The mysterious, frightening, and often times intriguing vampire has been a mainstay of horror and fantasy fiction for longer than most can remember. Readers have always been drawn to stories involving these undead beings, and it is a wonder how they have managed to remain so consistently popular.
Despite not always being as prominent as her male counterparts, particularly in recent fiction, the female vampire could be said to be the more terrifying sex. In large part due to the fact that readers don't expect a woman to be fear inducing. However, this list contains several examples of pure terror in female form, alongside several examples of first class vampiric characterisation.
Top Five Countdown: Female Vampires
(5.) Pam from Charlaine Harris' popular Sookie Stackhouse series is a female vampire to be reckoned with. In equal parts cold, detached, practical, and terrifying when the occasion requires, Pam is a character who just keeps getting better and better with each new novel. One of her defining features is her dry and at times unnervingly honest sense of humour, she could be dropping great one-liners one moment and disposing of a dead body the next.
(4.) Eleisha Clevon from Barb Hendee's Blood Memories novel is perhaps one of the lesser known characters to feature in this list, nonetheless she is at number four merely for the fact that Hendee has achieved something very seldom encountered with her vampire protagonist. Eleisha is at all times wholly believable as a member of the undead, she is almost completely detached from the human servant girl she once was. Unlike in some vampire fiction, where we see thousand year old vampires portraying ultra hip and modern personalities, Eleisha is what a vampire should be. She kills with a mechanical practicality, her thoughts only on survival, and she fails to understand human emotions and ways of living, for her human past is so far behind her.
(3.) Xhex from J.R Ward's "Black Dagger Brotherhood" series. Xhex is a vampire and a sympath, she can see and manipulate emotions, not to mention a highly skilled assassin. In her character readers find a multi-fasceted example of a strong and frightening female vamp who we can also relate to, since despite being far from human Xhex struggles with some very human emotions. And Ward cannot be criticised for giving human emotions to a woman who is not human, because her vampires are not dead things, but instead a living species. Xhex is an excellent example of terror, strength, and love all mixed up in one well put together characterisation.
(2.) In second place is Dru Anderson from Lili St.Crow's Strange Angel's series. Dru is a half human, half vampire djamphir, and she is the tough girl protagonist of these amazingly written Young Adult books. Dru makes such a great character to follow because she must deal the two starkly opposing aspects of her biology, her vulnerable human side is constantly at odds with her blood hungry vampire side.
(1.) Topping this list is one of the oldest literary female vampires, Carmilla from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella of the same name. Published in 1872, Carmilla even predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by over two decades. Carmilla's personality consists of a strange mix of weakness and frightening monstrosity, she plays both the ill, fragile young girl who spends the day in bed, while at the same time she is unsettlingly predatory as she develops an obsession with the protagonist Laura.
Lorraine McInerney - Lorraine McInerney is currently working as a freelance writer and editor. She studied Arts for four years and has a BA in English and ...
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