THIS year must surely go down in history as the year of the vampire – on our cinema and TV screens and on our book shelves.

"Absolutely," agrees Su Mwamba, of Waterstone's Derby. "Stephenie Meyer has helped create a whole new genre and in the young adult market there's a raft of new authors who have come out with books similar to Twilight.

"That has crossed over to adult fiction and the 'supernatural romance', as it's called, has grown so much that it now has its own bay in the shop. Before this year we used to keep supernatural romance within horror, but now these vampire and werewolf novels and the like have become their own paranormal romance section."

Mel Harris, also of Waterstone's, says: "Our fascination with vampires and ghoulish romance looks set to continue in 2010.

"In Grave Secret, Charlaine Harris tells the story of Harper Connelly, struck by lightning at 15, which leaves her with a unique talent for finding dead people."

Su agrees that the trend is here to stay, although there are predictions that angels will be the next big thing with the publication of Angelology by Danielle Trussoni in April.

This debut novel has been gaining a Da Vinci Code-style buzz and attracted a huge bidding war in 2009. It follows Trussoni's memoir, Falling Through The Earth, published in 2006.

Going out of fashion, however, are misery memoirs, says Su.

It's not just that during these difficult economic times readers are shying away from other people's tragedies – they seem to be avoiding glitz and glamour, too.

Celebrity memoirs were not as abundant this year says Caroline Sanderson, non-fiction specialist for The Bookseller.

"There is a real sense of celeb books not really delivering the goods," she says. "You can't really fool people – if the content is thin, they won't buy it."

Su adds: "I suppose it's the flip side of not wanting to read everyone else's misery – you don't want to read everyone else's tales of good fortune, either. We just want to escape."

Another fashion which may have been fuelled by the recession is the trend for home crafts.

"I would say we have sold a lot more craft books this year," confirms Su.

"It's predominantly based on people wanting to save money – you save money by staying in and making things and you save money when it comes to buying presents for people because you can make them instead. A lot of the craft books are based on recycling and on re-using things that you already have. It sounds like it could be quite tacky but a lot of the books have come up with really stylish alternatives."

As well as being motivated by finances, there are environmental reasons for this trend, too, adds Su.

"It's not just about the recession. Everyone is worried about the climate so eco-crafting is going to help. I think people are going to stick with the thrift and the eco-crafts in 2010."

If you're a Stephenie Meyer fan who enjoys crafts, then Su has a recommendation for you.

"There's a nice book called Anticraft, which features some quite Gothic crafts so that ties into the vampire theme quite nicely."