Top 10 List & Giveaway: Jeannie Holmes’ Favorite Female Vampires

We’re joined by Jeannie Holmes today, author of the Alexandra Sabian urban fantasy series (BLOOD LAW was released in July 2010 and BLOOD SECRETS will be published on June 28, 2011 from Bantam) about an ‘FBPI Enforcer [who] polices the vampire population of Jefferson, Mississippi while navigating an ever-increasingly complicated person life.’ My review is coming soon.  Jeannie is sharing her favorite female vampires below and giving away a set of Alexandra Sabian books.  Details below.

You can read all the previous Top 10 Lists HERE

My Top 10 Favorite Female Vampires in Film and Fiction

by

Jeannie Holmes

If you’ve read any interviews I’ve done in the past year or so, it’ll come as no surprise that I like vampires. I like to read about them. I like to watch them in movies. I like to write them. When I was invited to submit a guest blog to ATUF, one of the topics Abigail and I discussed as a possible candidate for today was a list of my top female vampires. I’ve often spoken of and listed my favorite vampires, favorite vampire movies and books, but I haven’t given a specific list of female vampires and why I like them. So, thanks, Abigail, for the great topic!

Now, without further ado, here are my Top 10 Female Vampires:

10. Claudia from Interview with the Vampire

I like Claudia for a number of reasons, foremost being that, as Lestat says at the end, she “should never have been one of us.” At the time Anne Rice wrote the book, the image of a child as a vampire was disturbing enough but seeing that child mature into both a woman and a brutal killer while still being trapped inside the body of a little girl was truly horrifying. Yet, I believe Rice captured the struggle we all face—not only women—as we mature from child to teen to adult inside Claudia and made her a sympathetic and identifiable character as well as an alien creature with dark desires that few humans can truly understand.

9. Pam Ravenscroft from Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood series

Of all the characters that have been translated from page to screen, Pam has retained the most essential parts of her character: her dry wit, her vengeful streak, and her love of pastels. Pam is a study in contrasts both in the books and the television show—as any self-respecting vampire should be! Stated simply, what’s not to like about Pam?

8. Diamondback from Near Dark

Near Dark is my Number 2 All Time Favorite Vampire Movie, right after Number 1: Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. (If you haven’t seen this film, I urge you to do so at once. It’s one of the best I’ve seen and is completely frank in its portrayal of the brutality of vampires.) Diamondback, as she’s known in the film, is the “mother” of a family of vampires who travel around the country leaving destruction in their wake. She’s tough. She’s brutal. She’s savage. But there is something almost tender and motherly in the way she interacts with Homer, the young child vampire who travels with them. Like Claudia, Diamondback is both alien and yet a sympathetic character in many ways.

7. Ivy Tamwood from the Rachel Morgan series

Ivy is the essence of a sympathetic character. Caught between two worlds, she knows what her fate will be, that it’s unavoidable, but still she has hope that her fate can change, that Rachel will find a way to save her. As a character, Ivy can be both strong and incredibly vulnerable. Much like Pam, she’s full of contradictions and a character I eagerly await to see with each new book.

6. Selene from the Underworld trilogy

Ah, Selene. A total badass and yet willing to risk so much for the love a Lycan-Vampire hybrid. Selene, in the beginning, tows the vampire party line but as she uncovers information and peels back the dark layers of wool that have been so carefully placed over her eyes, she changes. Instead of growing weaker with the knowledge she gains, she grows stronger. Selene is willing to break away from the well-worn path of her kind to forge her own way. That is a characteristic that must be admired.

5. Akasha from The Queen of the Damned

All Akasha wants is to kill a majority of the world’s male population and establish a new order in which women worship her as a goddess. What’s so wrong about that? All lot of things, but you have to admire her ambition…or insanity, depending on how you choose to view it. I also like the origin myth Anne Rice creates for her vampires surrounding Akasha. I won’t go into details, but at the time that Queen of the Damned was published, the myth was one that grabbed my attention and sowed the seeds for looking outside of standard folklore for vampire origin myths.

4. Morticia Addams of The Addams Family

“They're creepy and they're kooky. Mysterious and spooky. They're all together ooky. The Addams Family!” Mortica is refined and the eye in the center of the storm of the Addams household. I remember watching the television show as a kid and loving the oddball humor of it all—especially the one-line zingers Morticia often threw at visitors or her beloved Gomez. While it’s never revealed that Morticia is a vampire, it’s hard not to view her as such with her love of flesh-eating plants and rose thorns and her aristocratic nature.

