“Tory, how many times a week do you think you watch some form of Twilight clip?”
My friend Maddy recently posed this question. I’m not sure what prompted it—I probably re-storied something from twilight.memes.forever or maybe I had New Moon playing in the background during one of my recent reels. Regardless, it got me thinking… I DO ingest an absurd amount of Twilight content ? And I can’t tell if I’m honored or horrified that Tory Guyon and Edward Cullen seem to be synonymous.
I guess I don’t do myself any favors by posting content like If You Like These Deeply Specific Things: New Moon Edition, or Sassy Edward’s Reactions to Angel of Earth & Bone. It probably doesn’t help that my editor lovingly calls Angel of Earth & Bone my “New Moon” book and leaves comments throughout my manuscript that look like this:
And this:
And I’ll just get it out of the way now and admit I know that the USA’s National Twilighters Day is on September 13—alright, and I celebrated it by hosting a movie marathon and ordering themed cookies and proudly, publicly declaring how They Could Never Make Me Hate Twilight.
Soooo… to answer the original question: how many times a week do I think I watch some form of Twilight clip? 14 unwilling times, 7 willing. I mean, what can I say? That algorithm is watching and it knows exactly what to feed me: sparkly vampires.
When I first read Twilight, I was in college. It, along with The Mortal Instruments, helped pull me out of a very dark headspace and gave me peace from a not-so-great relationship I was in at the time. The FMC’s helped me realize my quirks were worth loving, the MMC’s made me feel like I was worth fighting for, and the supernatural twists on our everyday world brought a sense of magic to my own. I would stay up all night reading these books. I would fit a couple pages in before, during, and after my retail job, in between classes, early mornings when my housemates were just getting home from a wild night out. I would save the minimal tips I earned from hosting at the local fish restaurant to buy the next book in the series.
So you know what? Yes, I am honored to be mentioned in the same breath as “Twilight” and “Edward Cullen.” Because those books, and many other paranormal romance series, brought me hope and comfort and helped shaped the writer and person I am today.
If you’re a Twihard for life and you’ve been wondering “what should I read after Twilight”—”is there anything to read after Twilight”—here are 11 YA and adult paranormal romance books with that nostalgic, swoony, spark 🍎
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
Blurb: Deep in Oxford’s Library, scholar Diana unwittingly calls up a bewitched manuscript during her research. After a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets an underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires descends upon the library. She has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries—and she is the only creature who can break its spell.
Age category: Adult
Release date: February 2011 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Just because something seems impossible doesn’t make it untrue.”
Afterlife by Stephanie Hudson
Blurb: Afterlife is a nightclub that belongs in a big city, not in the small town of Evergreen Falls…Just like its forbidding owner does, Draven. Keira is a shy girl running from a horrific past who belongs in the shadows of a small town where she can start fresh. However, this new life she craves isn’t the one she is expecting. Not after Draven gets one look at her and quickly decides her fate.
Age category: Adult
Release date: June 2012 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Why are we afraid of the darkness when the light shows us more of the land of nightmares?”
Angel of Water & Shadow by Tory Guyon
Blurb: River assumes the voices she hears are a figment of her grief. But when they suddenly vanish, a demon attacks her, and magic manifests at her fingertips and no one is there to explain—except mysterious hunter, Ryder. Caught in a battle between supernatural realms, to save humanity she must unlock her buried past, even if it means sacrificing her heart in the process.
Age category: Upper Young Adult / New Adult
Release date: May 2023 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Now I knew where it came from—where I came from. The fallen Angel of Water.”
Blood Oath by Morgan B. Lee
Blurb: When ordinary human Maven suddenly discovers she has magic, she’s sent to Everbound Academy. She’s placed in a quintet, a ritual that binds hearts to break curses, and promptly rejects her matches for their own good. No one can know her secrets, so she’ll do whatever it takes to make them decide she’s not worth the chase. The problem is, no matter what she does to make them hate her, it only seems to have the opposite effect…
Age category: Adult
Release date: March 2024 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Make us your weapons, darling, and no one will stand a chance against our quintet. Let us be yours.”
