The People From the Sea by Velda Johnston

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

Diana Garson had liked the shabby old farmhouse from the moment she crossed its threshold.  The atmosphere seemed friendly and homelike, almost as if it were welcoming her.  David Conway, her friend and neighbor in Manhattan, had heard about the house and persuaded her to rent it for the summer.  Here, in this quiet place on the Long Island shore, she hoped to recover from the emotional blows that had brought her to the brink of a breakdown.   And for a while she did find a soothing peace.  But she also encountered the people from the sea.

Whether they were real in any sense of "real," Diana did not know.  Only one thing we certain:  the evil in which she became enmeshed because of them was very real, as real as the hands that wrapped themselves around her throat one fog-shrouded afternoon on the beach.

There are the moments when you need a certain type of book to get you out of a mood or reading pattern that developed without you knowing it.  Somehow, and I don't really mind it, I've found myself reading a lot of nonfiction lately.  After about the 4th one in a row, I needed something to refresh my palate.  Like most of you, I have hugs stacks of unread books just sitting around waiting for me to pick one of them up.  On a whim, I picked up The People Form the Sea, and a little over 4 hours later, I was turning the last page.

When Diana is talked into renting the seaside cottage, she thinks she's finally in a space she can heal in.  Newly divorced, Diana has been floundering a bit, not sure of what she wanted or where she was heading.  She thinks she is starting to fall for David, but is a little unsure of his intentions.  She is at a turning point in her life, she just has no clue which road to take.

From the moment she is left alone in the cottage, she feels at home and safe, a feeling she hasn't had in a long time.  As she settles in, she finds an old photo album, and quickly gets enmeshed in the lives of the family that used to own the cottage.  A mother and her two grown children, were brutally murdered on board their yacht.  The scars of that tragedy lay deep on the small coastal town, scars that Diana feels she needs to start poling at.

She has seen all three of them in the cottage.  She has danced with the son, and listened as the daughter played the piano late into the night.  She isn't sure if what she is seeing is real, but it's changing her, and not always for the better.  What starts off as a question here and there around town, quickly turns into a full blown investigation into what happened on the boat.  It's a search that will threaten Diana's life, her future with David, and the tranquility of a town she has grown to love.

Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling by Michael Boccacino (Giveaway Too!)

Synopsis From Back Cover:

When the nanny to the young Darrow boys is found mysteriously murdered on the outskirts of the village of Blackfield, Charlotte Markham, the recently hired governess, steps in to take over their care.  During an outing in the forest, they find themselves crossing over into The Ending, "the place for the Things Above Death," where Lily Darrow, the late mother of the children, has been waiting.  She invites them into the House of Darkling, a wondrous place filled with enchantment, mystery, and strange creatures that appear to be, but are not quite, human.

However, everything comes with a price, and as Charlotte begins to understand the unspeakable bargain Mrs. Darrow has made for a second chance at motherhood, she uncovers a connection to the sinister occurrences in Blackfield and enters into a deadly game with the  master of Darkling - one whose outcome will determine the fate of not just the Darrows but the world itself.

I have never thought about reading a slightly lighter Lovecraftian tale told within the confines of a Victorian  Gothic novel.  It's not something that I even considered before, but now that I've read it, I'm slightly confused as to the reason why nobody thought of doing this before.  Now when I say Victorian and Gothic, I'm still speaking of terms of being slightly lighter.  None of the thematic elements really dominate the structure of the novel.  Instead it's like the author used them as the basic outline of the structure, then filled those lines in with something else.  What that something else is, I'm still not sure I have a word for it.

Now despite my apparent confusion, I'm here to tell you that I actually really enjoyed this one.  Sadly, I can't really tell you the reason though.  There are sometimes, no matter how much you think about or analyze something, you can't really explain your reaction to it.  I know I liked it.  I know I enjoyed getting to know The Ending and those that dwelled inside.  I know I loved the way those denizens were structured after some of Lovecraft's well know Elder Beings.  I even liked the civil war the author forced them to fight.  I never thought of the Elder Beings as being political or of having schisms amongst themselves.  I also thought of them as monstrous beings bent on ending the world as we know it.  The author took the world of Lovecraft and made it more human, something I didn't think I would like until I read it.

I think the only thing that would have made this book stronger, at least for me, is that I would have liked to see the "romantic" elements be a bit stronger.  I guess I can't really enjoy a good Gothic novel without there being a strong romantic element.  The main "romance" was between Charlotte and Mr. Darrow.  It was never a relationship I ever bought into or liked, and it always felt as if it existed in her head more than anything else.  It was a bit too forced for my taste, and because of the direction the book took, it was doomed before it left the ground.  Similarly the minor romantic liaisons never felt all that explored and the one I liked the most was barely touched upon.  One one of their trips to Darkling, the oldest Darrow boy is introduced to a young man who belongs to a race of creatures that inhabit the world.  The particular family takes a human visage, and the two hit it off.  It's obvious from the get go that there is something between them from the start.  Of all the relationships, it was the only one that developed a real sense of affection, though it was only shown a few times towards the end.

I was going to ramble on about the causes behind the civil war, the landscape that Mr. Darrow and Charlotte traveled through on their last foray into the world, and the way Death is introduced; but I won't.  All these elements are interconnected and I think it best that a reader discover them on their own.  I was even going to touch upon the idea of a parent striking the deal that Lily Darrow made in order to see her children once again.  But her character and her motivations are, once again, best left to the reader to explore themselves.  What I will say is that whether you end up enjoying the book or not, Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling will be more than worth the time.

Now onto the giveaway.  One lucky reader will win the book for themselves, though that reader must reside in the United States or Canada.  All you need to do is leave a comment letting me in on a secret.  I want to know about a book that you liked, but can't really explain why.  You also need to leave an email address so I can contact you if you are the winner.  The giveaway will run until 11:59 pm CST on Monday, August 13th.

The Girl Below by Bianca Zander

Synopsis From Back Cover: 

Suki Piper is a stranger to her hometown.  After ten years in New Zealand, she has returned to London only to find herself more alone than ever before.  But a chance visit with Peggy, an old family friend who still lives in the building in which Suki grew up, leads Suki to believe she has discovered a way to reconnect with the life she left ten years before.  As she becomes more and more involved with Peggy's family, Suki finds that she is mysteriously slipping back in time to one night, a party her parents threw in their garden, and an incident that took place in a long-unused air raid shelter there.  