3. Vampire Willow from Buffy: The Vampire Slayer’s Doppelgangland

In season three, Good Witch Willow flubs a spell resulting in the appearance of her vampiric counterpart. Vampire Willow is both cold and calculating—a trait we see later in the series when Willow turns evil—and entertaining. I like that much of Vamp Willow’s character is held over for later episodes when Evil Witch Willow is running amok through Sunnydale. Plus Doppelgangland marks a change in Willow’s character arc. I could go on but…”Bored now.”

2. Vampira of The Vampira Show

Portrayed by Maila Nurmi, Vampira was a mix of Morticia Addams and the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Vampira, as a character, was created in 1953, and Nurmi was later tapped to host horror movies on late night television in Los Angeles. With her tight black dress, long dark hair, and white skin, it’s hard not to see the influence Vampira had on modern culture as the originator of the horror movie hostess. (Think Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.)

1. Miriam Blaylock from The Hunger (1983)

Again, if The Hunger is a film you haven’t seen, I urge you to do so. Miriam Blaylock is a pure predator, a black widow with a powerful bite. She lures potential mates to her lair with promises of eternal youth and life only to use them, consume them, and file them away for safekeeping. As so many others on my list, she’s a complex creature with multiple facets and each is darker than its predecessor. The Hunger beautifully captures both the lure and luxury of eternal youth/life and the true hell it would become if bestowed on anyone.

There you have it – my top ten list of favorite female vampires. So who are some of your faves and why?

Jeannie Holmes is a native of southwest Mississippi. Before receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of South Alabama, she worked in a variety of interesting fields, including medical records, independent auction houses, and owned a small handcrafted jewelry business. In addition to working on the sequel to Blood Law, she received her Master of Arts degree in English in December 2008 and lives in Mobile, AL with her husband and four neurotic cats. Visit Jeannie online: Website|Facebook|Twitter

Giveaway provided by Jeannie Holmes

One winner will receive signed copies of BLOOD LAW and BLOOD SECRETS by Jeannie Holmes

BLOOD LAW Description:

WHEN ALEXANDRA SABIAN SINKS HER TEETH INTO AN INVESTIGATION, SHE DOESN’T LET GO.
Alex allowed a case involving murdered vamps to get personal and is suspended from the Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigation. Now she’s facing an official inquiry but has a chance to redeem herself. The catch: She must once again work with Varik Baudelaire, her former mentor and ex-fiancé, as he spearheads a search for a missing college student. But Varik has been keeping secrets from Alex, and his mysterious past is on a collision course with his present.

When Alex and Varik discover a carefully handcrafted doll at a crime scene, neither of them can see how close the danger really is or that a killer known as the Dollmaker has made Alex the object of his horrific desire. Now the only way out of the Dollmaker’s lair is through the twilight realm of the Shadowlands, where all secrets—for better or worse—will be revealed.

BLOOD SECRETS Description:

To stop a vampire killer, she’ll have to slay her own demons first.
A provocative and savvy vampire, Alexandra Sabian moves to the sleepy hamlet of Jefferson, Mississippi—population 6,000, half vampires—to escape the demons lurking in her past. As an enforcer for the Federal Bureau of Preternatural Investigations (FBPI), Alex must maintain the uneasy peace between her kind and humans, including Jefferson’s bigoted sheriff, who’d be happy to see all vampires banished from town. Then really dead vamps start turning up—beheaded, crucified, and defanged, the same gruesome manner in which Alex’s father was murdered decades ago. For Alex, the professional has become way too personal.

Things get even more complicated when the FBPI sends in some unnervingly sexy backup: Alex’s onetime mentor, lover, and fiancé, Varik Baudelaire. Still stinging from the betrayal that ended their short-lived engagement, Alex is determined not to give in to the temptation that soon threatens to short-circuit her investigation. But as the vamp body count grows and the public panic level rises, Varik may be Alex’s only hope to stop a relentless killer who’s got his own score to settle and his own bloody past to put right.

 

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1. Open to everyone (internationally)

2. Leave a comment that includes a way to contact you if you win & one of your favorite female vampires

3. Winner(s) will be chosen on July 3rd

4. See our Giveaway Policy if you have any questions

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