Entertaining and Fun Vampire Stories

The focus of this blog is Leonbergers but sometimes I post about books that are not about Leonbergers but that are books that I want to promote. This past week we were on a family vacation in New Orleans. We’ve been to New Orleans many times before but this time we focused on the supernatural, magic if you will, ghosts, vampires, voodoo, and pirates. In the evenings I read a fairly new book about vampires, Vermillion Highways by David Lee Summers and Lee Clark Zumpe. I bought the book on Amazon, I loved the book and I wrote a review for it.

As far as I know it exists only as a paperback on Amazon. Publisher : Hiraethsff (January 14, 2026), ASIN : B0GHDTMVZ3, ISBN-13 : 979-8295554971, 116 pages, Item Weight : 5.7 ounces, Dimensions : 6 x 0.24 x 9 inches, it cost  $13.95 on US Amazon. Click here to order it from Amazon.com.

The front cover features a female vampire on a background of mountains and a planet.
Front cover of Vermillion Highways. Click on the image to go to the Amazon page for the paperback version of the book.

Amazon’s Description of Vermillion Highways

Two of the finest minds in the genres have combined their resources and imaginations to come up with some of the gothiest (and, sometimes, ) goofiest vampire short fiction this side of Transylvania. David Lee Summers, of Tales of the Talisman and Scarlet Order fame, and Lee Clark Zumpe, mild-mannered reporter for a daily metro-Floridian newspaper and author of the Lovecraftian anthology Whispers from the Intoxicating Abyss, take you on a journey through tales that fit everywhere between Type O positive and Type AB negative. Vermillion Highways is a must-read even if you don’t care for the suckers.

My Five Star Review of Vermillion Highways

Lighthearted and Captivating Vampire Stories

We just returned from a family trip to New Orleans. To make the trip extra interesting we had a theme for our trip, vampires and voodoo. Naturally we visited vampire themed places, and we drank blood (pretend blood). In addition, in the evenings I read this book.

Vermillion Highways is a short collection (114 pages) of 40 short stories about vampires written by two great authors with humor and vivid imaginations. Each author contributed 20 stories. Some stories are around 10 pages long, and some stories are not even half a page. The stories are sometimes scary but for the most part they are just entertaining, imaginative, fun and comical. They are good stories with surprises and odd twists. At first, I was questioning whether you can really write good stories that are that short, but you can. If done right the very-short story format, or the flash fiction format, works.

I appreciated the flexible and more realistic take on vampires in this book. If you don’t strictly adhere to the orthodox depiction of vampires, you can write better stories. In this book vampires can sustain themselves by drinking blood from blood bags, or from people without necessarily turning them into vampires. It is the desperate or mean vampires that attack and kill people. The sun is not good for vampires, but it does not make them burst into flames, and they don’t sparkle in the sunlight either. A little bit of sunlight is manageable, like for albinos. They also don’t turn into bats, they can’t fly, they are not purely evil, and crosses are not as effective against vampires as you may think. However, they can live for thousands of years, and they have some special magical powers, such as mind compulsion and great physical strength. I prefer it when vampires are depicted this way.

In summary, this vampire book may not be very scary, but it is an entertaining and fun read. I highly recommend this lighthearted, modern and easy to read vampire book.

The back cover is red and has a description of the book.
Back cover of Vermillion Highways.

About David Lee Summer

I don’t have the author information for Lee Clark Zumpe but I do for David Lee Summers.

Photo of David Lee Summers author of Vermillion Highways.

David Lee Summers is an author, editor and astronomer living somewhere between the western and final frontiers in Southern New Mexico. He is the author of twelve novels. His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous magazines including Cemetery Dance, Realms of Fantasy, Star*Line, and The Santa Clara Review.

David also edited Tales of the Talisman Magazine for ten years. When he’s not writing, he operates telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory.

Click here to visit his website

Click here to visit his blog

Click here to see one of my review for The Astronomer’s Crypt another of David Lee Summer’s books.

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

20 thoughts on “Entertaining and Fun Vampire Stories”

  3. What a fun trip, Thomas. This gave me a chuckle.. “o make the trip extra interesting we had a theme for our trip, vampires and voodoo. Naturally we visited vampire themed places, and we drank blood (pretend blood).”
    I’m not a fan of vampires but after the academy awards watched Sinners the other night not knowing vampires was the theme. Worst movie ever IMHO. My husband fell asleep and I watched it all and he finished it the next morning saying “stupidest movie ever”.. I wasn’t freaked just couldn’t follow it.. not sure what the hype was about.

    With that said this book sounds light a great book. Kudos to David. Great cover❣️

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    1. Thank you so much Cindy. We certainly had a good time. I did not see the movie Sinners so I don’t have an opinion on it. However, it is easy to make movies (or write books) about mythical creatures that are stupid. Sorry to hear Sinners was stupid. David Lee Summers is a scientist/astronomer so he will not write a book that is stupid. I agree, it is a great cover. The planet on the cover is because some stories took place on Mars, which I did not mention.

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        1. Thank you Cindy. I can add that New Orleans have a great aquarium/insectarium/rainforest in addition to lots of jazz bars, and pubs with music, the magical/paranormal stuff of course, and there is music and people in costumes. It is best to find out what there is beforehand and then pick what to visit. Have a great day you too.

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            1. Well New Orleans was destroyed by hurricane Katrina and it has taken a long time for it to come back. It is still not entirely back and it is still smaller than New Orleans pre-Katrina. However, the tourists are coming back so now is a good time to visit.

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    1. Yes it was a fun family trip. The original plan was to go skiing in Breckenridge but our favorite ski-in-ski-out hotel was book up and after arguing about where else to go we decided to do something different for this spring break. Our oldest son, his wife, and baby Jack did not come because traveling is just difficult for them right now. They visited us a few weeks ago and that is good enough for now. . However, we will go visit them soon again. Our daughter and our younger son and his girlfriend came with us. I like vampire fiction if it is not too unrealistic so this book right up my street too.

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  6. Lulu: “Ooh, our Dada has a vampire book! His vampires are not very nice though and are definitely not anti-heroes. I have not read it because I heard something bad happens to a dog in it. Also I can’t read.”
    Java Bean: “Ayyy, neither can I!”
    Charlee: “None of us can read, and yet we comment on blogs all the time.”
    Chaplin: “How do we manage that, exactly?”
    Oona: “MAGIC.”

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