"The reality is that one way or another I'm going to die soon. And I'd rather die and wake up a vampire than die and not wake up at all."
— Poppy North
Secret Vampire is a young adult Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy novel by L. J. Smith. It's the first book in the Night World series and was published in June 1996. It was later reissued in the omnibus Night World 1, along with Daughters of Darkness and Spellbinder.
Poppy North is a carefree girl who is looking forward to summer vacation, when she plans to finally confess her true feelings for her childhood friend James Rasmussen. However, her life is turned upside down when she's diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Upon learning of Poppy's diagnosis, James reveals his lifelong secret: he's a vampire and part of a hidden society named the Night World. He offers to save Poppy by turning her into a vampire. It would mean giving up her old human life and her family, but she'd be alive for all intents and purposes, and James will be with her every step of the way. But as the Night World has strict laws around who can join them, Poppy may still not be out of danger.
Tropes found here include:
- Awful Truth: Poppy senses that James is keeping something from her about the Night World but decides to leave it be. Ash eventually tells her the truth point blank: James needed permission to turn Poppy into a vampire but he'd never get permission because he wanted to turn Poppy out of love, and one of the Night World's cardinals laws is that Night People are forbidden to have romantic relationships with humans. James turning Poppy illegally means she's regarded as a renegade vampire, and both of them could be executed by the Elders.
- Bittersweet Ending: Poppy beat cancer by becoming a vampire, she's accepted by the Night World because she's discovered to have been a lost witch, and she and James finally get together. However, in the process Poppy has lost her human life, which includes never being able to see her mother and stepfather again (who believe she died), and having limited contact with her brother. The book ends with Poppy telepathically talking to her mother while she sleeps and giving her a happy dream, telling her "I'm okay now, Mom. You don't have to worry about me anymore." before driving off into the night with her soulmate.
- Chekhov's Gun: When James is explaining to Poppy about the different kinds of Night People, he mentions that some witches become disconnected from the Night World and don't realize what they are. It's later revealed Poppy and her twin brother are actually lost witches on their dad's side, which in turn solves the issue of Poppy being a renegade vampire: witches are already Night People so it's legal to turn them.
- Chekhov's Gunman: James casually mentions early on that his cousin Ash is coming to visit soon and will be staying with him, which he clearly isn't looking forward to. After Poppy is diagnosed with cancer, James and the narrative is entirely preoccupied with James' efforts to turn Poppy into a vampire and he completely forgets about Ash...until he turns up at his apartment while the newly-turned Poppy is there home alone.
- Clashing Cousins: James and Ash are maternal cousins and don't get along. Ash is everything that James pretends to be: a cold, calculating womanizer who views humans as playthings. Ash in turn views James as a pathetic bore for his sympathy for humans and disapproval of his troublemaking. When James realizes Ash has tricked Poppy into leaving town with him and likely has malicious intentions, he's prepared to kill Ash if he brings his soulmate to harm.
- Curse That Cures: The plot revolves around James trying to turn Poppy into a vampire to save her life; if she successfully transforms it will effectively cure her terminal illness, but there's a chance she won't make it and James also didn't get permission to turn her, so she's an illegal vampire.
- Face Death with Despair: Poppy is absolutely terrified when she finds out she's got terminal cancer; she's only sixteen years old and naturally assumed she'd have her whole life ahead of her, she felt perfectly fine a few weeks ago and now she's only got about three months left to live. When James says he can save her by turning her into a vampire, she weighs up her options and quickly agrees, wanting to keep living even if she wouldn't be human anymore. She subsequently feels guilty when people praise her for being so brave and calm about her diagnosis, because she feels she's only able to cope with it because she knows she has a chance to be saved, and that she'd be a lot less calm if she didn't.
- Fate Worse than Death: James knows that some people who begin the transformation from human to vampire don't fully complete it and instead turn into ghouls, who are monstrous, zombie-like vampires with no trace of humanity left and little in the way of sapience, their old selves completely destroyed. He doesn't tell Poppy this because he doesn't want to frighten her but he does tell Phil in grisly detail, in order to get him to understand why he has to complete Poppy's transformation.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Ash takes Poppy to a mansion for a Night World Summer Solstice party, he points out a few guests to her, before finally pointing out the owner of the mansion, a made vampire named Thierry who was turned by Ash's ancestor thousands of years ago. Ash explains that Thierry is an Elder, one of the most powerful members of vampire society who is responsible for enforcing the law. Upon hearing this, Poppy takes one look at Ash and realizes he plans to expose her as a renegade vampire.
- Foreshadowing:
- When James goes to see his father about Poppy following her cancer diagnosis, his father cryptically brings up an earlier incident involving a human, asking if he's getting too attached again. James is clearly upset but lies through his teeth that it's not like that. James later reveals to Phil that he was once very attached to his human nanny, Miss Emma. His parents arranged her death to break this attachment and James attempted to save her by turning her into a vampire...but it didn't end well.
- There's quite a bit of foreshadowing that Poppy and Phil are lost witches.
- Both the North siblings tend to get "hunches" or just instinctively sense things, which is due to their latent psychic abilities.
- Poppy picks up telepathy and learns how to block her thoughts very quickly after becoming a vampire because she's already got natural mind-reading abilities.
- Poppy has a dream during which she's given a black poppy. It foreshadows that she was never really human in the first place, as black flowers are symbols of the Night World.