I'm feeling a bit like Typhoid Mary right about now.  Not the historical version, more like the Marvel supervillain.  My mind has fragmented into a few different reactions regarding this book, and I'm not sure what I'm actually going to be able to say about it.  I need to find a way to separate the way I felt about the writing and the way I felt about the story itself.  Really not sure if that's even possible, but I'm going to try.

I think I'm going to start off with the writing, or the Mary side of my conflict.  For the most part, I enjoyed the way the author used language in the crafting of her story.  There are not a lot of authors who are able to manipulate language in such a way that I can find myself falling in love with a book, despite myself.  She created, through her words, a world that held me captivated and confused.  I can't say that style got in the way of substance, I actually think the style is the only thing that saved the substance, but I'm not sure it allowed the story to really go anywhere either.

Which takes us into the Typhoid territory of my conflicted brain.  I don't normally mind jumbled narratives that have a reader trying to figure out what's what and why things are happening.  I actually tend to enjoy books that allow me to fill in the gaps and do some critical thinking on my own.  What I don't like are jumbled narratives that uses so much misdirection and blind alleys that even the basic information needed to fill in those gaps, may not be there.  I'm pretty sure I know where the author was wanting the reader to go, but I'm also pretty sure that's not where I went.

And that leaves the Bloody Mary side to explore a bit.  If any of you don't already know, I'm a huge mystery fan.  What that means regarding this book, who the freak knows.  I'm still trying to figure out where the mystery aspect comes in.  I know that while it wasn't a strict mystery, there were so many elements that were picked up, examined, and then tossed away that I'm still a bit confused by the whole thing.  The many hints and clues given to explain Suki's behavior as an adult, just never panned out for me.  She is floundering in her life, and supposedly the answers can be found in a troubled childhood.  If that's the case, she needs to get the hell over it.

From the impression I'm left with, she refuses to grow up because her father left and her mother died from cancer.  You know what, a lot of us lose one or both parents and a young age and we don't act like a 12 year old when we are almost 30.  Now if what was hinted at in the book actually happened to her, then I may be able to give her the benefit of the doubt.  I can't even count the many glaring hints of sexual abuse, whether at the hands of her father, two male friends that where at the party that night, a creepy neighbor, or some stranger that never showed his face; were just thrown out there.  Disembodied hands that would undo dress bows being the most obvious.  The problem, it never went anywhere.  I can't tell you what happened in that bunker, other than a girl losing her balance and knocking out some teeth.  But from what I can tell, the sexual abuse didn't happen.  So what I really don't get, is why all the hints.  What was the point of building it up, then never going in that direction.

To be honest with you, I don't know what happened to her as a kid, and I don't care.  I don't even care if she was actually time traveling, or if it was all some sort of walking memory.  I don't care about any of it.  This is one case where the author's adapt use of language, which she obviously has, could not save the book.  For all I care, Suki can move into that bunker and mope for the rest of her life.  I don't think she will, because from what I can tell she finally got over the "trauma".  I just wish I knew what the trauma was.  On second thought, no I don't.  I just don't care enough.

For those of you who are interested, the author visited the Mystery forum at the Barnes & Noble website, the conversation can be found here.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read/review the book.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

Challenges: A-Z

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

Synopsis From Dust Jacket:

One late spring evening in 1912, in the kitchen at Sterne, preparations begin for an elegant supper party in honor of Emerald Torrington's twentieth birthday.  But only a few miles away, a dreadful accident propels a crowd of mysterious and not altogether savory survivors to seek shelter at the ramshackle manor - and the household is thrown into confusion and mischief.

The cook toils over mock turtle soup and chocolate cake covered with green sugar roses, which the hungry band of visitors is not invited to taste.  But nothing, it seems, will go according to plan.  As the passengers wearily search for rest, the house undergoes a strange transformation.  One of their number (who is definitely not a gentleman) makes it his business to join the birthday revels.

Evening turns to stormy night, and a most unpleasant parlor game threatens to blow respectability to smithereens:  Smudge Torrington, the wayward youngest daughter of the house, decides that this is the perfect moment for her Great Undertaking.

You know that moment when you go home for the first time after you left.  You may have been away at college for the semester and this is the first opportunity you've had to get back home.  You just know that your mom is going to make your favorite dinner your first night back.  She even told you she was going to do it.  Then you sit down and instead of having her lasagna, it's potato dumplings.  You love them both, but you had been looking forward to the lasagna the entire trip home.  You really can't say your disappointed, but you had to readjust your thinking in about 10 seconds.  That feeling, is the exact same way I felt about this book.

For some reason, after reading the synopsis for the first time, I was expecting something more akin to a mystery novel.  What I got instead is something I can't for the life of me really explain in a way that makes sense to me, let alone anyone else.  I can't say it's a mystery, though there may be slight elements involved.  I think it's more of a cross between a comedy of errors, societal satire, family drama, and urban fantasy (if urban fantasy was regularly set in 1912 England.)  It's this strange, metaphysical dream like book that I absolutely adored.

I really don't think there is one aspect of The Uninvited Guests that I didn't love.  From the characters to the setting, I fell in love within the first 6 pages.  Then Sadie Jones' brilliance as a writer kept that streak of love going until the last page was turned.  She was able to bring to life the complicated, messy night this family is going to have to face.  By the end of the night, they will be different.  They will have faced a past full of secrets and deceptions.  They will have survived a complete transformation of what is socially acceptable.  They will have weathered a vengeful visitor, ravenous hordes, horse manure, and by the end will rediscover what makes them a family.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book.  Please visit the tour page to read other opinions.

From Hell With Love by Simon R. Green

Synopsis From Back Cover:

It's no walk in the bloody park, being a Drood - one of the family who has protected ordinary humanity from the things that go bump in the night for centuries.  We're no much liked - even by on another.  Now our Matriarch is dead.  Murdered.  Maybe by one of us.  Maybe not.  It's been left up to me, Eddie Drood, to figure out whodunit.

That's not going to be easy.  You see, opinion is divided evenly between two camps of thought:  those who think the killer was Molly, my best girl, and those who think the killer was actually me.  And I know for a fact that I didn't do it.

