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A quick google search gave me the obvious answers, Twilight and Twilight clones. However, that is the kind of butchery to the vampire lore I'm trying to avoid. So, any good Vampire books aimed at this age group that arent gakky romance novels?
Note: Obviously picking up the Bram Stoker Dracula, just want some extra options.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature#Twenty-first_century

Let the Right One in is a novel that spawned movies based on it. Salem's Lot is a vampire story by Stephen King (it's kind of Dracula in small town America). I Am Legend is a lesser known one by Richard Mathson (thanks Will Smith for ruining this for everyone. Your damn movie didn't even have vampires).

There's also anything by Anne Rice, if you can get over her flippyness with religion which sometimes spoils the reading.

Though it's not directly in line, and they are romance novels, I always recommend fans of supernatural books the Women of the Otherworld series. Vampires don't feature prominently in the series as much as werewolves and witches but the series is mature romance/thriller novels, not Twilight grade melodrama.

 LordofHats wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_literature#Twenty-first_centuryThough it's not directly in line, and they are romance novels, I always recommend fans of supernatural books the Women of the Otherworld series. Vampires don't feature prominently in the series as much as werewolves and witches but the series is mature romance/thriller novels, not Twilight grade melodrama.

I highly recommend the Women of the Otherworld series. When the Four Horsewomen of the Vampocalypse divvied up Anne Rice's fans between them, Armstrong clearly got the readers who were looking for quality stories as opposed to homoerotic masturbatory aids (those people read Laurell K Hamilton ). Great reading! Although her first two novels in the series are a bit heavier on the romance (particularly the sex), that toned down a GREAT deal once she hit her stride and realized she didn't have to write supernatural soft porn to succeed.

I'd also point out Dave Wellington's vampire series beginning with 13 Bullets. Extremely different from the standard fare, his vampires are based off of vampire myths that predate Stoker by a long shot. Some of the characters are a little stock, but the story is fresh, which DEFINITELY makes them worth the while.

While not all of them were good (and some were downright HORRIBLE) some of the White Wolf tie-in novels for Vampire: the Masquerade were pretty tight. You needed a passing familiarity with the setting to enjoy them, but some were quite good. The thirteen part Clan Novel series was pretty sweet (although do yourself a favor if you read it and just skip Giovanni entirely, you don't miss anything of vital importance).

There is always Salem's Lot, of course. I personally have beef with Steve Niles, but 30 Days of Night is supposed to be pretty dope, if you like graphic novels. There are several sequels, including an X-Files crossover that had me rolling!

Final recommendation is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Great story, although not heavy on the vampire action.

Although her first two novels in the series are a bit heavier on the romance (particularly the sex), that toned down a GREAT deal once she hit her stride and realized she didn't have to write supernatural soft porn to succeed.

Agree Bitten and Stolen were good, but also fairly standard fair for the supernatural romance genre in terms of contents. Once she hit Dime Store Magic, she was on fire from that point onward. The only books in the entire series I found to be let downs were Frostbitten and Spellbound.

 LordofHats wrote:

Although her first two novels in the series are a bit heavier on the romance (particularly the sex), that toned down a GREAT deal once she hit her stride and realized she didn't have to write supernatural soft porn to succeed.

Agree Bitten and Stolen were good, but also fairly standard fair for the supernatural romance genre in terms of contents. Once she hit Dime Store Magic, she was on fire from that point onward. The only books in the entire series I found to be let downs were Frostbitten and Spellbound.

I dug Frostbitten more than Broken (I LOVE the politics of the Pack) but I definitely feel you. Haven't read Thirteen yet. (I know, I'm terrible. But I want to re-read Spellbound and Waking the Witch first.)

Since you specified 'young adult" I'll nominate a couple of YA novels I've read... first is "The Silver Kiss" by Annette Curtis Klause. It's about vampires. It has a very mild romance undertone (main character is a teenage girl, and there is a teenage-looking vampire guy, so tropes happen) but it is intelligently written and I enjoyed it. The next novel is "Blood and Chocolate" which is about werewolves and got made into an absolutely horrible abomination of a crapsack movie a few years back. The book is quite good, with a lot of thought put into how werewolves would integrate into modern human society. I'm not a fan of the ending, but I really like the book. Stay very, very far away from the movie.

If you want something a little more mature (thematically speaking; still no sex) the Kitty Norville series by Carrie Vaughn is a good read. Again, the main character is a werewolf (with a radio call-in show), but vampires do show up a bit (the fourth novel is mostly about a vampiric power-play). The character has sex once in a while, but it's much less explicit than Bitten was.

