We welcome Sarah Daltry to argue the case of the fanged…

Why are vampires sexy? Well, that’s easy. Let’s go back a bit, though. Before vampires played baseball and sparkled in the sun. Still with me? Okay, BEFORE those “vampires,” the vampire was a symbol of sexuality. At least since Bram Stoker wrote Dracula.

I’m a product of my education, I know, but Dracula is not a novel about a creepy guy in a castle. It’s a novel about female sexuality in the repressive Victorian age. Let’s think about vampires. They crawl in through the window at night, when the virginal woman is in bed, and they drive the woman mad with desire. Their fangs grow longer, penetrating the woman’s pure flesh, and the woman gets to explore her darkest secrets, her longing for power, wrapped in the arms of a man, or creature, so powerful he can fly, transform into mist, and is so sexy that he is deemed evil by society.

Once the woman has been bitten, she needs more. She craves it. All other instincts are lost… See where I’m going with this?

Vampires allow us to submit to the hidden desires we have, only under the cover of night, in our bedrooms. They free us from social mores, and sometimes, it’s nice to give in to a guy who can satisfy those longings.

Sarah’s latest novel, Bitter Fruit, releases 1 December – and, yes, it features vampires.