I'm not a huge urban fantasy fan by any stretch of the imagination.  I think I name on one had the number of series that I actually enjoy in the genre. Thankfully, for me, one of those is The Secret Histories series by Simon R. Green.  It has to be one of the funnest and exhilarating series I've ever had the privilege to come across.

In the fourth book, From Hell With Love, Eddie is given a monumental task.  Find out how the Matriarch was killed in her bedroom and what caused so many of the family to turn into bloodthirsty "zombies" intent on killing Molly, The Wild Witch of the Wood, and Eddie's girlfriend.  Eddie is quickly thrown for a loop and is forced to deal with the idea of having a traitor within the family.  Of course since half of them thinks he did it, that won't be an easy investigation to undertake.

Are one of the various nefarious criminal organizations behind the bloodshed?  Could it be the fairies or elves bent on revenge?  It's it the petty scientist bent on world domination?  Or is it something even worse, a cancer spreading through the ancient family itself.  Is there someone in the manor who is bent on destroying the family? Of course it could be the mythological AntiDroods.  Is that family who's only major goal is to kill every Drood on the planet real, or do the belong in myth?

The mystery takes Eddie around the world, from Hollywood to the snowy ends of the Earth, he is forced to hunt down the person(s) responsible the death of his grandmother, the Matriarch.  It's a sarcastic, tongue in cheek romp that mixes all the best of James Bond and urban fantasy.

Other Books In The Series:

The Man With the Golden Torc
Daemons Are Forever
The Spy Who Haunted Me

Favorite Fictional Character --- Scooby-Doo

There is just something about dogs that make me happy.  They are way better than cats (and no I won't apologize for that statement.)  Dogs can be your best friend, counselor, bodyguard, running buddy, wing man, and plate cleaner.  The learn your moods and know exactly what you need, sometimes before you do.  I think that's why I've always been drawn to dogs in fiction, especially when they are almost human in behavior.  They are the dogs that fill your imagination as a kid, and what kid didn't love Scooby-Doo.

Now in the above paragraph I mentioned one of the benefits of having a dog is that you have a built in bodyguard, well if it's Scooby, you can forget that part.  This great dane is not your average dog filled with courage and guts.  If you need him to do more that bark a few times, you better have a box of Scooby-Snacks on hand in order to bribe the help out of him.  Of course the fact that he hangs out with a human, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, that is about as cowardly as him doesn't help matters.

Come to think of it, I never understood why Fred, Daphne, and Velma ever brought the other two along with them.  I get solving mysteries came be dangerous, and that there is probably safety in numbers, but are two cowards going to make all that much difference.  Of course, it should be pointed out that is was normally Scooby who ended up catching the bad guy, even if it was normally by accident.  I will also have to admit that if were them, I would have felt safer with a dog by my side as well.  Even a dog who hides, eats way too much junk food, and seems to be on mind altering substances more often than not is better than no dog.

Then they had to bring Scrappy into the mix and Scooby was forced to make a few changes.  He had to get a little tougher and braver, how could he be upstaged by the little whippersnapper that was Scrappy.  The toughness of Scrappy forced Scooby to step it up a bit and he did for the most part.  He still had his moments, but he was a braver guy for the most part.  We won't even go into how he changed when Flim Flam and Vincent Van Ghoul took him, Shaggy, and Daphne on a real ghost hunt.  But I will say that despite everything, Scooby remained a dynamic character that never failed to entertain.

Raising Stony Mayhall by Daryl Gregory

Synopsis From Back Cover:

In 1968, after the first zombie outbreak, Wanda Mayhall and her three young daughters discover the body of a teenage mother during a snowstorm.  Wrapped in the woman's arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse.  But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda - and he begins to move.

The family hides the child - whom they name Stony - rather than turn him over to the authorities that would destroy him.  Against all scientific reason, the undead boy begins to grow.  For years his adoptive mother and sisters manage to keep his existence a secret - until one terrifying night when Stony is forced to run and he learns he is not the only living dead boy left in the world.

If I were to list my five favorite authors of all time I have a sneaky suspicion that Daryl Gregory would make that list.  He has, so far, only 3 books to his name, but every single one of them blows me away.  He has a knack for combing his limitless imagination with American pop culture in such a way that sometimes it's a little hard to tell where that boundary lies.  Like his previous books, Pandemonium and The Devil's Alphabet, that manipulation is on display for all to revel in it's glory.

I'm going to be honest, I'm about as burnt out on zombies as I was on vampires.  They are great for a while, but there is only so much that can be done with them.  In Raising Stony Mayhall, I felt as if I discovered zombies for the very first time. Imagine something for a minute.  What would society be like if George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead was a documentary instead of a horror movie.  What if instead of a crashed, contaminated satellite causing the outbreak, there was something the government didn't want you to know.  What if they knew the early stages of of the infection resemble those the documentary filmmaker captured, but the later stages resemble something more akin to the life we are all familiar with.  What if those who survived the government's response to the initial outbreak have bee living in hiding, waiting for the day they can fight back.

This is the world that Stony Mayhall had to grow up in.  A young man, who really wasn't alive but his body still grew despite its deadness.  He is forced to remain in hiding, thinking that he was the only one, a freak of nature.  He is well loved by his mother and three sisters.  And they have even befriended a neighboring family who for whatever reason agree to keep their secrets.  When Stony's life is tore away from him one night, a night of mistakes built on top of mistakes, he is forced into the great outer world.  What he discovers is a that he isn't alone, that there are other living dead people out there.

But even in this world, Stony is still alone.  He is the only one to have "grown up" the rest are stuck the way they were when they became infected.  Stony is advised to not divulge the secret, lest he be pressed into service by those who need their own Messiah.  The living dead are not sitting idly by while the government slaughters them.  They are starting to unite, though not all of them are on the same page.  Some wan to initiate a plan that will wipe out the entire human race and replace them with more of their own.  Others want to recruit those who willingly joint their ranks.  Regardless of their approach, they all are scared of one thing though, extinction.  They are threatened when a species is threatened with annihilation, they get dangerous.

It's within these political waters that Stony must learn how to swim, a lesson he learns over a period of many years.  A period of time where is mother is jailed for hiding him, he himself is captured and studies, he loses one maybe two of his sisters.  It's not a period that ends well for anyone involved.  There is no happy ending for Stony, though there is some closure for him.  His final decisions all lead up to an event that will change the course of human and undead life.

