The Radleys by Matt Haig - re-read

review by Maryom

To the casual observer, the Radleys appear to be as normal as any of their neighbours in the pretty commuter-belt village of Bishopthorpe. But if they're that normal, then why do they always walk down the shady side of the street, carefully avoid the slightest hint of garlic, and prefer their meat barely cooked? Why can teenage son Rowan never get to sleep at night? and why is it a really bad idea that daughter Clara has become vegan? ... 

Helen and Peter Radley, though, have been hiding a secret, even from their own children - the fact that they are vampires, abstaining ones who never drink blood or kill, but still, at heart, vampires. Clara is about to discover this in a dreadful way; pushed too far by the amorous advances of a drunken bully, her instincts kick in, with horrific, bloody results. Peter's immediate response is to phone his brother Will to come and sort things out - but Will is a practising vampire, addicted to increasingly dangerous kills and more likely to be bring trouble to their doorstep than offer help.

I loved this book when I first read it a few years ago, so given the chance to vote for it as a book club read I did! I have to admit, I wondered if it would seem as absorbing a second time round - but it definitely did.

 It isn't anything like the Twilight novels or an old Bela Lugosi film but, I feel, about an average family with an inherited 'disability'. For anyone who's seen Being Human, there are certain similarities in the situation, (Will definitely has a touch of Aidan Turner's smouldering appeal) though in this case there are no werewolves or ghosts, just a family of vampires trying to live as normal a life as possible. I think part of its continued appeal is that it isn't JUST about vampires. The Radleys may only be acting the part of a normal family, but many of their problems are faced by normal families too. Quietly married with teenage children, both parents feel hankerings for the heady, youthful days of the past; Peter contemplates an affair with a neighbour, Helen dreams of a long ago romantic fling. Will with his vampire lifestyle represents all that they've given up - he darts about all over the world, parties long and hard all night, lives life in a way that seems fuller and more exciting than their middle-class, middle-age life of dinner parties and book clubs.

Also, like any parents, the Radleys want to shield their children from the unpleasant side of life - in their case, the fact that they are vampires  - and from the consequences of a youthful 'slip-up'. Wouldn't any parent behave the same?
It's also funny - not necessarily laugh-out loud hilarity but a quiet, wry observation of family life. So, yes, it's about vampires, but also about that average family that they're trying so hard to be. 

Maryom's Review - 4.5 stars 
Publisher - Canongate 
Genre - YA/adult fiction, vampires, family life

A Love Like Blood by Marcus Sedgwick

review by Maryom

I've chased him for over twenty years, and across countless miles, and though often I was running, there have been many times when I could do nothing but sit and wait. Now I am only desperate for it to be finished.


In 1944, in newly liberated Paris, Charles Jackson stumbles on something horrific - a man seemingly drinking the blood of a murdered woman! Shocked and terrified, he freezes - and when he looks again, both man and woman have gone. Dismissing it as either mere imagination or one of the things that happen in war, Charles tries to put it out of his mind. Years later he returns to Paris, and sees the same man in the company of a beautiful young woman. This time he feels he must do something ..... and so begins a lifetime of plotting and planning revenge...

Despite my age, I love Marcus Sedgwick's teen and YA gothic thrillers, so his first book for an adult readership was bound to have me intrigued. It returns to many of his familiar vampire-inspired tales, but with an adult twist as it explores the depths that love, fear and revenge may lead to. Charles' obsession leads him across Europe from Paris to Marseilles, from the remote highlands of Scotland to a ruined Italian hill top village, on a quest that lasts decades as ultimately everything else falls by the wayside and only his thirst for revenge is left.
The style is much like a Victorian ghost story with the expectation of horror building with every page, drawing the reader in, and, even though the ending came as no surprise to me, I was enthralled.

It's a story as much about the pursuer as the pursuit. Charles' character develops and changes with his obsession, and the ending and resolution are as much about those changes as the actual culmination of the chase.

Maryom's review -  4.5 stars
Publisher -  Mulholland Books (Hodder & Stoughton)
Genre - vampires, thriller 

Buy A Love Like Blood from Amazon

Tich Vampire Hunter by Pete Barrett

Review by The Mole

It's another boring day for Tich and his gang so they go off to visit the graveyard. There they find a mausoleum door slightly ajar so decide to return at midnight to investigate further.

The investigation ends up with the local butcher, a Mr Dracula, being awoken from the dead to resume his vampiric activities. Soon the whole school, apart from Tich and his gang, are vampires and it's up to them, as they started this, to end it. Finally we want to know if Tich ends up with the girl of his dreams?

