Death is the one predator we can't escape. But vampires have found the loophole so many of us crave. I think that's the allure of vampirism.

While books provided me with some escape from the mental and physical horrors of my early life, they were unreliable. Many times the protagonists suffered terribly and then died at the end.

What kind of lifehave you lived, little one, that everything seems to be a question of fair and unfair? Life and death just are. Fair has nothing to do with it.

I think you need humour and a sense of fun, which is what I try to bring to my books to leaven the danger and action. The ones that really transcend the genre always have a great laugh in them, such as 'Fright Night,' 'Lost Boys,' 'American Werewolf in London' - just to name a few.

Growing up, books were my lifeline, and I owe a debt to those writers that can never be repaid. They saved my sanity and gave me a world I could escape to. If I can pay that forward to another person, that's all I ask.

Although many of us fear death, I think there is something illogical about it.