Review
An antidote to the rather po-faced Twilight Saga, says Verbal.
- The Reformed Vampire Support Group
- Quercus
The Reformed Vampire Support Group
With the melodramatic Twilight Saga riding high, in not only the bestseller charts but box office as well, it’s nice to see a children’s author have a bit of fun with the vampire genre again.
Here, Jinks takes the vampire premise to its logical conclusion and asks if being one of the ‘Undead’ is really all it’s cracked up to be? Nina, the narrator, who died in the 1970s, writes adventure novels with a feisty vampire heroine for a living. But Nina herself was turned at 15, which means she will be a teenager forever, with all the problems this involves. Vampires can’t eat, most can’t drive, they can’t go out in the sun, and they run the risk of their long dead body parts rotting and falling off on a daily basis. They can’t even bite humans as this would lead to the entire planet being overrun with Vampires - and who wants that? And Nina isn’t the only one unhappy with her lot. Bridget, a former nun who was turned aged 80, has to suffer the indignities of old-age (arthritis etc) for eternity.
Is it any wonder our gang of glum vampires meet once a week for group therapy at the local Catholic church with Father Ramon? However, when one of their number is staked by what appears to be a vigilante vampire hunter, they have a new problem on their hands. Threatened with extinction, the group sets out to hunt down the culprit and life takes an exciting turn for once. A funny, fast-paced page-turner!
