We've all been there. The stress of everyday life becomes overwhelming. The neighbors call to complain about the odor of the compost heap. Your entire department has to go on a team-building exercise at the Renaissance Faire, and you've got an allergy to burlap. The bills for the dog's laser eye surgery are marked FINAL NOTICE -- and you wish you hadn't told them to go ahead and cap his teeth, too.

It's days like this when want to settle down with a nice, soothing Vampire Hunter Romance novel or two. So you hit the bookstore on your way home from work, haul out the gift certificate you won at the office holiday party, and get set to reward yourself! But here's the catch: how to choose? Shelf after shelf of Vampire Romance and Vampire Hunter Romance beckons -- do you go with Laurell K. Hamilton? Karen E. Taylor? The Carpathian hereos of Christine Feehan? What about Maggie Shayne -- she's a comer! Susan Sizemore? Stop the madness -- you need some help!

And help you shall have. In the interest of providing the reading public with a quick and accurate reference, suitable for printing and clipping so that it can be carried in one's wallet and consulted at a moment's notice, I give you:

The 2003 Wombat File Field Guide to Vampire Hunter Romance Authors

Laurell K. Hamilton -- Hamilton is the uber-popular Janet Evanovich of the Nosferatu set. Her wisecracking heroine, Vampire Hunter Anita Blake, lives in a world where the Supreme Court protects the rights of the undead (and we're not just referring to Dick Cheney).

Yet, despite her totally original and unique fictional calling, Anita's biggest concern is negotiating the uncertainties of dating multiple hunks, all of whom happen to be supernatural creatures of one kind or another:

"If I didn't know you loved me, this would be easier," he said. "If it wasn't for that damned vampire, you'd marry me."
"That damned vampire introduced us," I said.

Hamilton's leading lady has a notable preference for the successful professional in her men: her competing boyfriends are a "master vampire" and an "alpha werewolf," just in case anyone thought she dated junior management.

Karen E. Taylor -- "If you'll remember, Mitch and I never had a chance because he couldn't accept my unusual night life. But now he's going to have to. Because the only way I can save Mitch is by converting him." Taylor's heroines are vampiresses, and opposites attract -- unlike mortal Anita Blake, who likes her trade roughly damned for all time, Taylor's bat-babes get hot for mortal men. Make no mistake -- just because her fifth book, The Vampire Vivienne, has a title that sounds like the made-for-cable version of any one of a bunch by a certain scribe in the Big Easy, and features an immortal heroine who was (surprise!) initiated into vamp-dom amid the periwigged decadence of Bourbon France, you needn't worry that you're going to get long, turgid, heavy-on-the-kink tales of deathless, omnisexual godlings. In Taylor's hands, the sentences are declarative, the vampires not prone to melancholic fits, and eternity is finished as quickly as a box of Snackwells.

Christine Feehan -- It's all about the Soul Mate: "He was the Dark Guardian of his people. So how, after centuries of bleak, soulless existence, had he suddenly come to crave petite, curvy, colorful lady cop Jaxon Montgomery, who foolishly made it her life’s work to protect others from harm?" Dude, if you think you are a man, you have not encountered one of Feehan's heroes. The Carpathian vampire-warrior-gaurdians-of-something-or-other are not just immortal scions of the darkness who burn with the grim fires of their terrible heritage. They are also MAJOR HOTTIES ON A BOOTY-MISSION. Hear me now: each Carpathian male must, repeat must, find his soul mate somewhere out there down the long centuries. These are men who are not afraid of commitment. Note: Feehanites are able to identify one another in the wild by means of special garments.

Susan Sizemore -- "Istvan was born a dhampire, having been the issue of a vampire father and a mortal mother..." See, in these books, the hook is that the vampires sort of have to police themselves and certain special vampires use their powers to do justice against evil vampires, even though this makes them outcasts, and plus there's a beautiful lady cop. It's a lot like the Rockford Files, only not very funny and no James Garner and there are vampires.

Maggie Shayne-- Vampires, vampires. Vampires in love. Whole-wheat vampires. Headphone vampires. Vampire shower cap happy vampire funny car toolbar vampire vampire vampire...