Shuyler Van Alen is a girl who just wants to fit in. She lives in New York and attends a private school of elite, rich and spoiled teens. When she turns 15, stranges things start happening to her. She has flashbacks of being at a place hundreds of years prior, her body is undergoing strange changes and she is having unusual food cravings. After attending an exclusive meeting, she finds out that she is apart of an ancient group of vampires called the Blue Bloods. Something is wrong though as the vampires are under attack by someone who wants them dead.
 
Read this first book in a series and enjoy the life of vampires mixed with a social club to die for.

This was a good fast read of the vampire genre and it sets you up for the upcoming release, Love Sucks! Somehow the author manages to get into the teenage/vampire mind and form a fast-paced story that incorporates all of our modern social networking but also the icky parts of being a teenager who is misunderstood. The language is right on for the age, I think. At times a little raw, but it seemed very real. Good writing--I wasn't clear where we were headed and I liked that. :)

New Yorker Clary Fray gets a shock when she witnesses three tattooed teens murder a boy at the Pandemonium Club. She gets a worse shock when the body disappears and no one else saw the murderers even when they walked through the busy club. As she tries to make sense of what she saw, she discovers that there is a whole world that she didn’t know about. The tattoo covered teens are Shadowhunters, and she shouldn’t be able to see them either. When her mother is kidnapped (she is the only person to know where find the Mortal Cup, a magical object sought by Shadowhunters and their rivals) Clary must go into danger and discover the secrets about her family.

This urban fantasy is entertaining, though the characters are not as three dimensional as one would like. There are multiple types of nonhumans, including demons,werewolves and vampires; competing or cooperating with humans to save the world or destroy it.

There are three books in the series The Mortal Instruments: 1.  City of Bones, 2. City of Ashes, 3. City of Glass

Here is a non-fiction young adult book covering the mythology of vampires, descriptions of vampires, vampires in movies, and a glossary of vampire terms. The concept of vampires is closely related to cultural views about death. Some people feel that dead spirits hang around in a netherworld. Discover other interesting theories about vampires.