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BLOOD COMMUNION

From the The Vampire Chronicles series

Just the bucket of blood for die-hard Rice fans.

Of crunching bones, collapsing veins, and nicely coordinated outfits: Rice’s Vampire Chronicles gets a fresh transfusion.

Alas, poor Rhoshamandes: He was about the only character to breathe any new life, so to speak, into Rice’s pallid vamp saga thanks to some stately if gory moments in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis(2016). And now—well, like the series, old Rosh has seen better days. Meanwhile, the longtime ringmaster of the sharp-toothed show, Lestat, is consolidating his power while taking an increasingly evident interest in aesthetics that, in lesser hands, would likely translate into a barrage of product placement. As it is, a few brand names slip through: Wouldn’t you just know it that a vampire wouldn’t be seen dead with an Android? It’s not just that, as Lestat observes, “Almost all vampires are beautiful,” but that the good stuff gets called out, from “English Chippendale chairs” to “rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires everywhere that one looked, or ropes of pearls and barrettes and pins of gold and silver.” And why so much attention to the things of the world? Perhaps because, as it seems, Lestat doesn’t have much to occupy himself with apart from a literal rock-star moment and all that politicking with Rhoshamandes, who, it has to be said, had more than a shot or two at making things good with Lestat and company. The story takes some time to gather momentum, a shame for a book that’s so short, especially as compared to others in the series. Still, while most of the proceedings seem a familiar footnote to the larger series as it’s unfolded over the decades, there are some nicely icky passages that would give Stephen King pause: “I threw the headless body onto the coverlet, tossed the smashed and empty head on top of the body, then gathered up even the heart and what I’d vomited of the brain and the eyes, and flung them all together…."

Just the bucket of blood for die-hard Rice fans.

Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5247-3264-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018

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THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

A tightly wound caseworker is pushed out of his comfort zone when he’s sent to observe a remote orphanage for magical children.

Linus Baker loves rules, which makes him perfectly suited for his job as a midlevel bureaucrat working for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth, where he investigates orphanages for children who can do things like make objects float, who have tails or feathers, and even those who are young witches. Linus clings to the notion that his job is about saving children from cruel or dangerous homes, but really he’s a cog in a government machine that treats magical children as second-class citizens. When Extremely Upper Management sends for Linus, he learns that his next assignment is a mission to an island orphanage for especially dangerous kids. He is to stay on the island for a month and write reports for Extremely Upper Management, which warns him to be especially meticulous in his observations. When he reaches the island, he meets extraordinary kids like Talia the gnome, Theodore the wyvern, and Chauncey, an amorphous blob whose parentage is unknown. The proprietor of the orphanage is a strange but charming man named Arthur, who makes it clear to Linus that he will do anything in his power to give his charges a loving home on the island. As Linus spends more time with Arthur and the kids, he starts to question a world that would shun them for being different, and he even develops romantic feelings for Arthur. Lambda Literary Award–winning author Klune (The Art of Breathing, 2019, etc.) has a knack for creating endearing characters, and readers will grow to love Arthur and the orphans alongside Linus. Linus himself is a lovable protagonist despite his prickliness, and Klune aptly handles his evolving feelings and morals. The prose is a touch wooden in places, but fans of quirky fantasy will eat it up.

A breezy and fun contemporary fantasy.

Pub Date: March 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-21728-8

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019

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THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB'S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES

Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.

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  • New York Times Bestseller


  • IndieBound Bestseller

Things are about to get bloody for a group of Charleston housewives.

In 1988, the scariest thing in former nurse Patricia Campbell’s life is showing up to book club, since she hasn’t read the book. It’s hard to get any reading done between raising two kids, Blue and Korey, picking up after her husband, Carter, a psychiatrist, and taking care of her live-in mother-in-law, Miss Mary, who seems to have dementia. It doesn’t help that the books chosen by the Literary Guild of Mt. Pleasant are just plain boring. But when fellow book-club member Kitty gives Patricia a gloriously trashy true-crime novel, Patricia is instantly hooked, and soon she’s attending a very different kind of book club with Kitty and her friends Grace, Slick, and Maryellen. She has a full plate at home, but Patricia values her new friendships and still longs for a bit of excitement. When James Harris moves in down the street, the women are intrigued. Who is this handsome night owl, and why does Miss Mary insist that she knows him? A series of horrific events stretches Patricia’s nerves and her Southern civility to the breaking point. (A skin-crawling scene involving a horde of rats is a standout.) She just knows James is up to no good, but getting anyone to believe her is a Sisyphean feat. After all, she’s just a housewife. Hendrix juxtaposes the hypnotic mundanity of suburbia (which has a few dark underpinnings of its own) against an insidious evil that has taken root in Patricia’s insular neighborhood. It’s gratifying to see her grow from someone who apologizes for apologizing to a fiercely brave woman determined to do the right thing—hopefully with the help of her friends. Hendrix (We Sold Our Souls, 2018, etc.) cleverly sprinkles in nods to well-established vampire lore, and the fact that he’s a master at conjuring heady 1990s nostalgia is just the icing on what is his best book yet.

Fans of smart horror will sink their teeth into this one.

Pub Date: April 7, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-68369-143-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Quirk Books

Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020

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