From SRP author Tracy Cooper-Posey:
There are blog posts that vanish into the ether. And then there are the ones that lurk in old notebooks, waiting patiently to be resurrected—rather like the creatures they were written about.
Back in 2011, when I had just indie published Blood Knot, I wrote a post about vampires. Not the swoony, brooding, smouldering variety (although, let’s be honest, I have a weakness there), but about something far more important: Their hair.
Stay with me.
The Curious Problem of the Unchanging Vampire
There is a piece of dialogue in the Southern Vampire Mysteries (That’s True Blood, if you followed the TV series) that has stuck with me ever since I first read it.
Bill Compton mentions that he was lucky; he had shaved just before he was turned. Other vampires weren’t so fortunate. Some are doomed to walk through eternity with permanent stubble. Or worse, full beards.
Now layer that with the unforgettable moment from Interview with the Vampire when Kirsten Dunst’s character cuts off her hair…only for it to grow back overnight.
That idea lodged itself firmly in my brain and refused to budge. Because once you follow that thread, the implications become…deliciously inconvenient.
Vampires, in many fictional universes, are frozen at the moment of their turning. Not “alive,” not evolving; simply restored, over and over again, to the exact same physical state.
Which raises some very serious questions:
- What if you were turned on a truly dreadful hair day?
- What if you hadn’t washed your hair in three days?
- What if your roots were showing?
- What if your fashion choices were…regrettable?
You are now immortal, and so is your bad decision.
Fashion Is the Real Horror
Let’s be kind and assume you were turned on your very best day. Hair perfect. Skin glowing. Outfit on point. You glide into immortality looking fabulous. For about ten minutes. Because fashion moves on.
That sleek, ironed-flat hair with perfect bangs? It screams “early twenty-tens” before you’ve even finished your first century. Thirty years later, you’re a walking time capsule. A hundred years later, you’re a museum exhibit.
If vampires are meant to hide among humans, this becomes more than vanity. It becomes survival. How do you blend in when your body refuses to cooperate? Cut your hair? It grows back overnight. Dye it? Does the dye even take? Trim your nails? Do they reset, too?
And if you somehow solve all that, what happens when the fashion cycle swings back the other way? Long hair is in again. Natural looks are back. Suddenly your desperate attempts to keep up have left you just as stranded as before.
This is the sort of detail that, in the hands of a thoughtful writer, adds an extraordinary layer of depth. The small, practical consequences of immortality are often far more interesting than the grand, dramatic ones.
When Vampires Became…Human
When I first started thinking about this, vampires were still carrying echoes of their Victorian roots—alien, unsettling, fundamentally other. But over time, especially in paranormal romance, they’ve softened. They’ve become more human. More adaptable.
In the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, for instance, vampires can grow their hair and even have children. It solves a lot of practical problems. It also changes something fundamental. If vampires can change, grow, adapt—if their bodies behave too much like ours—then they lose a sliver of that eerie timelessness. That sense that they are something outside the natural order.
It doesn’t stop me from enjoying the books. Not even close. But it does shift the flavour of the mythology.
My Own Brush With Immortality
When I wrote Blood Knot, I leaned into the older idea—the unchanging vampire. My hero, Nial, is fifteen hundred years old. And because his body restores itself to the same state over and over, he still carries the callouses from the sword he wielded centuries ago.
They never fade. They never soften. They are a physical memory of a life that is otherwise long gone, and when Winter finds them, fourteen centuries later, they tell a story his words never could.
That, to me, is where vampire fiction shines; not in the grand gestures, but in the quiet, persistent details.
“Vampires Are Dead.” Long Live Vampires.
At various points over the last decade, traditional publishing has declared vampires “over.” Along with historical romance, urban fantasy and anything that refuses to behave itself neatly within a marketing box.
And yet readers keep doing something terribly inconvenient. They keep buying vampire books. They keep falling for vampire heroes. They keep proving, over and over again, that a good story will outlive any trend forecast.
The difference now is that the gates are no longer controlled by a handful of publishers. Indie publishing changed that landscape entirely, a shift I stepped into in 2011 when I began reclaiming my work and building my own catalogue, with the publication of Blood Knot.
Readers no longer need permission to love what they love. Vampires—adaptable, enduring, impossible to kill—have thrived in that environment.
Why We Still Love Them
Vampires endure because they sit at the intersection of contradiction: They are immortal, yet frozen in time; powerful, yet constrained by strange, arbitrary rules.
They are predators, yet capable of deep, consuming love.
