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God, it's exhausting being me.” So notes 17-year old Zoey Redbird in Hunted. Between boys, school work and the shifting allegiances in her social circle, life can be complicated.

Add to that an immortal sex god with a serious vendetta and a bloody civil war at her finishing school for vampires – “Hell High,” as it's known to outsiders, or the “House of Night” as it's known to vamp kids – and Zoey's life becomes even more exhausting.

• Hunted, by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, St. Martin's Griffin, 320 pages, $18.95

Twilight haters, don't pull away yet. The fifth book in mother-daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast's popular House of Night series handles some interesting material.

Admittedly, vampirism is an all-too-pervasive trope in teen narratives of late, the problem being that many authors don't go beyond the surface flash and glamour of young, hot, undead teens. However, the Cast team rises above bottom-of-the-heap vampire clichés by exploring teen sexuality with creative gusto.

Remember your first kiss, or the first time you fell in love? Chances are you were a teenager. Chances are you felt invincible, otherworldly even, as the surge of your new sexual power flooded your horizons and your body morphed overnight from kid to adult – not unlike, say, how the goddess Nyx marks Zoey with “gorgeous” tattoos that frame her face and unfurl down the new curves of her body.

I remember hitting 16 and discovering the strange world of sexual attraction. Those new feelings were magical, mythic even. They rose above the mundane indignities of math class or soccer practice, convincing myself and my friends, as Zoey notes of her circle of sex-charged, multicultural vampire pals, “all of our lives were in the process of never being the same.”

“ Hunted boasts Harlequin moments as intense as, if not more intense than, those in the Twilight books”

Sex drives and metamorphosis lead the charge in that department, and in these novels, there's a scientific explanation for what happens when vamps bite humans or other vamps. Sexy pleasure receptors in the brain of biter and bitee stimulate an unparalleled erotic romp, creating psychic bonds in some cases or inspiring (for teen participants) make-out-only three-way sessions in others.

“Hot,” Zoey or one of her friends might note in the many times they witness sexy vampire outbursts of desire and longing mixed with lunchtime. But that hormone-charged power comes at a price and can turn dark, greedy or possessive, as Zoey finds – in this novel and in others – with the cast of dreamy men and boys who vie for her attention.

Frisky teenaged vampires might not represent “new material,” but the Casts use those fertile themes to create strong, complex female characters negotiating the darkness and the light of sexual attraction, the biggest strength in this series.

Zoey has recently lost her virginity, although she regrets it and thinks she'll wait before she tries sex again. That doesn't mean she isn't strongly attracted “to more than one guy” – sexy undead archers, vampire guards or even her ex-boyfriend, the (merely human) quarterback.

The worst of her would-be suitors is Kalona, a fallen angel turned sex-addled predator who, in ancient times, was imprisoned in the earth by Cherokee women who grew tired of serving as his sex slaves. Now he's taken over the House of Night with his twisted “Raven Mockers,” a band of mutated raven-human hybrids.

When Zoe and her girlfriends lay eyes on the shining Kalona, who is perpetually shirtless, his night-black raven's wing's unfurling to frame his washboard stomach and rippling pecs, they fall instantly under his spell. He is, in Zoey's words, “mortal enough to touch but too beautiful to be anything but a god.”

Ring a bell, Twilight fans or haters? Think paranormal BF numero uno, Edward Cullen, resplendent in the sunlight with a diamond gleam that brings Bella Swan to her knees.

Hunted boasts Harlequin moments as intense as, if not more intense than, those in the Twilight books. Hello, Zoey might say, it sounds lame but it's true: Kalona is “an ancient immortal with eyes like the night sky and a voice like a forbidden secret.”

Shudder – by all means, shudder. But chances are, at one time in a person's life, this stuff could have resonated sweetly, and it still might, as even thousands of full-grown women have admitted to falling at the feet of the fictional Edward Cullen.

So what of bird-god Kalona and Zoey's battle to save vampire finishing school (and possibly the world)? Look for an action-packed climax where ancient Cherokee blessings meld with the prayers of Benedictine nuns and a vampire power-circle of the five elements.

Kalona relents, for now, but not before taking to the sky in rage-soaked sexual betrayal – book six reportedly publishes this fall.

There's definitely something deliciously resonant if not occasionally melodramatic here: the cosmic ka-boom of young desire.

Kelly McManus is a Vancouver journalist with a special interest in science fiction and fantasy literature, and, in particular, identity issues in young adult narratives.