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PSALM OF VAMPIRES (THE MOURNING VAMPIRE)

A fun, witty, and innovative contemporary fantasy adventure.

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In White’s horror-fantasy novel, a vampire livestreamer and his allies look into multiple murders and stumble upon a supernatural conspiracy to end the world as he knows it.

Jade Mourning is a 2,000-year-old fanged creature of the night, living in an Atlanta estate with other online influencers, when he becomes a suspect in a series of mysterious murders. When the clues rule Mourning out, the vampire and Atlanta police Det. Standmoore Owens, along with Mourning’s vampire ally (a woman namedMoreland), join forces to investigate. They soon discover that the culprits are feral vampires known as Wurdulacs. Soon, the unlikely trio uncover a larger plan that could result in the extinction of humans and vampires alike. A solution may lie in unlocking vampires’ genetic code; notably, Mourning encounters a world-renowned geneticist, Dr. Chua Mi Tien, after accidentally teleporting to Singapore. Mourning’s interpersonal relationships are complex; his primary love interest is a human named Daphne, who appears in his livestreams but thinks his vampirism is an act (“When I met Daphne, I was consumed by darkness. She lit me up”). Moreland pursues Mourning, as well, but her attempts to woo him fall short, due to her role in the apparent deaths of his wife and child during a raid of their city in the 1300s. Mourning must also win over Det. Owens, who despises vampires. The story ends with two main characters set to travel abroad on a search for another who’s disappeared. White’s novel may remind readers of Felicia Day’s limited-series podcast Third Eye (2023), in all the best ways. Although some scenes suggest a more mature intended audience, the novel otherwise reads like a teenage dream, abounding with modern references to such pastimes as Twitch and League of Legends. The main character starts off in a place that many might find admirable: He’s famous, rich, talented, and has supernatural powers and multiple romantic options. This sort of status can stagnate a character’s growth, but White has Mourning follow an enticing arc, while also exploring important themes of forgiveness, salvation, and friendship.

A fun, witty, and innovative contemporary fantasy adventure.

Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2023

ISBN: 979-8871677261

Page Count: 417

Publisher: Independently Published

Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2024

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THE DARK MIRROR

From the Bone Season series , Vol. 5

Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.

In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.

After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.

Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025

ISBN: 9781639733965

Page Count: 576

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025

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IF IT BLEEDS

Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.

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The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.

The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.

Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.

Pub Date: April 20, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020

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