- Poppy and Phil's dad is mentioned as being a bit of weirdo who is into UFOs and the occult, and believes he has a sixth sense; he also says at Poppy's funeral he had a dream about her and believes it was her spirit visiting him, which unsettles Phil as he had a similar dream. It turns out that Mr North's supposed psychic abilities are actually real and he's likely drawn to the paranormal because he subconsciously feels a connection to it.
- Gassy Scare: Inverted; it's established in the first chapter that Poppy keeps having stomach pains and nausea, but she dismisses it as indigestion or something non-serious. When she gets a bout of pain so bad so nearly passes out, it becomes obvious it's something more and her mother insists she go to the doctor's for tests. Even then, Poppy still insists that it's probably something relatively easily treated like appendicitis. It turns out to be pancreatic cancer, which she's likely had for months, and the reason she's experiencing pain now is because it's at an advanced stage.
- Hope Spot:
- Upon realizing Poppy will die of her cancer, a desperate James goes to see his father to beg him for help. To James' shock, his father actually hears him out and says he can understand having compassion for humans. He tells James he's sure it will be fine to help Poppy as long as he's discreet and for a moment James believes his father is agreeing to his intention to turn her...only to realize they've both misinterpreted what the other is saying and James' father is actually talking about mercy killing Poppy so she won't suffer.
- James, with Phil's help, successfully turns Poppy into a vampire, smuggles her out of the cemetery and back to his apartment without too many mishaps, Poppy starts to accept her new status as a vampire, and she and James deduce they're soulmates. But then James' troublemaking cousin Ash shows up at the apartment while Poppy is home alone and quickly figures out she's illegally-made.
- Internal Reveal:
- The reader knows early on (or just by reading the blurb) that James and his parents are vampires, which he must keep secret from his classmates and his best friend Poppy as per the Night World's laws. He reveals his true nature to Poppy when he learns she's dying to offer her to turn her. Poppy initially thinks he's playing a sick joke until he shows her his Game Face. James later reveals he's a vampire to Phil as well, in order to clear up their misunderstanding and persuade him to help save Poppy. Poppy always thought there was something "different" about James and that this explains a lot. Phil feels the same, though more in the sense that he always felt James was "off".
- Poppy thinks that James is Oblivious to Love because he only sees her as his childhood friend and is more interested in sophisticated girls that look like super models. James only dates the other girls to feed from them without arousing suspicion, though he also insists to himself that he only views Poppy as a friend. It's very obvious to the reader that he's been in love with her for years.
- Minor Living Alone: James is seventeen and lives by himself in an apartment his parents own. Poppy thinks this is really cool because of the independence it gives him, although it becomes clear it's a symptom of the utter lack of closeness between James and his parents; they're happy to let him more-or-less fend for himself despite him being a high schooler, while he doesn't even want to be under the same roof as them. It does come in handy later, as it gives Poppy somewhere private to stay after she turns into a vampire.
- The Reveal: Poppy and Phil aren't fully human; they have witch ancestry and so qualify as lost witches. This is especially significant because it means Poppy was always technically a Night Person and so James turning her is completely legal.
- Second-Act Breakup: Poppy and James are closer than ever by the second act, with Poppy being confident in James' ability to transform her into a vampire. However, things unravel due to a misunderstanding between them and Poppy's brother Phil; after Phil catches James and Poppy exchanging blood and mistakes it for...something else, he tries to warn James to stay away from Poppy, knowing of his reputation as a player. To get Phil off his back, James lies that he's just trying to comfort Poppy and doesn't think of her in that way. Consequently, when Phil catches them again he tells Poppy that James is using her; due to being mentally unstable and confused from the transformation process, Poppy believes Phil and casts James out of her life. In addition to throwing a spanner in the lead couple's burgeoning romance, it endangers Poppy, as if she doesn't complete the transformation she'll die...or as James fears, will turn into a ghoul, a far worse fate.
- Shown Their Work: The depiction of pancreatic cancer is fairly realistic; Poppy's symptoms includes nausea, abdominal pain that radiates to her back and loss of appetite, and the doctors also mention that pancreatic cancer is rarely detected until it's at an advanced stage because symptoms often don't occur until the cancer has spread. The doctors further mention that it's highly unusual that Poppy – a sixteen year old girl – got this type of cancer, as it mostly occurs in older people. Sadly, the reported fact that very few people live long once pancreatic cancer gets to this stage is also Truth in Television.
- The Topic of Cancer: A major plot point is Poppy learning she's dying of pancreatic cancer, leading to James attempting to turn her into a vampire to save her.
- Trial Balloon Question: After James tells her she can get rid of her cancer by becoming a vampire but would have to fake her death and never contact her loved ones again, Poppy asks her mother what she would do if, 'hypothetically', she could travel far away to be cured but would never be allowed to return. Her mother says that while she'd miss her terribly, she'd let Poppy go wherever she needed to be saved "but there isn't such a place". Hearing this helps Poppy to make up her mind to accept James' offer.
- Viva Las Vegas!: Ash takes Poppy to Las Vegas (which is only several hours by car from her hometown in California) to avoid people learning she's a renegade vampire. However, while he tries to show her the sights she's not all that interested, as she'd rather be there with James. Ash suggests they go to a Night World Summer Solstice party whereupon it's revealed he actually plans to turn her over to the Elders.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Poppy finds out relatively early on that she has pancreatic cancer and it's inoperable. The doctors believe she will likely only have three months to live, tops, meaning she won't live past the summer she was so looking forward to.