And perhaps most importantly, they carry history with them. Not as something studied—but as something lived, endured or survived.
Which brings us back to the hair. Because for all the grand mythology, the blood and the darkness and the romance, it’s often the smallest details—the ones that make us pause and think wait…how would that actually work?—that make a fictional world feel real. And once a world feels real, readers will follow it anywhere.
Even into eternity.
My Vampires (Apparently…There Are a Few)
When I sat down to list my vampire stories, I thought it would take a minute or two.
It did not.
It turns out that once you start writing vampires, they have a habit of…sticking around. Breeding. Expanding into entire families of books when you’re not looking too closely.
So instead of pretending this is a short, tidy list, I’m going to embrace the chaos and give you the series. Because at this point, that’s the only sane way to do it.
Kiss Across Time series
Time Travel, Vampire Paranormal Romance
1.0: Kiss Across Time
2.0: Kiss Across Swords
2.1: Time Kissed Moments
3.0: Kiss Across Chains
3.5: Kiss Across Time Box One
4.0: Kiss Across Deserts
5.0: Kiss Across Kingdoms
5.1: Time And Tyra Again
6.0: Kiss Across Seas
6.5: Kiss Across Time Box Two
7.0: Kiss Across Worlds
7.1: Time And Remembrance
8.0: Kiss Across Tomorrow
8.1: More Time Kissed Moments
9.0: Kiss Across Blades
10.0: Kiss Across Chaos
11.0: Kiss Across the Universe
11.1 Kiss Across Memories
11.2: Even More Time Kissed Moments
12.0: Kiss Across Forever
Kiss Across TimeSpecial Bundle
(Yes, this is the series that refused to stop talking and eventually turned into an entire universe. I regret nothing.)
The Blood Stone Series
Paranormal Romance
1.0: Blood Knot
1.5: Amor Meus
2.0: Blood Stone
3.0: Blood Unleashed
4.0: Blood Revealed
5.0: Blood Ascendant
5.5: Flesh + Blood (Omnibus)
Blood Stone Special Bundle
(This is where it all began in indie for me—proof that once you open the vampire door, you don’t get to close it again.)
Beloved Bloody Time series
Vampire Time Travel Futuristic Romance
1.0: Bannockburn Binding
1.1: Wait
2.0: Byzantine Heartbreak
2.1: Viennese Agreement
3.0: Romani Armada
4.0: Spartan Resistance
5.0: Celtic Crossing
5.5: Beloved Bloody Time Boxed Set
Beloved Bloody Time Special Bundle
(Time travel and vampires. Because apparently I like my complications layered.)
The Stonebrood Saga
Vampire Gargoyle Urban Fantasy Romance
1.0: Carson’s Night
2.0: Beauty’s Beasts
2.1: Harvest of Holidays
2.2: Unbearable
3.0: Sabrina’s Clan
3.1: Pay the Ferryman
3.5: Hearts of Stone (Series Boxed Set)
Stonebrood Saga Special Bundle
(Vampires are the heroes. The gargoyles are the bad guys. Deliciously bloody.)
Destiny’s Trinities
Vampire Ménage Urban Fantasy Romance
1.0: Beth’s Acceptance
2.0: Mia’s Return
3.0: Sera’s Gift
3.5: The First Trinity (Novellas 1-3)
4.0: Cora’s Secret
5.0: Zoe’s Blockade
6.0: Octavia’s War
6.5: The Second Trinity (Novellas 4-6)
7.0: Terra’s Victory
7.5: Destiny’s Trinities (Series Boxed Set)
Destiny’s Trinities Special Bundle
(At this point, “urban fantasy” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.)
Short Paranormals
(Because sometimes even immortality works better in short bursts.)
So…Are Vampires Really “Dead”?
Publishers may declare a genre over. Readers tend to ignore publishers.
And if my own catalogue is anything to go by, vampires are not just alive and well—they’re thriving, multiplying, and occasionally refusing to let their authors sleep until the next book is written.
Which, when you think about it, is exactly what they’ve always done.
Over To You
We’ve come a long way from the monsters lurking in the shadows. These days, vampires can be heroes, anti-heroes, lovers, rulers…or all of the above, depending on the book and your mood.
But there’s always one. The one who set the bar. The one every other vampire gets compared to. The one you’d pick, no matter how many new ones come along. So tell me—
Who is your ultimate vampire hero?
And be honest…would you choose immortality if it meant becoming one of them?
.
Tracy Cooper-Posey
SRP Author