Harris vs Frost vs Ward (non YA books)

Ok, I started reading this genre with Sookie and liked the lightheartedness and humor in it. Then I found Frost's Nighthuntress books (One Foot in the Grave)which seem to be more "mature" or serious (and definitely more graphic) and I like them much better. I'm contemplating Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood but am wondering what they're similar to?

Are there other series that would also be similar? I like darker books over lighter ones and don't like anything that has "teen" angst type stuff (Twilight) and don't really think every book should end with the hero and heroine riding off into the sunset.

I didn't like Sagara's Cast in Shadow and while Gilman's Staying Dead was okay, it was a bit YA.

(i.e. if they're going to have sex, I want it to be sex, not some flowery "talk-around-it" stuff)

Black Dagger Brotherhood are definitely more dark & graphic than the Sookie books. They are both romances and a series - each book is about how a particular Brother finds his mate, but there's also a back story about their fight against the Lessers.

I love Frost and would also recommend Keri Arthur's Riley Jensen series. They have a lot of sex in them, and at the start of the series it's a lot of casual sex, but it's important for the storyline and not just gratuitous sex.

Patricia Brigg's Mercy Thompson is a shapeshifter in a world filled with werewolves, vampires, and the fae. The series is so good that I forget that it's not really a vampire series.

A newer series that is both dark and funny is Jaye Wells' Sabina Kane series. Sabina is an assassin for the vampires, but she's not fully accepted because she is also half-mage. She's really not a likable character to begin with, but she grows on you.

And there's always Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series. The series starts off really strong, but then gets to be mostly about the sex.

The Sookie Stackhouse series is what got me started too. Or maybe it was Buffy. Anyway, I second recommending J.R.Ward's Black Dagger series. Great world building and characters you'll care about.

These aren't series but some of my favorite vamp books:

Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot. Very tough to find but well worth it. A seminal work of vampire fiction with a major twist at the end that had me wanting to read the book again.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley. I find this gets mixed reviews but it is one of my favorite books. It's dark, mysterious, and underlying sexual tension. Delicious reading.

Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin was a fun read. Definitely more horror than romance, but I didn't know what to expect around each turn.

Vamped by David Sosnowski is hysterical. Vampires have taken over the world and humans are now farmed for food. A vampire with mixed ethics finds a lone human girl, Isuzu Trooper, and hijinks ensue as he tries to protect her. First, he trains her to sleep during the day just like he does.

These books don't get the publicity that the series tend to, but they are well worth your time.

Above all others, Kim Harrison's "The Hollows series" (a/k/a the "Rachel Morgan series"), starting with with Dead Witch Walking and read them in order or you miss out seriously on back story. {EDIT: Oh, and subsequent titles are all take-offs of Clint Eastwood movies.}

It's an alternate universe in which, after The Turn, about 90% of the human population has been wiped out by the T4-Angel virus spread through a genetically mutated tomato, which has put humans and Inderlanders on a rough equality of population and allowed Inderlanders (witches, vamps, weres, fairies, pixies, gargoyles, and others) to come out. It's also given humans a horror of tomatoes, as a result of which pizza parlors are now run primarily by vamps.

The three central characters are Rachel Morgan (a heterosexual witch), Ivy Tamwood (a bisexual vampire), and Jenks (a happily married and philoprogenitive pixie), who are partners in a detective agency called Vampiric Charms. Get it? Vampiric = vampire and Charms = witch. Except someone at the phone company didn't and a screw up in the Yellow Pages listing means that Rachel sometimes gets calls from humans who think she's running a dating service for the vampirically oriented.

It's a combo of paranormal thriller and Buffy-ish camp, although the most recent book or two have started getting a little too serious and insufficiently campy for my own personal taste. Still, I get new issues as soon as they're released for Kindle even if the price is a little higher than the standard $9.99.

Excellent. Thanks! I've added many of these to my to-read list... I should be quite entertained this summer!

Kim Harrison gets my first vote too - just love all the ones I have read so far (haven't gotten to the latest yet, so still not too serious.).

Another series I like (from the first two books) are The Weather Warden series by Rachel Caine starting with Ill Wind - which remind me a lot of Rachel Morgan, though without vampires and werewolves, but still have that sassy, tongue-in-cheek, main protagonist in Joanne Baldwin.
I still have her other series, The Morganville Vampires, to try too.

Booklizard & I are totally on the same page - I would also add Immortal After Dark series by Kresley Cole - she has great books & her "hot" scenes are done very well!

7> scrpo1027, what about the Gardella Vampire Chronicles? I haven't read them yet, but I see you have.

booklizard> I really enjoyed that series! It is very Buffyesque if you like that it will be right up your alley :) I would consider Romance Light but good action & story line.

I have the Southern Vampire Series (Sookie) books but keep finding I push them back to read something else instead. Don't know why, maybe it's just because they are so popular right now, or maybe because I lost a lot of interest in the True Blood Series in Season two. I have heard that the TV series doesn't really follow the books.

The Black Dagger Brotherhood series is by far my favorite. Love it!
After talking about it so much I literally got 12 of my friends to read it. Only one thought it "ok", the rest loved it as much as I.

If you like BDB you should like The Dark-hunter Series by Sherrilyn Kenyon as well as the Dark (Carpathian) Series by Christine Feehan.

I've also read the Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series and also give it highs marks.

I just started the Otherworld Series by Kelley Armstrong (on the second book now) and I'm finding so far I really like it.

10> crysta_1973, the TV series uses most of the same characters, but the storyline is VERY different. Season 3 was SO much better than Season 2. The books are funnier and more mysterious than the show.