Were the Vampires There All Along?

As we celebrate Pride Month, I find myself reflecting on the LGBT themes that appear throughout my paranormal novels. It is an interesting topic because I never consciously set out to write LGBT characters. I didn’t sit down with a checklist and decide that a particular character should be gay, bisexual, pansexual, or polyamorous. Instead, the characters arrived as they were, and I simply followed their stories.

Looking back now, I wonder if those stories were telling me something about myself all along.

Were the Vampires There All Along?

I grew up in Britain during the 1980s and 1990s. It was a very different world from the one my daughters are growing up in today. Discussions around sexuality and alternative relationships were not common in schools, and certainly not encouraged. Traditional family values were the norm. Like many girls of my generation, I was taught that I would grow up, find a husband, get married, and raise a family. That was simply how life was supposed to work.

And yet, even as a teenager, I always felt that life might be more complicated than that.

I wasn’t unhappy with the idea of marriage and family. I have both, and I cherish my children deeply. But I have always been open-minded about relationships and the many ways people connect with each other. Perhaps that is why my fictional worlds developed the way they did.

When I began writing the Redcliffe Novels, characters like Danny Mason and Simon Bunce emerged naturally. Their relationship wasn’t planned. It simply made sense within the story. Marcus Scott, who first appears in my Victorian Gothic romance The Darkness of Love, became even more intriguing. As a human, he lived within the strict social expectations of Victorian society. After becoming a vampire, however, he seemed to exist beyond those limitations. Marcus is drawn to people rather than labels. He follows connection, desire, loyalty, and affection wherever they lead.

Perhaps that is one reason I find vampires so fascinating.

Throughout literature, vampires have often represented outsiders. They exist on the fringes of society. They hide parts of themselves. They form their own communities and challenge accepted norms. The same could be said for werewolves, witches, and many other supernatural creatures. They ask important questions. What happens when you don’t fit in? What if society’s expectations are not right for you? Can you create your own path instead?

Those themes appear again in Vampire of Blackpool, where a vampire and a witch find love together, and in Return of the Vampire Hunter, where complicated feelings between women continue to shape the story long after a relationship has ended.

As a writer, I think I have always been drawn to stories about belonging, identity, and freedom. I simply chose to tell those stories through vampires, werewolves, witches, and hunters.

While writing this article, I remembered that more than twenty years ago I completed a university dissertation about vampires in popular culture. I loved every minute of researching and writing it. At the time, I simply thought I was fascinated by vampire mythology. Looking back now, I wonder if I was drawn to something more. Vampires have always represented outsiders, transformation, and freedom from society’s expectations. Perhaps I recognised something of myself in those stories long before I understood why.

So, were the vampires there all along?

Perhaps they were.

Perhaps they arrived as a way for me to explore questions about love, relationships, and identity long before I was ready to ask them directly.

Whatever the reason, I am grateful for the characters who continue to surprise me. They remind me that there is no single way to live, no single way to love, and no single path through life.

And that feels like a message worth celebrating during Pride Month.