Graveminder by Melissa Marr

Synopsis From Back Cover: 

Rebekkah Barrow never forgot the tender attention her grandmother, Maylene, bestowed upon the dead of Claysville.  While growing up, Rebekkah watches as Maylene performed the same unusual ritual at every funeral:  three sips from a small silver flask followed by the words, "Sleep well, and stay where I put you."

Now Maylene is gone and Bek must return to the hometown - and the man - she abandoned a decade ago, only to discover that Maylene's death was not natural.. and there was good reason for her odd traditions.  In Claysville, the worlds of the living and the dead are dangerously connected - and beneath the town lies a shadowy, lawless land ruled by the enigmatic Charles, aka Mr. D.  From this dark place the deceased will return if their grave are not properly minded.  And only the Graveminder, a Barrow woman, and the current Undertaker, Byron, can set things to right once the dead begin to walk...

It's not often that I find a paranormal romance/contemporary fantasy novel that I'm flat out in love with.  After reading what seemed like an endless stream of reviews praising this book, I thought out loud, "Hey, maybe this could be the one."  So I would look at it every time I went into a bookstore, but for whatever reason, I just never took it home with me.  Well when I was given an opportunity to read/review it, I took it as a sign that this one could just do it for me.

When I got the book in the mail, and saw the new cover, I started to have my doubts. Where the old cover was a little creepy, the new one looked like every other book out there.  I would have a hard time picking this out on a table of other new YA or paranormal books.  Needless to say, my excitement level dropped a little.  I still knew that I needed to crack the book open and at least start it before I started to judge the book by it's cover.

Once I began my journey into Claysville and the secrets the town held onto so tightly, I never really wanted to leave, but I was constantly looking for a better reason to stay.  What I loved was the world that Melissa Marr created for her characters to inhabit and explore.  Claysville resembles most small towns, but has some rather peculiar customs.  Everyone who has ever been born within the town limits, must be buried there when the die.  It's written into the town charter and everyone involves just accepts it like it's no big deal.  If someone who moved away from town is to die, even in another country, the current Undertakes must collect the body and bring it back to town for burial.

The strangeness doesn't stop there.  Every funeral is attended by a woman who stays behind and performs her own private ceremony.  Again, not something anyone else in town really think about as anything other than normal.  People take it for granted that there is no real crime, poverty, or other problems the outside world has to deal with.  There is a rather creepy sense of complacency in the air, one that is mandated by a contract with someone the town founders made a deal with.

All of this is to protect the town, but the price they paid was a little more that I think most people would be willing to bare.  The dead don't stay dead within Claysville and it's up to the Graveminder and Undertaker to make sure they don't come back and bother the living.

Like I said, the world the author created is brilliant.  I love Claysville and I love the city of the dead that lays beneath their feet even more.  What I didn't love so much were the characters.  Actually, let me rephrase that.  I didn't really care for one character all that much, Rebekkah.

I like all the secondary characters and am flat out in love with Byron.  I just wish Rebekkah had been a bit less annoying about her feelings for Byron.  I get she has issues with her feelings for him over what her sister did, but come on already.  Get the hell over it and grow the blank up.  This is where the book reminded me of a YA novel, there was just too much angst for my taste.

Thankfully, once my travels through Claysville were over, I still didn't want to leave.  Rebekkah had grown up a bit, though I still didn't know that I would want to hang out with her all that much.  But since I had to leave I did, and I'm actually looking forward to the next time Claysville and it's dead call out my name.

I would like to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book.  Please visit the tour page to read other reviews.

Monsters of L.A. by Lisa Morton

Part Of The Synopsis From Back Cover: 

Frankenstein, Dracula, Mr. Hyde, the Phantom, the Hunchback... they're all here, the ones you grew up watching on the silver screen.  But these monsters aren't lumbering across a for-shrouded moor or clambering along the ramparts of a Gothic castle; no, they're here, in sunny modern-day Southern California, in place you know and may have visited.  That homeless vet with the rebuilt leg longing before the liquor store in Santa Monica - could that be Frankenstein's monster?  The eerie host making promised at the end of an Orange Country amusement park ride - is he really the Devil?  Some of these monsters you might recognize instantly - it's hard to disguise a Giant Monster, after all - but you'll never know what to expect in these stories that range from black humor to the farthest extremes of extreme fiction.

I've been on a huge short story kick this year, hopefully it will be a trend that continues into the next as well.  When I agreed to review this book, I wasn't sure what I had to look forward too.  Part of me was thinking that it would simply take the monsters I'm already familiar with and put them into L.A.  I really wasn't expecting what I got, though after reading the book, I'm doubly glad for it.

What Lisa Morton managed to do was way beyond what I thought this book would be about.  She was able to breathe new life into twenty staples of horror Hollywood.  Some of them are given new life by reinterpreting their original story.  Others are given the typical Hollywood treatment, but put into a situation that is new and fresh.  If you were reading her version of "The Phantom", you wouldn't recognize the character, but you would the basic concept behind it.  "The Haunted House" gives new meaning to the entire concept of what it means for a house to be haunted.  By the way, I want to move into that particular house.  "The Creature" is simply what it is, taken out of the Black Lagoon and inserted into the La Brea Tar Pits.  It's short and sweet and reminds me of the best moments in those old black and white movies.  "The Killer Clown" scared the hell out of me, of course it doesn't hurt that I'm petrified of the damn things.  The longest story, which is also my favorite, "The Urban Legend" was simply brilliant.  It took the legend of a race of lizard people living beneath the city and brought it to life through character and story.  It was a brilliant example of this authors work, work that I would love to read more of at some point in time.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Micki Foster

I guess I'm still in a spooky sort of mood and I was thinking about some of my favorite paranormal TV shows, which of course lead me to some of my favorite characters from those shows.  Well today's character is that of Micki Foster who for three seasons tried to recover cursed antiques on the show Friday The 13th: The Series.

When Micki inherited her late uncle's antique shop, little did she know that she was about to put her life in danger for the next three years.  When Micki, along with her cousin Ryan, first inherit the shop, all Micki can see is dollar signs.  She's not exactly the strong, independent, kick ass woman that she becomes later on in the series.  She eventually talks Ryan into reopening the shop and selling off the contents.  Little did they know that the former owner, their uncle, had made a deal with the devil to sell cursed objects. Objects that granted their owners certain powers for the exchange of human lives.

