Amish and Vampires? Amish Vampires?

By Kevin Williams

The Amish fiction genre has grown very hot over the past few years. But so has the "vampire" genre, fueled by the Twilight series.  So perhaps it was inevitable these two rivers of lava should meet.  I've run into several books lately that involve Amish vampires.  I'm not going to jump on my soapbox and pontificate about these books being disrespectful or anything.  The reality is, novels are fiction and fiction is supposed to be just that: made-up, fantasy, etc.  At least these books  are honest and label themselves as such unlike TV shows like Amish Mafia that masquerade under the veneer of "reality TV."

Amish and Vampires seem to be a popular genre right now.

Amish and Vampires. SIGH

When I created The Amish Cook column 23 years ago the literary landscape was quiet on all things Amish.  Beverly Lewis was still several years away from releasing her first Amish-themed fiction books.  It was pretty much just me and Marcia Adams, who penned the Cooking from Quilt Country books.  Now the book market is glutted with Amish-themed fiction, the TV landscape has tons of shows tying into the Amish, and, now, we have combined genres like "Amish Vampires."   Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon, but the Amish Vampires genre just doesn't appeal to me much at all. When I write Amish fiction I do try to hew at least to a rough template of reality and these books just seem to be using caricatures of the Amish.

Sheesh, even if I did want to read these books, since our daughter was born I barely have time to scroll through my Facebook feed let alone curl up with a good book.  So, do any of our readers like these new "Amish Vampire" books?  If so, what are we missing?

Here is an article that delves more deeply into the topic.