Crave by Tracy Wolff
Blurb: Grace’s world changed when she stepped inside the academy, a place she’s a mere mortal among gods—or monsters—where the only thing she knows for certain is their hatred of her. Then there’s Jaxon, a vampire with deadly secrets who hasn’t felt anything for 100 years. But there’s something about him that calls to her, something broken that fits with what’s broken in her…
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: April 2020 | Goodreads | Amazon
“There’s not much to be afraid of when you’ve already lost everything that matters.”
Dark Secrets by Angela Hudson
Blurb: After a century of life, David cares about nothing. Ara is a fresh-eyed girl from another place, whose misery and secret determination to end her own life intrigues the vampire. So, when he is sent to high school to reconnect with the human existence, this chance meeting becomes about more than just an interesting new kill. His attempts to understand this girl go awry when she finds out what he is.
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: May 2013 | Goodreads | Amazon
“To err is human, so I’m told. But my mistakes and regrets were buried so deep, darkened my soul so black, that they were no longer secrets, but bars on a prison I trapped myself in.”
Fallen by Lauren Kate
Blurb: There’s something achingly familiar about Daniel Grigori. Mysterious and aloof, he captures Luce’s attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at Sword & Cross boarding school. Even though he wants nothing to do with her—and goes out of his way to make that very clear—she can’t let it go. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, she has to find out what he is so desperate to keep secret… even if it kills her.
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: December 2009 | Goodreads | Amazon
“What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours?”
Quicksilver by Callie Hart
Blurb: When Saeris comes face-to-face with Death, she inadvertently reopens a gateway between realms and is transported to a land of ice and snow. The Fae have always been the stuff of myth but…it turns out they’re real, and she mistakenly binds herself to Kingfisher, a handsome Fae warrior. He will use her Alchemist’s magic to protect his people, no matter what it costs him… or her.
Age category: Adult
Release date: June 2024 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Because she is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm.”
Red Winter by Annette Marie
Blurb: Earth spirits are determined to kill Emi before she can become the living host of a goddess. So she stays hidden—until she saves the life of one of her hunters. Shiro swears to pay his debt to her, but he doesn’t know who she is. If he finds out, he’ll kill her. The lies around her fate begin to unravel and she needs answers from the spirit realm. He can take her there…if she dares trust him.
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: October 2016 | Goodreads | Amazon
“Sometimes, beauty and sadness went hand in hand.”
Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater
Blurb: For years, Grace has watched the beasts in the woods, capturing the attention of a yellow-eyed wolf. Meanwhile, Sam has two lives: In winter the woods with his pack and the silent company of a girl. In summer, a few months of being human. When she meets a yellow-eyed boy, he feels familiar. As winter nears, he must fight to stay human—or risk losing himself, and her, forever.
Age category: Young Adult
Release date: August 2009 | Goodreads | Amazon
“You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.”
Transfusion by Stephanie Hudson
Blurb: It’s been seven years since the Vampire King, Lucius, broke Amelia’s heart. Seven years since he humiliated her, casting her aside and telling her just what he thought about her little obsession with him. Then he saves her life. And now, he’s out for blood, and all she can hope for is that it isn’t hers that’s on the menu.
Age category: Adult
Release date: October 2018 | Goodreads | Amazon
“It’s wrong because when you finally possess beauty, two things happen, you do so as often as you possibly can, and you do so with her body illuminated, so that you can burn the image to your mind for all the times that you can’t.”
I hope you enjoyed this blog post about what to read after Twilight! Make sure to go to Goodreads for the full blurbs—I condensed as best I could.
If you also enjoy forbidden love, make sure to check out this blog post for 11 fantasy books that have forbidden romance!
Let me know if you have any other good recs!
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