Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

Main character: High school student Schuyler and others
Location: New York
Time period: Contemporary
Genre: YA Fiction, Fantasy, Vampires
Series: Blue Bloods #1

Vampires are big in YA literature right now. The most popular series is Stephenie Meyers' Twilight series, though my personal favorite is Scott Westerfeld's Peeps and The Last Days (which postulates that vampirism is really caused by parasites--very gross and very cool!)

Thnk vampires crossed with Gossip Girl with some of the BBC series Hex thrown in for good measure. Blue Bloods is set in a world where vampires--or Blue Bloods, as they call themselves--are fallen angels who have split from Lucifer and are now doing good deeds to try and earn their way back to heaven. In order to avoid that pesky immortality problem where everyone around you ages and begins to notice that you don't, these vampires go into a hibernation cycle and are reincarnated through the generations.

Since this is the first book in a series, a lot of time is spent introducing the characters and setting the scene, but it's done well, keeping the plot moving forward and making me look forward to the next book. The characters begin as stock cliche high school characters--Mimi, the popular mean girl queen bee; Schuyler, the outcast oddball who under her unfashionable clothes in actually the most beautiful girl in school; Jack, the popular and gorgeous jock that Schuyler yearns for; Oliver, the stalwart best friend who is deeply in love with Schuyler though she only sees him as her friend; and Bliss, the new girl who is so grateful for Mimi's attention and support. I get the feeling that they will grow with the series (except maybe Mimi--she seems unredeemable so far.)