As an aside, I really was not a fan of Bitten. I didn't find any of the characters to be likeable in the slightest, but YMMV. The sex scenes in it are more explicit than I think you are looking for, though. They aren't hard core porn or anything, but they do get quite a bit steamier than you would see in a "young adult" book.

Interview with a Vampire had like no sex in it but that's grown up read

Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs is another good one

 LordofHats wrote:
I Am Legend is a lesser known one by Richard Mathson (thanks Will Smith for ruining this for everyone.

There is an alternative ending that is closer to the book.

While not strictly a vampire novel, Stuart Hill's Icemark trilogy feature some awesome vampires (the proper tear-your-throat-out type), as well as a bunch of other very well unusual races (giant talking snow leopards vs mumakil-sized triceratops, anyone?).

You also get some of the biggest and best fantasy battle scenes ever committed to paper, and a host of great characters. I really recommended this series of you're looking for something a little different.

Salem's Lot is good, but it's got quite a bit of sexual content and violence. And it's a Stephen King book, so of course he'll end up going into quite a bit of detail.

The issue is that probably 50% of YA fiction is romance and almost all the vampire themed stuff I can think of in that age genre fits in there.

Twilight is bad but most of Twilight's problem is that Meyer is a terrible writer and the story is deeply disturbing when you really sit and think about it (Armstrong Bitten is imo the same way, though unlike Meyer I think Armstrong figured this out fast and started fixing it). Vampire Academy and Bloodlines are decently written and tell okay stories. Evernight starts bad but gets better by the end of the series. EDIT: I actually think House of Night is worse than Twilight. Don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Nightworld has vampires, but the stories are really big on mellodrama (and the last book in the series has been in writing hell longer than George R.R. Martin has been writing SoIaF).

Vampire YA is a rather specific sub0genre and most of it is so-so writing and romance. You kind of need to go up in age range to find better stuff.

 LordofHats wrote:
The issue is that probably 50% of YA fiction is romance and almost all the vampire themed stuff I can think of in that age genre fits in there.

Twilight is bad but most of Twilight's problem is that Meyer is a terrible writer and the story is deeply disturbing when you really sit and think about it (Armstrong Bitten is imo the same way, though unlike Meyer I think Armstrong figured this out fast and started fixing it). Vampire Academy and Bloodlines are decently written and tell okay stories. Evernight starts bad but gets better by the end of the series.

Vampire YA is a rather specific sub0genre and most of it is so-so writing and romance. You kind of need to go up in age range to find better stuff.

Hmm, such is my eternal dilemma then. It doesn't have to be aimed at this age group (In fact, I'd much prefer something not. YA stuff tends to be a bit shoddy) but still suitable for the age (Not in story complexities and such, I quite enjoy those. Just in manners of sex and to a lesser extent violence.)

Any specific reason why? That might help find something more suitable to your needs.

The problem with vampire novels, especially ones made to appeal to the 'young adult' market, is that they are either all about the sex that they are having, or about the sex that they're not having.

Mostly because it simply doesnt appeal to me, and plus I find it just really awkward reading for some reason.
I prefer the more cut-throat, get gak done, drink blood from a wine glass kinda vampires.

Well, if that's the case, there's always the Hellsing comics.

Not particularly deep or thoughtful, but it sure is a fun read. And despite the fact that the series is mostly over the top to the point of being silly, the characters are actually pretty well written considering the ridiculous (seriously, absolutely ridiculous) nature of the story, and Alucard is genuinely interesting.

Well, I suppose you could try the Darren Shan series.

You have to ignore the fact that the main character is named after the author. Other than that bit of narcissistic self-insertion, it's adequate for the young adult demographic.

Bewarned though that the body-count is fairly high, though I do not remember any shagging.
Well, in detail anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_of_Darren_Shan

The Dresden Files. Not pure Vampire fiction, but it's awesome urban fantasy. You might want to start with the third book (Grave Peril) - it's the first one that focuses on vampires, and it's where the series starts to pick up in quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_Earth

Pretty solid - not classical vampires, instead it is a post apocalyptic world ruled over by life-stealing aliens who use/possess genetically engineered vampire-like creatures to do their dirty work.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for it, but I actually enjoyed the WHFB setting Vampire novels... "The Vampire Wars: The Von Carstein trilogy" was pretty good.

Great thing is, because it's not Twilight or one of the other YA series, (and probably more because it's set within a familiar realm) there's little to no sex, and plenty of vampire fighting.

 AlexHolker wrote:
The Dresden Files. Not pure Vampire fiction, but it's awesome urban fantasy. You might want to start with the third book (Grave Peril) - it's the first one that focuses on vampires, and it's where the series starts to pick up in quality.

