New 'Vampire Academy' novel sees the light; author Richelle Mead reads

Area teenagers, and even some adults, have been filling up their idle hours this summer reading Seattle-area author Richelle Mead's "Vampire Academy" series. Mead's best-selling series, which had sold 600,000 copies as of the first of this year, features Rose Hathaway, a gutsy heroine who attends St. Vladimir's Academy, a boarding school for vampires and their guardians in training. No wallflower, Rose works as a bodyguard in the service of protecting "good" vampires (the Moroi) from "bad" vampires (the Strigoi).

After a cliffhanger ending in book three, "Shadow Kiss," Mead is back with the fourth volume in the series, "Blood Promise: A Vampire Academy Novel" (Razorbill).

Lilith St. Crow's "Strange Angels" concerns a young woman who hunts ghosts with her father, and the trials that beset her when her father turns up dead — and walking around.

Mead and St. Crow will read from and sign books at 4 p.m. Tuesday at University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle; free (206-634-3400 or www.ubookstore.com). Mead will also be at Borders Books & Music, 16549 N.E. 74th St., Redmond at 7 p.m. Tuesday; free (425-869-1907).

Mary Ann Gwinn, mgwinn@seattletimes.com