When Micki and Ryan learn what their uncle did and their role in making the problem worse, Micki realizes that they need to do everything they can to recover the objects.  Over the next three years Micki grows into a woman that is still at the core fragile but has a tough outer skin that allows her to deal with the horrors that she sees everyday.  She had to deal with losses along the way, Ryan being turned into a kid with no way back and ever her own death, but through it all she came out the other side a stronger more confident person.

I really wish this show would have lasted longer than it did, but I'm grateful for the three seasons they allowed Micki to become a character that I would not only like to be friends with but one I know would have my back regardless of the circumstances.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Roderick "Rick" Fitzgerald

I am going to try my hardest to keep this post about the character, not the movie he's in.  That's going to be really hard for me because The Uninvited is by far, my favorite ghost movie of all time.  The movie is brilliant and still sends chills up my spine every time I watch it, despite it being made in 1944.  The cast is brilliant, the cinematography is award worthy, and the story itself is superb.  So I'm going to try and separate Ray Miland's character, Rick Fitzgerald, from the rest of the movie.

Rick Fitzgerald is a London based composer, but makes his living as a music critic.  On vacation, with his sister, they fall in love with Windward House.  I don't blame them really, it's a lovely old house sitting on a bluff overlooking the sea.  The decide the best thing to do is buy the house, move to the country, and start life all over again.  Rick hopes it will give him a fresh start on his music.

Once they are settled in, they meet the granddaughter of the man who sold them the house.  Through her, they learn of the home's tragic past and her connection to the home.  Rick and the young woman, quickly form an attachment, one that you could easily see going towards the romantic side.  Their relationship is the first real glimpse into Rick as a human being.  He's a gentleman through and through, the kind the we all dream about meeting ourselves one day.

He's driven, but easily distracted.  He's considerate, but once he has his mind on something, he will do what needs to be done.  He plays the gallant well, when the young lady gets into trouble, Rick rides off like a White Knight.  He handles the paranormal with a bit of skepticism at first, but allows himself to belief once he has no choice.

I think that it helps he was played by Ray Miland, who was such a gorgeous man.  He had a air of distinction around him that highlighted all the best traits of the character.  If any of you have not seen the movie, please do so.  Discover for yourself what a truly scary ghost story should be like.  Hopefully you will enjoy Rick and the rest of the characters as much as I do.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Eleanor Lance

I'm a sucker for a good ghost story, it's even better when it's on film.  I can sit on the couch, turn off all the lights, maybe eat a bit of popcorn, and get lost in the fear that, hopefully, oozes off the screen.  So for the rest of the month I will be highlighting some of my characters that have graced some of  the best ghost stories of all time.  This will I will be introducing Eleanor Lance, playing by the wonderful Julie Harris, in the 1963 version of The Haunting.

Eleanor Lance, "Nell" to some, has not had the easiest life.  As her sister left the home to start her own family, Nell was left behind to care for the tyrannical, ailing mother.  Needless to say it was the ideal situation for a young woman.  As a result she has turned into a rather mousy woman who is unsure of her place in the world.  Other than some psychic phenomenon early in life, nothing exciting has ever happened to bring Nell out of her funk.  When her mother finally dies, Nell is forced to move in with her sister's family.  She rents out the living room couch and shares half the car.  Nell was afraid that her life would remain the same for the rest of her life, it may have been better if it had.

When Nell receives her letter from Dr. Markway, she feels as if that "thing" she has been waiting for has finally arrived.  When her sister won't let her take the car, Nell steals it and goes anyway.  The entire time she is driving to Hill House, Nell is psyching herself up about the life she is about to lead, she imagines her life once she leaves the house, how this is the turning point in her life.

Once at the home, surrounded by those who will be joining her in the house.  Nell seems to split between two people.  One is confident in her role in the house, the fact that she belongs there doesn't seem to leave her mind.  The other is still that scared timid Nell who was dominated by her mother.  It's fascinating to watch that struggle happening inside of Nell's mind as the house seems to take a life of it's own and the strange events start to happen. 

Some may decided Nell is schizophrenic or, at best, slightly disturbed.  It would be fairly easy to just throw that out there and let that color the her as a character.  I think there was more to it though, I think that enough of her was fully aware of what was happening around her and what was going to happen to her.  I think, that despite the fears such a fate would create, it was the first time she felt she truly belonged to something.  By the end, you know she is scared to death but determined to see the thing through till the end.

I would love to say that she had her happy ending, but if you have ever red the book, seen this movie, or even it's horrible remake, you know she doesn't have that.  What I do think, after many viewing and many readings, is she has the end that she wanted.  She can finally say she's at peace and in the only home her heart ever desired.

She is a wonderfully complex and emotional character that just allows the viewer/reader to be drawn into her life.  There are differences between the movie and the book it was based off of, The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, but both versions offer up such a gloriously rendered, three dimensional character that it's hard to notice those differences.  Both are great, both should be devoured by those who are not familiar with them.

Here is the trailer to the 1963 version of the movie.  One of these days I will do full reviews of both this movie and the book, but this trailer will have to do for now.

The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Synopsis From Back Cover:

The vampiric virus is spreading and soon will envelop the globe.  Amid the chaos, Eph Goodweather - head of the Centers for Disease Control's team - leads a band out to stop these bloodthirsty monsters.  But it may be too late.

Ignited by the Master's horrific plan, a war has erupted between Old and New World vampires.  Caught between these warring forces, powerless and vulnerable, humans find themselves no longer the consumers by the consumed.  At the center of the conflict lies an ancient text that contains the vampires' entire history... and their darkest secrets.  Whoever finds the book can control the outcome of the war and ultimately, the fate of us all.

Before I sat down to write this review, I went back and read the one I did for The Strain.  I realized, after reading it, that I didn't love this one as much as the first book.  I still loved how evil and inhuman the vampires were, but I just didn't feel that same sense of giddiness that I did the first time out of the gate.

The good news is that I think I know what the problem was, and I think it will be fixed in the last book of the trilogy.  Like a lot of middle books, this one got bogged down in too much back story and plot devices.  Everything in The Fall is designed to take us into the third book, which I think will be nonstop, pounding action.  I know all the back story is needed to set up what's to take place later on, it's just always hard to get through it all.

