Vivian Vande Velde

Companions of the Night

Illustrations for hardcover and both the Bantam and original Magic Carpet paperbacks by Cliff Nielsen

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Ages: 12 & up

Publisher: Harcourt

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Book Description:

When 16-year-old Kerry helps a young man escape from a group of men who claim he is a vampire, she finds herself faced with some bizarre and dangerous choices.

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Where do you GET those ideas?

This book started because I love vampire stories. But the rules for vampires change from story to story. For example, in some books, vampires burn up and die at the first hint of sunlight, but in other stories they're OK for short periods if they cover up and wear sunglasses, and sometimes they're fine in sunlight except that they don't have any of their special powers during the day, and I read one story where vampires themselves started the rumor that they couldn't stand the sun so that they could always prove they weren't vampires by being able to survive sunlight. I started thinking out for myself which rules made the most sense, and that's how the story started.

I didn't grow up in Brockport, but I went to college there.  (And, frankly, I had my doubts about some of those teachers...) Some of the places in the book are real (like the Lift Bridge Book Store and the Strand Theater and the fact that some of the houses are Victorian style); but other things are made up--there is no Quick-Clean Laundry (and there never could be in the place I describe it, because I say it's between the Strand Theater and the corner, but the Strand Theater is on the corner), and there are no such streets as the names I use for where Kerry lives and where Professor Marsala lives--I didn't want anybody knocking on a real person's door, looking for my characters.