This was kind of a neat premise, a series of short stories and novellas all about vampires. Not interconnected, each one its own animal. It's what I both liked about the collection, and also what I didn't like about it.

Kilpatrick does a decent job of finding vastly different ways to engage her various vampires in interesting stories and settings. There was, in fact, a point where I stopped myself and wondered, if I had to write a series of different stories all about a single monster and make each one different enough to be engaging, I truly don't think I could begin to consider it. So, kudos to Kilpatrick for pulling this off. She does the serious vampire, the humorous vampire, the horny vampire, the mysterious vampire...and more.

On the other hand, for all the variety--and this could possibly just be me--I found each story, no matter how different it was from the one preceding it and the one that followed, each one, for whatever reason, seemed to harken to the Anne Rice school of vampire. That's not a horrible thing, Rice likely did more for the marketing of vampires than anyone in the past fifty years...well, at least until Stephanie Meyer came along and fucked them up horribly. Ahem The less said about that, the better.

But I found the each of these stories to be firmly rooted in the gothic. I would have liked a touch more variety that way.

Still, for all of that, an enjoyable book, and one that would be enjoyed by anyone who craves their vampires come from a more classic mold. ( )

Here is a collection of new and different vampire stories, written by one of the masters of the field.

For hundreds of years, a small village in Rumania has played host to an ancient man who does not seem to age. The job of taking care of him has fallen to one family; the responsibility is passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. He is kept in a cage, and deliberately kept weak, so he will not be a threat to the villagers. Count Dracula is in Victorian-era London, and is quite disgusted by what he sees around him. In a zoo, he finds a wolf who still has plenty of "wild," and helps it gain its freedom.

Turning women into vampires, and making them your "followers," may not be such a great idea if they still have the ability to perform sexually, but you, their "maker," have lost it. The eternal search for vampire victims enters the 21st century, with a blog called Vampires Anonymous. Vampires are not limited to Southeast Europe. They can also be present-day domestic servants in Southern California, originally from Ecuador. There are also a couple of longer "classic" vampire stories, that involve lust and romance.

I am not much of a horror reader, but I really enjoyed these stories. They show other aspects of the vampire world, and the "horror" part is not overwhelming. Vampire readers will love this book (if you have not yet read anything by Nancy Kilpatrick, what are you waiting for?), and everyone else will also like it. ( )