Well if anyone can give us a totally new take on werewolves, I think that Anne Rice is the one to do it. At San Diego ComiCon this past week she announced that she is working on a new book “The Wolf Gift” that will bring the same sensual romantic sensibilities to werewolves that she first brought to vampires in her original “Interview With a Vampire” series.

She talks about how the pool maybe crowded with plenty of other writers but she feels that she can bring a new viewpoint to the field with her particular view of the paranormal. I tend to agree with her, her writing was in my mind always a more intimate look at that world, be it vampires or any other paranormal being.

Once again she is exploring the theme of a young man, early in his life, discovering this secret and then having to find out more about it and how to cope with it. There can be little mistake that this will be a book breathlessly awaited by her legion of fan, myself amongst them.

Check out her interview with MTV Geek about the upcoming book at the San Diego ComiCon panel here:

 I guess you could say that Vampires have now become such as established part of the writing sub-genre of horror that almost anything with a vampire in it could become camp now. But there are some really funny books out there that have a bit of fun with the whole vampire thing. If you aren’t someone who takes your blood-sucking fiends too seriously, you might want to check a few of these out.

Scarlett Letters- The Tale of the Vampire Mailman

Man, I really got a kick out of this one. With it’s cliché small town setting and the whole “what is happening to our town?” line that is almost required in vampire movies these days, author Allison M. Dickson has a great time with this fun summer read.

Mailman Louis Cross isn’t sure he is all too happy about the local docs diagnosis of his sunburn and inability to sleep at night. Then there is that craving for bloody steaks to suck on. But to tell him he is a vampire? That is just too much, until Louis finds more people in his little town seem to be having similar problems.

How he settles the problems and more is just the start of this fun book that takes a hilarious poke at the genre. The quotes at the beginning of the book by “Dexter Bloodgood” are worth the price of admission alone. And since this is an inexpensive Kindle-only book, it should be a quick fun read and then on to more.

Heartless – from the Parasol Protectorate Series by Gail Carriger

If you have never followed the madcap adventures of steampunk vampire Lady Alexia Maccon, you are in for a treat! The action never slows down and the romance between Alexia and her husband remains as hot as ever. Now, eight months pregnant and as irrepressible as ever, Alexia is out to solve the possible assassination attempt on Queen Victoria while busily thwarting the local group of vampires in their ongoing and completely unsuccessful attempts to kill our heroine.

This is a fun and fabulous series that just gets better with each book. Since this is the fourth in the series, you might want to go back to the first one, Blameless. But no matter where you start, you are going to laugh out loud at the crazy characters, endless inventions and witty banter that I swear you only get with these types of British authors.

I know there are more out there – it has actually become its own sub-genre at this point. Got any you can recommend? I love to hear from you.

If you are a lover of all things in the paranormal range, and you must be if you are here, then the upcoming season of television shows will be a thing of beauty. I don’t remember the last time there were so many really cool shows with the kind of awesome mystic undertones as this season that is just about to open. Of course, if you are into the vamps, you know that True Blood is finally making its way back, and even cooler there have been some sneak peeks on YouTube for those of us who just can’t wait anymore. Sigh!

New kid on the block The Secret Circle looks really yummy, with Thomas Dekker and Brittany Robertson taking the lead for some good looking witching fun. It will be interesting to see how this compares with The Vampire Diaries, since both series (books, at least) were written by the same author, L.J. Smith. For me, I just love the idea of yet another series where mysterious things happen and not a cape in site!

There are even some witches on some shows that aren’t about supernatural beings, well not quite at any rate. Two shows that are taking a very different tack on the whole supernatural concept are “Once Upon A time” and “Grimm”. They kind of remind me of the old Fractured Fairy Tales that ran in Rocky the Flying Squirrel. And if you don’t know what I am talking about, check it out on Hulu, they are a scream! But the two shows named above will have all kinds of spooky characters, including a few witches. So it will be fun to see where they will go with them in a show like this.

Of course, it may not be the small screen but if you have been following the Twilight films you know that Breaking Dawn, Part Two is getting ready to hit a movie theatre near you soon. The film series that pretty much started this whole thing is about the end, and I for one am sorry to see it go. I am not now as big a fan as I was when it started, probably because I moved on to other versions of vampires. But I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Bella and her Edward because they were my first. What about all of you out there? Have you followed it from the start? Are you looking forward to closure with this last film or do you feel like you will miss the anticipation of waiting for the next film?

 In the ultimate mash-up of historical fiction and the paranormal, a not quite fully dead Cleopatra is looking to find revenge when Octavian arranges for her lover Mark Anthony to be killed. In Queen of Kings, instead of ending her life with the bite of an asp, the queen of the Nile instead makes a pact with the goddess Sekhmet.

It turns out that with her heart having been ripped from her body as part of the murderous plans by Octavian to rid Egypt of the Queen and her lover, both figuratively with Anthony dying in her arms and literally by the roman thugs who come to end her rule, Cleopatra now has undergone a change. This is a change that will prove disastrous for her foe as she is bent on his destruction and with her new-found abilities as a blood-sucking creature of the night and shape-shifting skills she is a formidable enemy to have.

We follow her as she pursues her enemy to Rome and the two engage in a battle that is mythological in scope. Octavian brings everything up a notch when he convinces his good friend Agrippa to search out the shamans and witches of Rome in his fight supreme. Soon all of Rome, and more, is engulfed in a battle of titans that can only end in horror.

A truly fun romp through a make-believe history that is a great get-away read for anyone who loves the paranormal or ancient history. The play of mythology amongst history makes the paranormal pieces all the more delicious.