I'm not saying this book didn't have a lot going for it, because it did.  I loved the character development and the arc some of them are taking in their lives.  Their decisions are starting to have real life consequences, some of which I didn't see coming.  The action is extreme and a lot more violent than in the first installment.  I think that has a lot to do with the fact the vampires are actually starting to seem like vampires to me.  I'm no longer annoyed with the fact that they seemed to be more like a generic 28 Days Later kind of monster, they are starting to have fangs now.  I just wish The Master would take care of the Cullens for me.

I'm looking forward to the final book in the trilogy when everything comes to a head and makes this book, more than worth the read.

Other Books In The Series:

The Strain

The Passage by Justin Cronin

Synopsis From Back Cover:

The Passage is the story of Amy - abandoned by her mother at the age of six, pursued and then imprisoned by the shadowy figures behind a government experiment of apocalyptic proportions.  But Special Agent Brad Wolgast, the lawman sent to track her down, is disarmed by the curiously quiet girl and risks everything to save her.  As the experiment goes nightmarishly wrong, Wolgast secures her escape - but he can't stop society's collapse.  And as Amy walks alone, across miles and decades, into a future dark with violence and despair, she is filled with the mysterious and terrifying knowledge that only she has the power to save the ruined world.

What started off as a scientific trip into the jungles of South America turned into the end of the world for North America.  When they discover that the vampire myth is real, instead of running away, they all get killed except for a few.  One of those survivors was already infected and since the military needed new recruits, they decide to bring him back and use him to start project NOAH.  With NOAH they use death row inmates, shoot them up with the "drug" and turn them into blood thirsty monsters they hope they can learn to control.  None of these men had living ties to the outside world anymore, so when they are pronounced dead, nobody really looks into it.

Brad Wolgast, the agent in charge of talking the inmates into signing their life away, is good at his job.  He is able to find just the right thing to say to get these men to crumble and agree to the experiments.  When his next assignment is to pick up a six year old kid from a convent, he starts to doubt the mission.  On the trip back, both he and his partner, are torn by what it is they are being asked to do.  They don't know what the real goal of Project NOAH is, but dragging a kid into it, doesn't sit well with them.

It's only after he delivers Amy to the military does he realize what's going on.  Both the inmates and Amy have been turned into vampires, but in Amy the changes are different.  She only gets the immortality, not the blood thirst or physical changes.  When the experiment goes horribly wrong, Brad and a few friends do everything they can to get Amy out of there and to safety.

That one night of blood and death turns into a world ruled by the virals (vampires.)  About a hundred years later, there are only small pockets of humanity left.  The rest of the world has abandoned the continent to die a slow, agonizing death.   They work everyday to make sure the lights stay on at night and that they don't become the virals next meal.  This is the part where the book blew me away.  I was expecting a story that deal with Amy, not a large cast of survivors who I would grow to care about and hold my breath for when they were in danger.

This is a story about human survival and hope in the face of certain death and annihilation.  The small group of men and women we meet who are doing their level best to stay alive are wonderfully fleshed out individuals and I can't wait to find out what happens next.  I wish I had the skill to describe to you all the wonderful people the author created to tell this story.  They are an amazing group, without a weakly drawn one in the bunch.

I do want to mention that the other aspect I wasn't expecting when I finally picked this book up, was how beautifully the story would be told.  I didn't think a story like this could be told in such a lush, descriptive way that would move me as much as it did.  He was able to capture every moment, every location with such fully realized way that, at times, I felt as if I had been transported into the action and I could see, hear, and smell everything the characters did.  The author's love of what he was writing is obvious on every page.  Every detail is there, every character is fully realized, and every element I want in a post apocalyptic, vampire massacre is told in technicolor.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Charles Gunn

I had about 20 different Buffy/Angel characters enter into my head for consideration for this, the last Buffyverse FFC post of the month.  The problem with narrowing it down, is that there are so many great characters, many of which will get their own post someday, that it's really hard to weigh them against each other.  Today, I decided to go with Charles Gunn, the street warrior turned lawyer from "Angel".

When we first meet Gunn, he is the leader of a vigilante street gang who hunts down, and kills vampires.  By the end of his television journey, he is a former lawyer for an evil law firm and is dying in a back alley after taking that firm on.  It's that journey in between such opposite personalities that makes Charles Gunn a captivating character.

From an early age, Gunn is taught how to fight vampires by his grandmother.  The area of L.A. he grew up in, the Badlands, is a desolate section abandoned by those who should have protected the civilian population.  Because of that lack of attention, vampires and other demons have been allowed to have an almost free reign and are only kept in check by those willing to take them on.  Gunn kills his first vampire in her kitchen.  Along with his sister, Alonna, Gunn quickly raises through the ranks and eventually takes over the leadership of his own gang of vampire hunters.  Despite his tactical knowledge and skills as a fighter, Gunn quickly let the mission take over his life, he no longer valued himself as anything other than a killing machine.

When he first meets Angel, he tries to kill him.  All he saw was a vampire roughing up a human and Gunn assumed the worst. Since the show continued to air, Gunn failed at his attempt and over a period of time the two of them began to form a tenuous sense of trust.  They would come to each other for help.  Sadly, their tentative friendship did not happen in time to keep Alonna from being turned into a vampire, which causes Gunn to stake her.

That single event, which haunts him for the remainder of his days, caused Gunn to refocus on his life and take a long hard look in the mirror.  He had to decide if his way of doing things were the right thing or if maybe, just maybe Angel may have had the answers all along.  He joins the time, though he doesn't really sign on full time for a while.  He still feels torn between his new allies and his old gang.  Those divided loyalties eventually come to a head and Gunn realizes that he is happy and at home with Angel investigations.

Gunn fits in easily with the rest of the team and falls hard for Winifred "Fred" Burkle who they had rescued from a demon dimension.  His relationship with her allows him to look at himself as more than just the team's muscle.  Because Fred is a genius, Gunn begins to want more for himself, mainly because he doesn't think he deserves Fred's affections.  Gunn has a lot of self doubts and some of them come true when he is forced to kill the man who sent Fred to the dimension, in order to spare Fred from doing it.  Instead of it bringing them together though, it tears them apart.  Fred can't forgive herself of Gunn for what happened, and it drives home that maybe he is just the muscle.

