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Blake, known for “The Atlas” series, started out writing fan fiction, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that this standalone fantasy borrows elements from other stories, including dark academia, family dynasty sagas and coming-of-age journeys.

However, she was dropped from her own book series and replaced by new authors by publishers, but Smith continued releasing new instalments unofficially as fan fiction.

However, she went some way to reclaiming her creation when the Vampire Diaries was added to an Amazon Kindle scheme granting official permission for anyone to publish fan fiction linked to existing books.

Though Smith turned her focus to other work after the fallout with Alloy and HarperCollins, she ultimately picked up “Vampire Diaries” where she left off — writing the story her way through fan fiction.

“It might better be called fan fiction,” she says inside her office on the Prospect Studios lot in Los Feliz.