This novel starts out like Twilight, then doesn't let the vampire sparkle and takes the reader on a wild, terror ride that ends up in unspeakable acts. Again, Plain-Jane Catelin's down the rabbit hole. Her father has moved her to the pimple on the butt of progress--Knives, Illinois--a suburb of Macomb, a little city with little to do, population three-thousand. Her mother abandoned her in the worst way. Saying her dad is complicated is the understatement of the century. She wishes, just once, someone she loves desperately wouldn't die on her or make conversation awkward.Enter Anders, who saves her from a Shawshank attack by the roid-rage jocks and the plastic mean girls from the high school. But the million-dollar question is, how did he move at almost the speed of light to defeat a gang of young, dumb, and numb hickabillies? Can it be? Is he . . . immortal? Problem is, he's as nebulous as he is handsome. She keeps after him, but he dodges school for a week, making sleep dodge her. And when he finally comes back and apologizes, he keeps his powers on the down-low, despite how she's an inquiring mind who needs to know. Why's his touch so cold? Good God, he's making her think she's crazy! But he's met his match. Possessing the ultimate in Girl Power, she probes him non-stop. And when she finds out he's a vampire, she dares to be morbid enough to romance him. A nosferatu sympathizer, she puts her dad and everyone she loves in danger of dying or becoming a vamp. But when the real ancients--including Gilles de Rais-- much older than the vampire government, kidnap Catelin and her vampire lover, they make them put down the white-blood-cell bags and feed on humans. And if the ancients grow bored, it's the end of the road. Either way, the streets will run red with blood.