My own journey to the House of Night began with an email from my little sister, Margret. She explained that I should read—no, had to read—the novels by P.C. and Kristin Cast. While I appreciated her recommendation, I wasn’t exactly in the market for new titles to enjoy. My “to read” stack already was well out of hand.

Then Margret changed my mind with one simple sentence: “The books are set in Tulsa.”

The next thing I knew, I was reading the opening scene of the first book, in which a vampyre Tracker Marks Zoey Montgomery in the hall of her school and my alma mater, South Intermediate High School, in the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. I was hooked.

Of course, familiarity has its own charm. Like Zoey, I’ve shopped at Utica Square, trusted meteorologist Travis Meyer for the day’s weather forecast, and even taken a science class from Mr. Wise, and this helped me to feel an immediate identification with the young fledgling. As I’ve read the series, I’ve enjoyed many an inside joke that no doubt qualifies as a “Tulsa thing,” from the similarity between Aphrodite’s father, Mayor LaFont, and Tulsa’s former mayor, William “Bill” LaFortune, to the ever-present digs at Broken Arrow’s main rival, Union. (Go Tigers!) As someone who grew up in Tulsa but now lives many miles away, I’ve appreciated how the novels can be read together as one extended and creative love letter to my hometown.

But the Casts have accomplished far more than giving former and current Tulsans a collective, cozy feeling of home. Certainly a number of contemporary series—including other young  …