Stephen King's vastly popular horror novels, with their plots of evil emerging from ordinary circumstances, seem a likely influence. Children of the Night is also somewhat reminiscent of Bradley's The Inheritor (1984), with a cosmopolitan city setting, a neopagan premise and a dark, romantic hero who may or may not need to be feared. The above type of hero, of course, is almost generic to the Gothic romance. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Anne Rice have developed the vampire even further as a sympathetic and tortured figure.

Adult novels with witches as heroes date back only a short time; Gardner's High Magic's Aid (1975) is an early example.

However, Lackey has combined these elements in an innovative way in Children of the Night. This book has helped to spark the small but growing new literary subgenres of the occult horror and the occult mystery novel. Other examples of the...