Today I have author Helen Keeble sharing some secrets about vampires. Helen is not, and never has been, a vampire. She has however been
a teenager. She grew up partly in America and partly in England, which
has left her with an unidentifiable accent and a fondness for peanut
butter crackers washed down with a nice cup of tea. She now lives in
West Sussex, England, with her husband, daughter, two cats, and
a variable number of fish. To the best of her knowledge, none of the
fish are undead.
Author Links:
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Vampires
aren't real. If they were, they couldn't stay hidden for long, right? Thanks to
the endless books, films, and TV shows filled with vampiric lore, we all know
how to recognise a bloodsucker. And we all know their weaknesses - sunlight,
beheading, fire, stakes, athletic teenage girls, holy water, garlic…
Or
maybe that's just what the vampires want you to think are their
weaknesses.
Delve
a little deeper into traditional vampiric folklore, and there are a lot of
weird things that don't appear in our modern vampire fiction. Things that maybe
the vampires want to keep quiet…
1) They're just like
unicorns
No,
not because vampires are also beautiful and sparkly. Because, like unicorns,
vampires are terrified of virgins. In fact, while unicorns are
irresistibly drawn to virgins, according to Romanian folklore virgins are
irresistibly drawn to vampires.
Actually,
this is true in a lot of paranormal romances too, now that I come to think of
it.
Anyway,
all you have to do is stick a virgin on a white (or possibly black - sources
vary) horse, and they'll be able to lead you straight to the grave of the
nearest vampire. And if you use a woman older than 25, she’ll even be able to
kill the vampire for you as well. Just get her to whip the vampire's grave with
a hazel twig, and the bloodsucker will never be able to rise again.
Basically,
older female virgins are homing missiles of mass vampire destruction. No wonder
literature is full of vampires desperately trying to romance young girls. They
have to neutralize them!
2) They float
"Big
deal," I hear you say, rolling your eyes. "Ducks float. Boats float.
What's so special about vampires floating?"
Because,
according to our friend Romanian folklore again, vampires always float.
They literally can't sink.
Folklore
boringly suggests using this trait to determine if someone is a vampire by
tossing them in a river, but just think of the many other uses for this
peculiar property...
"This
is the captain speaking. Unfortunately we have hit an iceberg and water is now
pouring through the hull, but there is no need to be alarmed! The vampires
strapped under the Titanic's hull make this ship literally unsinkable. While we
repair the hole, please enjoy complimentary cocktails on the aft deck, and
ignore the muffled screams of the tormented undead underneath your feet."
Vampires
would definitely want to keep this one quiet. No bloodsucker wants to spend
eternity stuffed under an airplane chair as an emergency floatation device.
3) You're probably
always carrying the means to defeat one
Check
your pockets or purse. Got some spare change? Maybe a half-eaten packet of
breath mints? A tissue?
Congratulations!
You can stop a charging vampire in his tracks.
All
you have to do is fling a handful of small objects at him, and he'll be
compelled to stop in order to count them all. No, really. The technical term
for this behaviour is arithmomania, and it crops up everywhere in
vampire folklore, all around the globe.
Poland, Romania, China, India, pretty much everywhere has legends about
obsessive-compulsive vampires. Though curiously, it seems to have fallen out of
favour in modern vampire fiction. (Jeri Smith-Ready's vamps are also OCD ~ Bea)
Apart,
of course, from one famous case:
There
you go. Incontrovertible proof that Sesame Street is written by vampire
hunters, who are determined to make sure children everywhere know vampires' real
weakness.
And
now you do too.
P.S.
Yes, I really do use one of these pieces of vampire folklore in my novel FANG
GIRL. And no, I'm not going to tell you which one…
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Author: Helen Keeble
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: September 11, 2012
Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy, Humor
Format: paperback, ebook
Length: 352 pages, 463 KB
Book Blurb (from author):
Things That Are Destroying Jane Greene’s Undead Social Life Before It Can Even Begin:
1) A twelve-year-old brother who’s convinced she’s a zombie.
2) Parents who are begging her to turn them into vampires.
3) The pet goldfish she accidentally turns instead.
4) Weird
superpowers that let her rip the heads off of every other vampire she
meets.(Sounds cool, but it doesn’t win you many friends.)
5) A pyschotic vampire creator who’s using her to carry out a plan for world domination.
And finally:
6) A seriously ripped vampire hunter who either wants to stake her or make out with her. Not sure which.
Being an undead, eternally pasty fifteen-year-old isn’t quite the sexy, brooding, angst-fest Jane always imagined....
Helen Keeble’s
riotous debut novel combines the humor of Vladimir Tod with Ally
Carter’s spot-on teen voice. With a one-of-a-kind vampire mythology and
an irresistibly relatable undead heroine, this uproarious page-turner
will leave readers bloodthirsty for more.
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