When the team join Wolfram & Hart, the evil law firm, Gunn has an infinite knowledge of law downloaded into his brain, making him the one team member that seems to fit flawlessly into the firm.  He thinks he has finally discovered his place on the team, that maybe now they will look at him as something else, someone as smart as they are.  Through various events, including the death of Fred due to his own actions, Gunn realizes that being a super lawyer isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It's only through a lot of soul searching and self sacrifice that Gunn finally accepts who he is and his role in life.  It's because of that actual self acceptance that Gunn is able to face the end, even when he is mortally wounded taking out one of human puppet masters behind the firm.  When we last see him on screen, he is standing side by side with Angel ready to face an army of demons bent on destroying them.  At that moment, Gunn has finally come into his own as a true mythical hero.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Xander Harris

I think of all the Buffyverse characters, once stand out as being the most "normal".  He is the one that, I think, most of us could identify with, especially in our high school years.  I think for that reason, Xander Harris is probably the most human character of them all.

I think what set Xander apart from the rest of the Scooby Gang, especially in later seasons, was that all though he was part of the gang, he was always a little outside of them as well.  Despite his military knowledge, borrowed from his Halloween Costume, Xander didn't have any special powers.  He wasn't super strong like Buffy, didn't have Willow's affinity for magic, and he definitely didn't have the brains that Giles was gifted with.  What he did have though was a fierce sense of loyalty and courage that I'm not sure I would have been able to display if I was in his shoes.

It was that lack of "specialness", at least in his own head, that made Xander's struggle with maturity that much harder.  The entire arc of his character was him trying to grown up, become a mature, adult male who could not only take care of himself but others as well.  He started off as a little geeky, but like a lot of socially awkward people, he had all the best lines.  He had a sense of wit that I, as witty as I am, was just a little bit jealous of.  His lack of maturity though, and lack of a filter, would allow his mouth to get him in trouble sometimes, but he was always funny.

As the series progressed, especially with episodes like "The Zeppo", Xander started to become more confident in himself and his role in the gang.  He took a more ownership of the decisions and by the last season, he was an almost unofficial Watcher for Buffy.  Like most of us who had that awkward high school stage, Xander eventually discovered who he was and became an adult who was a productive member of a group that acted more as a family than anything else.

Favorite Fictional Character --- Rupert Giles

I don't think any journey through the Buffyverse could be complete without our next guest.  I'm not even sure he needs a lengthy introduction.  So with no further ado, may I present to you, one of the sexiest librarians around, Mr. Rupert Giles (Ripper to his friends).

Theoretically, if I were a young teenage girl charged with the slaying of vampires and other demons, I would want someone like Rupert Giles to be there for me.  When Buffy first arrives in Sunnydale, trying to put her slaying days behind her, she realizes that not only can she not escape her destiny, but she also has a new Watcher.  Giles is a third generation Watcher and even though he tried to get away from it in his youth, going as far as demon worship, he found himself in the same shoes as Buffy.  He was destined to be someone he didn't want to be.  Also like Buffy, once he accepted his destiny, he excelled at it.

On the surface, Giles didn't seem all that impressive.  He came across as rather mild mannered, a bit nerdy (despite the good looks), and way too stuffy.  Underneath all of that though lurked a dangerous man, one that you did not want to be on the bad side of.  When he needed to, Giles was capable of a detached sort of violence that none of the other characters came close to.  When he smothered Ben, so Buffy would not have to, he showed a side of him that I think had been hinted at all along but was rarely shown in such a blatant way.  

He was also proficient in both hand to hand combat and magic.  He taught Buffy all she needed to know in order to defend herself and slay anything that made it's way to the Hellmouth.  With the magical training of Willow, things didn't run as smoothly.  Giles was totally against her involvement from the beginning, but when he realized she would progress without him, into dangerous waters, he took her under his reluctant wing and taught her what she needed to know.  In fact, overtime, the pupil outpaced the teacher and I don't think he could have been prouder or either one of them.

I think of all the characters, Giles was the most subtly complex of the lot.  Where a lot of them wore their personalities on their sleeves, Giles did more of a slow reveal of himself.  I don't think he showed off every facet of himself until well into the 6th season.  Regardless of his mistakes, which he did make a few of, Giles was a true father figure to The Scooby Gang.  He loved them and tried to protect them the best he could in a world where any of them could be killed on any given day.  He was a fabulous mentor and friend to them all and I have to admit to being a bit jealous of them for that.

Favorite Fictional Characters --- Willow Rosenberg

First of all I can't believe that it's been since July 15th of last year that I've talked about a character from the Buffyverse.  I feel that I've let my favorite TV show of all time down by not talking about them more often.  This month I'm going to remedy that a bit.  For the next 4 Wednesdays, I'm going to highlight one of my favorite characters from either "Buffy: The Vampire Slayer" or "Angel".  Since I've already talked about Buffy, Angel, and Cordelia, this week will be all about my favorite witch, Willow Rosenberg.  By the way if anyone wants to go back and comment on any of those three posts, you are more than welcome to.  Buffy didn't get much response at all, poor girl.

Where do you start with Willow Rosenberg?  I guess it will have to be from the beginning, though I'll try to make this short.  When we first meet Willow, she is the really smart girl in school who doesn't seem to have a clue about anything other than how to solve long equations and spout off answers in class.  What you quickly find out about her though, is so much more.  Beneath the smarts and really bad wardrobe, is a girl who is sweet, unassuming, loyal to her friends, and always willing to help out. 

Once the show got rolling and Buffy's friends learned about her "uniqueness", Willow jumped into the role of researcher and budding witch.  Throughout the show those two things, especially the magic, quickly began to define Willow's role in the Scooby Gang.  As her powers grew, her role grew in fighting demons and monsters and even started to assert herself as a strategist.  That fascination with magic was also one of the biggest hurdles Willow had to face.  Over time, she became addicted to it.  She didn't want to do anything with out it, she let it define her as a person.  As you know, once you allow something to define you, that is all you see yourself as.  She ended up spiraling out of control, that eventually led her to taking the life of someone else using magic.  Now there were severe circumstance that allowed her to go down that road, but it was a decision that would haunt her for years to come.