The cover presents this story as "wonderfully weird and wacky" and certainly that is a very good summary. The writing style, vocabulary and presentation suits it's target readership very well and the story is one of those extraordinary fantasies that children embark upon inside their heads and so will appeal. The idea of pushing wooden stakes through the hearts of vampires sounds gruesome but Barrett has done it in a way that is not at all. And the final twist? There is also plenty of comic moments to entertain - something that seems to keep all readers reading, regardless of age.

Well, it's just so well done as to make the reader stop and smile and enjoy the book that little bit more.

Publisher - Playbackbooks
Genre - Children's fantasy fiction 7+

Buy Tich Vampire Hunter by Pete Barrett from Amazon

God Save The Queen by Kate Locke

Review by The Mole

When Alexandra Vardan, a half blood vampire, finds her sister is missing, she risks life and limb by entering goblin territory to find her. Little does she know that the events that follow will change the course of her life - and the lives of those around her. A story of vampires, werewolves, goblins, humans and half bloods. Xandra is in the Royal Guard assigned to protect the sovereign, Queen Victoria, as well as the nobility.

The author's note at the start tries to explain how the history of the world of Xandra's varies from the world we know and to put into context where Xandra fits into this society but I have to admit to still not knowing what to expect from this story. I struggled, for quite a bit of the book, to remember that Xandra was, in fact, female - a fact that is very important and not just 'choice' by the author. I'm not really sure why though... there are frequent dress references etc but she just feels very... masculine.

With a twist at the end. Not really, from about half way through I could see the outcome - OK the detail was not quite there but the overall idea was what I guessed. And it didn't matter one iota! It was the journey that was hugely entertaining and a journey well worth the taking. Yes, there's romance. Yes, there's plain lust. Yes there's violence of all sorts - but it doesn't detract from the overall enjoyment of a paranormal adventure.

I am just wondering where book 2 in the trilogy will take us as it feels like the end of the journey already.

Publisher - Orbit Books
Genre - YA Paranormal Adventure

Buy God Save the Queen: Book One of the Immortal Empire from Amazon

The Vampire of Highgate By Asa Bailey

Modern Day Legends
Review by The Mole

Kathy is a college student living with her adopted parents when she starts having dreams of her sister, Amber, and feels a compulsion to go and find the sister she has never known. It's a journey of discovery in which her family try to protect and help her - by hiding from her what she needs to know to protect herself.

The story is built around a modern(ish) legend of vampires at Highgate cemetery and placing Vampires pretty firmly as the bad guys -  where I like to see them. The plot leaves us looking over her shoulder and saying to her... "But that's not right - and you should know!" but we are also left in the dark as to why she doesn't... until almost the last minute that is.

A very enjoyable read that will still, I'm sure, appeal to readers who like their vampires as the good guys although here they are very undoubtedly bad. Kathy is a character that you will grow to love quite quickly perhaps because she is abused by both friends and family although we don't really get to know any other of the characters - which is just as well as, being a vampire book, they disappear at a rate of knots!

The readers who will like this are a well established group but if you do like the vampires bad then you will enjoy it too.

Publisher - Hodder Children's
Genre - Teen Fiction, Vampires

Buy The Vampire of Highgate from Amazon

My Swordhand Is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick

Proper Old-Fashioned Vampires
review by Maryom

After many years of travelling, constantly moving from one place to another, Peter and his father have settled at last in the village of Chust. Despite it's picturesque setting with meadows and forests, Peter feels it's a place with something dreadful hanging over it. As the villagers prepare for winter - coating their door and window frames with tar and garlic to keep evil at bay - the feeling increases. Then various villagers start to claim that their dead loved ones have returned from their graves to visit them...


My Swordhand Is Singing takes the reader back to a time when vampires were ghastly, disgusting, half-rotten, half-dead creatures risen from their graves, best avoided at all costs - not the handsome, devilishly-dashing, film-star sort played by Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt - and I think I prefer them this way. It's a wonderfully spooky, creepy, shivers down the spine book. The tension mounts slowly with hints of evil lurking in the forest and the reader just *knows* something appalling is going to happen.

I first discovered Marcus Sedgwick through an audiobook of White Crow which I won on Twitter and found seriously scary. So when I found My Swordhand is Singing in my library I picked it up mainly out of curiosity and loved it so much, I've immediately ordered more by the author. Although aimed at teens, they've the right amount of scariness and horror for me.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Orion
Genre - teenage fiction, horror