Elena Armas has been asked the question again and again over the years, but now it’’s finally happening. The romance author, who has mainly focused on contemporary romances over her career, is joining some of her friends in the jump to paranormal romance. But don’t think that this hasn’t been in the cards for a while. In fact, it’s been Elena’s plan all along as she finally plays in the genre that inspired her to become a write in the first place and gives us a new reason to fall in love with vampires like it’s 2005 all over again.
Cosmopolitan has an exclusive first look at Elena Armas’s Alma Vampires, which is set to be released on November 17, 2026. The novel brings us to a Icarus University as student Val must deal with the two new changes in her life: a game-changing inheritance and the vampire whose connection to her is more than just what she’s starting to feel in her heart. With secrets unraveling at every turn, Val must accept her new life and figure out the real truth behind it all before it’s too late. Here’s some more info from our friends at Berkley:
An unsuspecting heiress with a target on her back must enlist the protection of a vampire whose wealth and secrets rival her own, in a brand-new paranormal romance series from New York Times bestselling author Elena Armas.
Valle Cepeda’s life changes drastically over the course of a winter break, when she goes from being an Ivy League scholarship student one day to inheriting a fortune from the mother she’s never met by the next. The fate of Alma, a coveted fashion empire, is now in Val’s hands.
Hadrian Cruz presents himself as a calculating, self-serving player in the game of who takes over Alma, but that isn’t his true aim. A blood debt that chains him to a hundred-year-old wound is finally being collected, and it involves Val.
Furious at everyone who has tried to manipulate her, Val returns to Icarus University, only to see her world has changed shape dramatically, and Hadrian is now at the center of it. She doesn’t trust him, but there are things only Hadrian can provide: protection, and a way to satiate the longing she craves more than fears.
Plagued by nightmares, can Val decipher the secrets of her legacy? And can she accept that what she feels for Hadrian runs deeper than attraction? Answers always come at a cost, and these could shatter her heart…or bind her soul to the monster she desires the most.
Oh, and you can meet Val and Hadrian right now in the hot new cover that features them both in a warm embrace. And with a new genre comes a totally new look! You’re absolutely going to gasp when you see this cover below!
Cosmopolitan caught up with Elena and chatted about jumping into paranormal romance, relating to her brand new characters, and finding her love for writing again. You can read our convo below! Just make sure to pre-order Alma Vampires so you don’t miss it as soon as it drops!
How are you feeling after the announcement? It was a big surprise for people!
I think it was like a positive kind of nervousness and excitement. I have been asked this question a lot. Hey, are you ever going to pivot from contemporary romance? My answer has always been the same one: Yes. And if it happens, it’s going to be paranormal romance. So, I think, it was bound to happen. It was just a matter of when was it happening. I don’t know exactly the reason why I felt like this had to be my next book, but I felt this compulsion to finally bring it to life.
There’s been a recent trend of authors changing their names when jumping into a new genre. Why did you decide against that?
I never felt the need to do that. I am shamelessly changing gears. I’m not saying that anyone who does it is because they want to hide, or they want to separate it, or they feel like their audience are not going to read this new project that they’re working on. I’ve always felt this connection with my readers, that we are on the same page and that they would be as excited to read something like this from me as they would another contemporary romance. I never really felt the need to make up a different name, or try something different, or start from scratch.
It was also so hard to get where I’m where I’m at right now. Starting from scratch, it would be so tough for me. I felt like just switching things up with a cover and have people be excited about that change, instead of doing a new a new pen name.
The cover is very sexy and very different than what we’ve seen from you before. I mean, you have a very distinct kind of style now at this point that makes us go, That’s an Elena Armas cover.
I’m very lucky that my team at Berkley was following my lead. They let me really tell them what I wanted and how I envisioned this cover and I’m so grateful that they listened to me and followed me in this new journey to find this new look and this new vision. It definitely is a departure from my back list. It’s very different on purpose. I’ve been wanting to do something outrageously different for a while, and now that I was pivoting away from contemporary, I have the perfect chance. I sent such long emails with so many ideas. I was so lucky that the artist that I wanted to work with, Kai, was available and on board with this project. The way she plays with the lightning and the colors and the romanticism is just so cool. I couldn’t be happier with this cover. I completely screamed when I saw it. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is Mr. Darcy, but make him a vampire. I have this feeling that there’s going to be a lot of screaming on reveal day.