I can only say positive things about this series. I even enjoyed the first two despite the fact that apparently they aren't supposed to be as good. I will admit Butcher had trouble balancing out Dresden's power level for a while, he had some pretty weird "always more energy in the tank" moments throughout the early books where he'd been beat to hell and still rustled up enough power to blast away whatever the problem was. There were a few times where I needed to skip a bit because reading it felt awkward though.

I'm not so much a fantasy kind of guy, but there was a series called Noble Dead that I read the first book out of a very long time ago (like middle school). Admittedly it's more "vampire hunters" but the main character lady is a half-vanpire and they fight vampires. It was really quite fun to read and doesn't have anything explicit in it that I can remember.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I'm sure I'll get flamed for it, but I actually enjoyed the WHFB setting Vampire novels... "The Vampire Wars: The Von Carstein trilogy" was pretty good.

Great thing is, because it's not Twilight or one of the other YA series, (and probably more because it's set within a familiar realm) there's little to no sex, and plenty of vampire fighting.

Oh! Oh! The first and third Genevieve Undead novels! They were some of (if not the) first novels written for WHFB. Genevieve is a very polite and nice vampire who will totally rip your damn face off if you try to feth with her. The first book is kind of a murder mystery and the third is a series of stories with her as a central character (with a Phantom of the Opera retelling in one of them). I liked them quite a bit. The second book is a WHFB Dirty Harry novel, and Genevieve is only in it for a cameo. I have no idea how the author got away with that.

Also, the token female from the Gotrek and Felix books (Ulrika Strigany) has her own series, now that she's a vampire. I've read the first two and they are quite good, as well. Her first act in the first book is to literally tear a guy apart and eat him because she had been starved for a week or so. So, if you're looking for blood, you can't go wrong there.

 Palindrome wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I Am Legend is a lesser known one by Richard Mathson (thanks Will Smith for ruining this for everyone.

There is an alternative ending that is closer to the book.

The best adaptation was the Vincent Price movie, "The Last Man on Earth."


Youtube link to the full movie:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jG23zQDEgxM

There are always the Vampire: The Masquerade books. Each one is written around each of the clans, and they all vary dramatically. However, I have not actually read any of them in some time, but from what I can remember, I don't think they are suitable for young adults...

The first several novels of the Cirque Du Freak were pretty solid on the no sex I believe (it's been about 10 years since I've read them), but they're good, lots of the vampires, definitely YA.

Dhampir!!

How could I forget this one? Seriously, one of the best vampire stories I've read in a long time, and it fits ALL your criteria, Cerberus! The sequels are...less awesome. The second book is still worth reading, and maybe the third if you're REALLY into it, but the fourth just continued to trend of decline and I decided to cash out.

But the first remains awesome! Seriously, check it out.

The Vampire the Masquerade Clan Novels are fairly good, make sure you read them in order though...

Oh and this is awesome.

I'm going to go with Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I was probably about 14 the first time I read it. I know you know, but stick with the classics. After, move them from that to Lovecraft.

 Hive Fleet Cerberus wrote:
Mostly because it simply doesnt appeal to me, and plus I find it just really awkward reading for some reason.
I prefer the more cut-throat, get gak done, drink blood from a wine glass kinda vampires.

I second the Kitty Norville and Mercy Thompson series...serieses...serii? Be warned, though, that they each have a rape scene which is disturbing (as it is intended to be). The vampires in the Dresden Files are pretty much exactly what you describe (except for the incubi and succubi), but they only play a major role in about half the books. None of those series are particularly graphic in their sex scenes, but they all have at least a little hanky panky in them.

Have you tried Anno Dracula? It's a bit silly, but fun and pretty tame.

 Jimsolo wrote:
Dhampir!!

How could I forget this one? Seriously, one of the best vampire stories I've read in a long time, and it fits ALL your criteria, Cerberus! The sequels are...less awesome. The second book is still worth reading, and maybe the third if you're REALLY into it, but the fourth just continued to trend of decline and I decided to cash out.

But the first remains awesome! Seriously, check it out.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I mentioned the series a few posts ago because this thread jogged my memory of reading the first one. I was planning on sticking the rest of the series into my reading list. Might proceed cautiously on this front.

 daedalus wrote:
I'm going to go with Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I was probably about 14 the first time I read it. I know you know, but stick with the classics. After, move them from that to Lovecraft.

Lovecraft is an excellent suggestion. Not vampire stories per se, but definitely supernatural goings on, and some that honestly, as a grown-ass man, I won't read them after, say... 5pm.