Coming Soon

October 8th - there will be a short Sookie story in the anthology Wolfsbane and Mistletoe.
December 2008 - Usual Suspects is an anthology with a Charlaine Harris story.
Spring 2009 - Dead and Gone - Book 9 of the Sookie Stackhouse series. Eric's story will be told!


Book 6 of the Dark Ones Series- Zen and the Art of Vampires comes out Dec 2008.

One More Bite - Book 5 of the Jaz Parks Series is set to come out Jan 09 - Jennifer Rardin also just got signed to do 3 more books!


Bone Crossed - Mercy book 4 - More about werewolves but maybe the vamp who drives the scooby van will be back - Feb 2009

When Shadows Fade - Book 5 of the Gardella Vampire Chronicles is set to release March 2009

Curse the Dawn - Cass Palmer number 4 - Will Cass and Mircea finally get together? April 7th 2009.

Still haven't read the fairly new release of the 3rd book - Embrace the Night, which came out in April.

Is True Blood Going in the Right Direction?

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. Don't forget to send me your vampy pictures! Between wedding stuff, my car breaking down, my phone breaking, and all the other joys of life, I haven't taken the time to voice my opinions on the True Blood series (or much of anything for that matter).

Last night was a bit of a disapointment for me. I understand that the series needs side stories; the show would probably be a bit boring if it was just 100% Sookie and her thoughts, but when is it too much?

In the books Tara was never psychotic, Sam didn't seem so annoying, and Jason didn't seem like such an ass. Character personalities aside, certain events have raised my eyebrows a few times: Tara's mom being alive, Tara and her mom being possessed, Jason's new hippy girlfriend, and Jason and said girl friend kidnapping the vampire. Um... okay. It may be annoying, but I could live with some artisitic interpretation (I guess if I have to). This last episode seriously pissed me off though. Do you know what that was? Any guesses?

Bill had to stake Long Shadow!

It says a lot when Eric stakes Long Shadow, and it says a lot that Bill had to go New Orleans to become higher up in the vampire community so that Eric wouldn't take Sookie. Now Bill is gone because he has to go on trial? Please. I would have preferred it the way it was suppose to be. It seems that all but the first maybe, 3 episodes have wandered quite a bit from the books. I guess the basic plot, in it's most simple nature is still there, but there are important things that are being changed or left out.

I will still watch the show every weekend, but it is starting to be quite disapointing that it is becoming so different from the books.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everyone out there!

What is everyone dressing up as tonight? I thought it would be appropriate to dress up as a vampire tonight... anyone else doing the same thing? I want to see pictures of you are someone you know dressed as vampires!

Email me at bookswithabite@gmail.com

Maybe I will even post pictures of my costume!

Have a fun Halloween and be safe!

Fun stuff to spend your time and money on

Check out this vampy necklace from Collett's Treasures.

Want to vamp up your pictures in photoshop? Find some video tutorials here.

If you have hundreds of dollars to spend, this Fang Necklace is pretty awesome. Bittersweet makes other awesome things that are vampy, like these cool rings.

This isn't a vampire blog, but has some vampire stuff in it and is awesome.

Curious how to brush a vampire's teeth? Take a look at this instructional booklet.

I think Bencandace's Halloween Charm Bracelet is super cute.

Contest Pictures

In case you were curious, Wicked was the winner of the book contest and here is what she received:

Stay tuned for more contests and news!

Links and Such

Want to sleep in a coffin? Weburbanist posted some crazy hotel rooms and one of them is the vampire hotel room:

"Watching horror movies one has to be a little bit curious about whether it is comfortable for vampires to sleep in attic coffins. Now those who are so inclined (or who prefer partying at night and sleeping during the day) can experience this vampire room first hand at the Propeller Island Hotel." Their entry on abandoned buildings is pretty awesome too.


Might be interesting reading: Project Haunted House

Do you believe? Reports of sitings at Paranormal Database

Also, Vampire Wine is having a sale: 4 bottles for 55.00 (includes shipping)

Bill and Eric and other Halloween Cookies (Tutorial!)

Here’s the tutorial on how to make these super cute Halloween cookies… or just Bill and Eric cookies.

First, I used THIS recipe to make sugar cookies:

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used 2)
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Make sure your cookies are thick if you plan to insert a sucker stick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

If you use sucker sticks (which allows you to do great looking cookie bouquets) carefully insert the stick before you bake.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

While your cookies are cooling, you can start prepping your fondant. I had inspiration and some instruction from this fabulous cake blog recipe.

I bought rolled fondant at wal-mart. I believe it was around 5 or 6 dollars. It was in the wedding/baking aisle. While you are there, you may also want to get brown, black, and orange baking dye.

To make the vampires, you do not need to dye your fondant. Roll your fondant out like you did for the cookie dough, but roll it out as thin as possible! Cut out your fondant with the same cookie cutters:

To dye your fondant, you should probably wear gloves – especially if you are using regular food coloring. (I didn’t have any, so I slipped my hands into plastic sandwich baggies. Ghetto, yes, but it did work). But some drops of food coloring onto your glob of fondant and start mashing and kneading it until the fondant is all one color. This may make your fondant kinda sticky… I’m not sure what you are really suppose to do, but I “floured” my surface and rolling pin with powdered sugar. It makes the fondant kind of powdery, but it stops it from being an ooey-gooey mess.

Roll out your fondant very thinly and cut out with the cookie cutters.

When your cookies are cooled, make your ROYAL ICING. I used THIS recipe and kinda figured it out on my own.

Ingrediants:
Royal Icing Using Egg Whites:
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice (I didn’t have lemon, so I used lime)
3 cups (330 grams) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

For Royal Icing with Egg Whites: In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the egg whites with the lemon juice. Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined and smooth. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.
I beat my eggs until they were frothy:

Then added the powdered sugar and beat them until it was combined and glossy. – I guess the right consistency is when you drizzle the frosting into the bowl and it stays on top for 5 seconds.

I used both a bag with a piping tool, and a plastic baggie with a whole in the corner – both worked fine for me. I did the white frosting first.

First I put a think coating of frosting on the back of all the fondant pieces so that they would adhere to the cookie:

I stuck them on the cookies then I did the white details.
I piped the edges of the vamp cookies and did the whites of the Frankenstein eyes.

I then mixed small separate bowls of orange (for the pumpkins), green (for the Frankenstein’s), black (for hair, eyes, and mouths), and a little bit of yellow (for Eric’s hair). I put them all in plastic baggies. I finished the details of the other cookies and colors.

My black kinda got a little funky…. Also, didn’t have brown dye, so I put brown sprinkles for Bill’s hair.

Ta-da!