The Hallowed Ones & The Outside by Laura Bickle: AMISH VAMPIRE NOVELS, PREPARE YOURSELF

Hands down, the best thing about these two books is you get to say you're reading an Amish vampire novel. Who doesn't want more information after hearing those words put together.

The Hallowed Ones and its follow-up The Outside concern an Amish girl named Katie who slowly realizes THAT THE WORLD IS TURNING INTO VAMPIRES. Why? Who knows! How does she find this out? Because cars with panicked people in them are fleeing past her Amish settlement and ravens are flying away en masse and some Amish boys don't come home and then she goes into town and there are vampires there.

"Katie, the...spiritually confused vampire decapitator."

Both the books were quick and fun, but if you're into the Amish angle (you should be), the first one deals with that much much more, as it takes place in the Amish settlement, while The Outside takes place....y'know....on the outside.

There's no love triangle; vampires aren't misunderstood and romantic in this series -- they're just evil assholes. Also AMISH GIRL FIGHTING VAMPIRE NUNS. That happens. It's not a big part. But it happens.

Basically, Katie finds out about the vampires and then is like "Amish settlement, hear me! There are vampire things!" and then Elders are like "EVERYTHING IS FINE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE" and this old man is like "Our neighbors have become vampires and we have to stake them, cut off their heads and put garlic in their mouths" and the Elders pretty predictably go

Katie's eventually banished from the community for REASONS, which is especially mean since it seems to be Guaranteed Death on the outside, but, y'know. Amish life's a hard life.

So she and some other people have to fight vampires and travel around and maybe try to find out what's making people vampires in the first place (note: this is not resolved, but does that really matter? no).

One of the things I liked the most about the series was Bickle's mix of secular sensibilities with a respect for spirituality. Vampires can't enter holy places of any kind. There's even some witches' coven in a strip mall that they can't breach. Why? Who knows! (the second book kind of attempts an explanation, but I don't think it's supposed to be definitive)

I read these on Oyster, because Oyster is the pants and has a vast array of books, including Amish vampire ones. After I finished it, it recommended a book where Lucy Westenra retells Dracula and I am PUMPED.

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