The other thing that defined Willow for me was of all the characters she was the one that seemed to need to be in a relationship the most.  Now all the characters had issues when it came to love, but I think Willow was the one character that it came naturally to and seemed to need it the most.  Especially in the beginning she seemed to grasp at every offer of affection she received.  At first that caused her to make some bad choices, including leaving The Bronze with a vampire and falling in love with a demon over the internet.  Both of which almost ended her quest for love permanently. 

As the show progressed though, so did Willow and her attitude on love.  When she first met Oz they had an almost cute courtship.  They both were rather odd, quirky characters that fit well together.  The longer they were together the more comfortable Willow became with herself and others.  She seemed to find herself in a way that she hadn't before.  She even dealt with Oz being a werewolf, a situation she knew nothing about in the beginning.  The way she dealt with the problem, helped  her grow as a person and made her stronger.  As in any TV show though, no relationship is allowed to progress perfectly.  After falling back into her infatuation with Xander and almost costing her Oz, he ended up going crazy for a female werewolf and ditching her.  That almost tore her apart but it was needed for her to meet the love of her life, Tara.

With Tara, Willow blossomed as a person and as a witch.  Of all the couples on the show, they were probably the most well balanced and equal partnership.  They complimented each other in a way that allowed them both to become strong, independent adults.  It was Tara that helped Willow realize that she had a problem with magic.  I really think without Tara and her love, Willow would have never been able to break the habit and would have gone down the darker road earlier and longer.   When Tara is taken from her but a gunshot, Willow loses herself and does things she never knew she was capable of.  It was a long, hard road back to herself but through the love of her friends and time, she eventually did.  She even realized that it would not be betraying Tara to be with someone else.

I know a lot of people think Willow is the one character that changed the most and had no problem telling me so when I said it was Cordelia Chase that changed the most.  In reality, I think Willow was the one character that came into her own the most.  She, of all of them, fulfilled her potential and became the woman she was destined to be.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Synopsis From Back Cover:

One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall.  Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in it stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine.  It's owners - mother, son, and daughter - are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their won.  But are thy Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?  Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

I finally did it, I read a Sarah Waters book and I loved it.  Her books have been on my list for a while now but I always seemed to get distracted by something else.  When I found The Little Stranger for a dollar, I could no longer pass it up. The problem, or maybe it wasn't a problem, was that as soon as I bought it, I had a uncontrollable urge to read it.  Every time I picked something else up, this book cried out "No, Read Me!".  Once I obeyed, I couldn't put it down.

I found myself getting lost not only in the story of this family but in the Hall itself.  I'm not sure one can be separated from the other.  The story of the Hall is the story of the family.  As the rate of decline speeds up in the Hall, it speeds up in the family.  Where one suffers a setback, so does the other.  There is no clear line of where they begin or end.  The fact that the decline is told in such lyrically descriptive detail kept me glued to the story and left me feeling a little cheated once the last page was turned.

Everything in this book is flawed.  There is no one thing or person that doesn't have a trace of that decay running through it.  This is a land and it's people that are struggling to find their way again after the war and their story is told through the lives of the Hall and it's inhabitants.  The tension and sense of foreboding that runs throughout the pages kept building in small waves that slowly started to submerge the characters and the Hall in a flood of terror and utter despair.

When I first started the book I was under the impression that Dr. Faraday was going to be the hero of the tale, but as I got to know him more, I'm not at all convinced that he wasn't behind the slow descent into madness that took place.  Whether or not the troubles took place at the hands of some supernatural force, Dr. Faraday's growing obsession with the Hall, or some combination of both, Dr. Faraday was at the heart of a lot of it.  He, more than any other character, illustrated for me the dangers of a new world that doesn't quite make sense anymore. 

As a quick side note, I've never thought of myself as a fan of Gothic fiction.  But lately I've found myself almost enraptured by the whole genre and have recently picked up several more book and plan on picking up even more.  I'm really enjoying myself as I get lost in the type of storytelling that takes place.  I'm not sure if this change in my taste is permanent or not, but I'm going have fun while it lasts.

Challenges: GLBT, M&S

The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan

Synopsis From Back Cover:

At New York's JFK Airport an arriving Boeing 777 taxiing along a runway suddenly stops dead.  All the shades have been drawn, all communication channels have mysteriously gone quiet.  Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of a CDC rapid response team investigating biological threats, boards the darkened plane...and what he finds makes his blood run cold.

A terrifying contagion has come to the unsuspecting city, and unstoppable plague that will spread like an all-consuming wildfire-lethal, merciless, hungry...vampiric.

And in a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem an aged Holocaust survivor knows that the war he has been dreading his entire life is finally here...

I don't even remember the last modern vampire book I read where the vampires were the actual bad guys.  I'm a fan of Anne Rice and a few other books were the vampires are the heroes but I think Edward & Bella have ruined that whole concept for me, at least for a while.  So needless to say it was a nice treat for me to read a book that cast vampires as the blood thirsty killers they are supposed to be.  The fangs are back in the monster and I hope they are here to stay.

In the hands of Guillermo Del Toro, whose movies "The Orphanage" and "Pan's Labyrinth" are two of my all time favorites, The Strain, read like a fast pace movie that kept me on the edge of my seat and my heart beating just a little more rapidly than normal.  The action never seemed to slow down and even the smallest detail made sense and was necessary to move the story forward. 

Even with the thrilling action and a driving pace a story isn't good unless it's peopled by main characters that you can become vested in.  I want to care whether or not these people survive the coming apocalypse, and for the most part I do.  I want to know what happens to them next.  I will stop short of wishing I was on the ground with them, in a rapidly dying city where more and more of their fellow citizens are becoming blood thirsty, mindless monsters.  I like them, but I wouldn't want to share their fight or looming fate.

My only slight disappointment with the book, and it's slight, is that other than the mythology and lore behind what is happening on the ground, there is really nothing "vampiric" about the story.  You could easily turn the vampires in zombies or some other monster that is transformed by a toxin or virus.  The background was set up nicely for the upcoming civil war between vampires, with the entire human race caught in the middle.  I just wish there was more pure vampire in the novel, not something that could be changed out with a slightly modified version of a running, hungry citizen of London during "28 Days Later".

Other than that little quibble, I'm eagerly waiting my opportunity to read the next book in the series to find out what happens to not only Eph and those he has gathered around him but to the entire world as well.