How has jumping into this genre changed how you interact with writing now?
I think it definitely has brought me into this new joy for words, which is something that it often get very underrated when you fall into this cycle of writing because it’s your job. Being on top of deadlines, and then tour, and then publishing, and then, Oh my god. What did people think about this? And how can I do better? When you fall into this cycle, it’s really hard to stop and it’s part of the reason why I pivoted.
I was feeling a little detached from this passion that now gets to be my job. Someone might say, You’ve been only on this for five years. But this has served as a way to find myself again, and it has definitely changed a little bit, like my outlook and how I look at the future. There’s more to it. I can really do anything as long as I love what I’m doing.
I hear that a lot from authors, especially due to the era that we currently live in where it feels like books come out so quickly or risk losing momentum.
Oh yes, absolutely. And it’s something I didn’t expect necessarily from my position, because I was so lucky to have my first book go viral. I jumped a lot of steps that other people take years to get to. I’m so grateful that oftentimes the pressure that I would put on myself…I would feel like, No, I have to do this. I need to take all these great things that are happening to me and keep grinding. But your brain also needs to breathe.
This is the first book in a series. What can you hint as to what we can expect on this journey?
We get to meet all the main characters from this three book series in book one. They are all there, but it’s for everyone else to guess who that’s going to be. Every book follows the same theme, which is this yearning to find a place where you belong and your own identity, whether that’s something that you’ve never had or that’s something that is changing because of external factors that are making your life change. I also wanted to do a little bit of what I did with my debut, The Spanish Love Deception, and bring the roots of the magic system to Spain, my home country. I took a lot of liberties, but we get to explore some of the beautiful folklore from Spain that perhaps is not that known.
A big pillar of this series is just my love for the paranormal genre. I first and foremost started reading paranormal books. These are the books that I fell in love with, that made me stay up until very late at night and then have horrible mornings because I didn’t sleep. I want to bring back that sort of feeling from the 2000s paranormal urban fantasy from all these shows that we’ve all binged and watched. Not even necessarily just the paranormal ones, like The Vampire Diaries, but also, like Gossip Girl. Those are all the things that I’m trying to bring into this series.
The other thing that is also changing with this pivot is that it’s also a college romance. It’s something that I was very excited to do.
It adds more stakes! There’s a coming-of-age story there as well and so many changes. There’s this extra level of intensity there.
It allows you, as a writer, to let your characters just like fuck up. They are young. You’re bound to screw up. You’re bound to make mistakes and they are going to teach you things that you’re going to bring with you into adulthood. There’s a beauty in exploring that as a writer.
Do you feel like you’ve also learned from seeing these characters grow?
Yes, I think so. I always leave little pieces of myself in my characters. Any author writes from experience. You just expand or amplify on that, but I’ve connected on some surprising ways with my female main character, which I’ve appreciated. It has surprised me that I would relate to a 22-year-old when I’m 35, but I guess some parts of ourselves just don’t change. They just mature.
We still have a ways to go before we get to read Alma Vampires for ourselves. So what is one movie, book, and TV show we should definitely check out before its release?
This is hard. This is the kind of question that my brain always goes blank with.
One TV show: I’m gonna say The Vampire Diaries. I’ve been a huge fan of that show, and you will see a lot of winks and fun things that I brought into this book.
One movie: It’s a departure, but the movie Saltburn. There’s some dark stuff there. Obviously, it’s not the same. I just want to tell whoever reads this, our protagonist is not like a secret murder, but there’s like some vibes there that align a little bit. This book is dark in a lot of ways.
And one book: I just need to be consistent with my brand and I need to go with Twilight. Everyone would call me out if I didn’t go with Twilight. That book changed me as a teen, and I love it. I love that series to pieces. I love the movies to pieces. And I love Stephenie Meyer for changing our world.
Alma Vampires, by Elena Armas will be released on November 17, 2026 from Berkley. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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