed that way. The actual core is Alex coming to terms with his identity as a vampire who rejects his family's choices. The love interests are secondary to that arc. If you pick this up expecting a romance series, you'll be disappointed. It's character-driven fantasy with romantic elements woven in. The biggest downside is the inconsistency. Some books are tight and well-paced. Others drag. Book thirteen and fourteen in particular felt like the author wasn't sure where to take the story anymore. I skimmed parts of those two. That's fine for a long series. Not ideal, but understandable.

If you want something similar but tighter, try the Venn Dragon series by the same author. Same energy, fewer loose ends. Or go with the older classics like Anne Rice if you want the vampire genre done seriously. Schreiber's work is accessible and fun but not polished. Know what you're getting into before you commit to the full run. I'd say the series is worth reading through the first twelve books if you enjoy YA vampire fiction. After that, pick up individual titles based on your interest rather than powering through. The quality dips and picks back up unpredictably. There's no reliable midpoint where it suddenly improves or gets worse. Just read at your own pace.