Richelle Mead

Richelle Mead is an American author best known for the Vampire Academy series, a young-adult urban fantasy saga following Rose Hathaway, a half-vampire guardian-in-training bound to protect her best friend, a vulnerable royal vampire princess, at an elite and secretive academy. Beginning with Vampire Academy in 2007, the series became a major YA bestseller and was adapted into a 2014 feature film and, later, into the Peacock television series Vampire Academy. Mead followed the original series with the spin-off Bloodlines sequence, following a secondary character, Sydney Sage, in a shift toward a more mystery-driven tone.

Beyond the Vampire Academy universe, Mead has written extensively for adult readers, including the urban fantasy Georgina Kincaid series (following a succubus in modern Seattle), the Dark Swan series, and the Age of X science-fiction/fantasy series, demonstrating range across the darker, more explicitly adult end of urban fantasy alongside her YA work. New readers should start with Vampire Academy itself, since Rose's world and relationships build continuously across the six-book original series before continuing into Bloodlines. Mead remains an active and prolific author across multiple ongoing series.