Stephenie Meyer’s smash hit, Twilight (that’s an understatement, of course), its corresponding movie series, and merchandising of everything you could possibly think of and more, originated from the genre of fiction known as YA (young adult). Since Twilight, it seems that (almost) every YA author (and their mother and/or daughter) has sought to somehow reach the Twilight grail by writing their own vampire novel–a trend which I reported on in a Publishers Weekly feature last year, entitled “The Next Dead Thing.”
Publishers Weekly just came out with a similar feature and the verdict is: Angels are the new vampires in YA novels! In “An Angelic Autumn,” reporter Karen Spring writes that:
“This fall publishers are introducing more than a dozen titles about angels–good ones, funny ones and especially fallen ones, kicked out of heaven…Publishers are rushing these new titles onto shelves. Simon & Schuster bought first-time author Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush in April and–based on requests by indies and chains, led by Barnes & Noble–pushed its release date up from spring 2010 to next month. The announced printing: 250,000. Random House bought Lauren Kate’s Fallen in April and is publishing it in December. “[The trend] fits in with the vampire reader who wants something new,” said Liz Marotte, Borders’s YA buyer. Move over, Edward Cullen. Bad-boy angels are the new hotties. Like modern vampires, they can be gorgeous, immortal and otherworldly heartthrobs, unlike, say, zombies.”

I say amen to that–zombies are so not sexy (I mean, their flesh is rotting and falling off all the time), and while I love the vampire, none of the YA vampire novels that came out last year came anywhere close to Twilight. Angels, on the other hand, sound pretty appealing, especially dark angels.
What do you think? Can angels give vampires a run for their money? Can they serve up romance and star-crossed love as good as the Edward Cullens of the fiction world?