Vampire weeknight

There is sex. There are breakups. And there is a murder. Would you expect anything less from the vampires of the Blue Bloods Coven in Melissa de la Cruz’s new book, “Vampires of Manhattan”? The newest installment in her successful “Blue Bloods” novels finds the characters 10 years older and living a peaceful coexistence with humans.

But unlike a certain other vampire series, this is no case of perpetual vampire adoles cence — in fact, it gets downright existential. De la Cruz’s bloodsuckers have left their teen years behind, settling in to their mid-20s and early 30s in Manhattan and asking, “Is this, what life is all about?” She admits drawing heavily on her experiences living in Manhattan as one of the “privileged poor,” having little income but attending lavish parties with plenty of free food. De la Cruz, 44, was there for 15 years after graduating from Columbia University and a series of jobs writing about fashion and lifestyle for publications like “Teen Vogue,” “Cosmo Girl” and “Glamour.”

“It’s a time when you are making a lot of mistakes in the world,” de la Cruz said in a recent phone interview. “You live very cheaply in flats and wonder if (you’re) going to grow up there.”

De la Cruz will talk about the book at Girls’ Night Out on Sept. 11 at Schuler Books & Music in the Eastwood Towne Center, including discussing scenes from the novel that mirror her life. For example, when vampire boyfriend Edon cleans his heartthrob Aras’ apartment, de la Cruz is really flashing back on her then-boyfriend (now husband), who would clean up her apartment to create “a more habitable domicile.”

The author of several young adult book series (“The Au Pairs”) and some self-help “tongue-in-chic” handbooks has turned to the “new adult” genre, targeting young adults out on their own.

In “Vampires of Manhattan,” the new Blue Bloods Coven and their charismatic leader Oliver Hazzard-Perry (the author says he’s no relation to the War of 1812 commodore) hold together an uneasy peace with the humans, when a brutal murder of a human threatens their existence. Fans of de la Cruz’s earlier youthful “Blue Blood” series will not be disappointed by her transitioning vampires to career-driven New Yorkers. The action is non-stop. The love scenes are hot, albeit confusing to a newbie, but it’s an exciting thriller and detective novel wrapped in vampire drama.

De la Cruz was born in the Philippines and lives in Los Angeles with her family. But she said she’ll always feel like a New Yorker.

“I have roots there and will always have that bond,” she said. “I know about the inner workings of New York City more than I do Los Angeles. I still have a ‘New York closet’ filled with clothes for visiting.”

The author said when she moved to Los Angeles in 2003, she had been writing chic it, but a publisher asked her to write something darker in a different genre. Having grown up reading supernatural writers like Anne Rice and Stephen King, she made an instant mental leap.

“I immediately thought ‘vampire,’” she said. “This was before ‘Twilight.’ I thought nobody was writing (about) vampires.”

She turned in the manuscript in 2004 for the teen “Blue Bloods,” but by then “Twilight” was a hit.

“I was really worried, but it was the best thing ever,” de la Cruz said. Having conquered one set of supernatural beings, she next turned her talents to another: Witches.

“I wrote about high school kids for 10 years, and I wanted to write about a tight, but flawed and magical family,” she said. That family, the Beauchamps, turned out to be basis for “Witches of East End,” which has since spawned a hit TV series on Lifetime. De La Cruz said she was approached

to sell movie rights to her “Blue Bloods” series, but that she “didn’t like the take on it” and turned down all offers. But she relented on “East End.” One of the packagers was Erwin Stoff, producer of sci-fi hits like “The Matrix.”

“He was an immigrant like me and I liked what he was doing with sci-fi,” she said. “The script was so good it made me cry.”

The launch of her new book series is somewhat bittersweet for de la Cruz. She’s on a six-city tour to promote her book, but due to a well-publicized Amazon-driven imbroglio with her publisher, Hachette, about profit splits, her book is not available on Amazon for pre-order.

“It’s a stake to the heart,” she said. “We are at a time when we have to ask, ‘what is the value of a book?’ Books have intrinsic value, not just a market value. People my age like to own things, but millennials stream, rent and borrow. For authors, the question is how are we going to get paid?”

Girls’ Night Out presents Melissa de la Cruz

7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 11 Schuler Books & Music — Eastwood 2820 Towne Center Blvd., Lansing Township (517) 316-7495, schulerbooks.com