Vampires

There seems to be a sort of horrible fascination among the book buying public for vampires. I wonder why? I think it started with Stephanie Meyer's books - Twilight, Eclipse,Breaking Dawn etc. Since she published the first one in the series there seem to be nothing but vampires coming out of the woodwork. I've just checked the Amazon bestseller list and 4 out of the top 10 are Stephanie Meyer.

Then if you look at the top selling new and not yet published books there are several dark fantasy themed offerings. Looks to me as though everyone's gone over to the dark side. To be fair I haven't read any of Meyer's books but it seems as though people either love or hate them. Predictably some religions abhor them and there are parts of America where they're banned, but this happened with Harry Potter and other less famous works.

I wonder whether it's to do with the economic situation and reading for escape?