Blood Memories by Barb Hendee
It’s no secret that I’ve grown a bit tired of the Vampire craze in UF. And while I read the first 4 or so books in the high fantasy vampire series Hendee wrote with her husband, I grew tired of it after a while. So I pretty much skipped over this one when I saw it on the shelves, until I heard some interesting things about it from people equally fed up with the genre.
Eleisha Clevon is exceptionally pretty and looks about 17. She also looks small and fragile and meek, something that has always inspired people to try to take care of her. She’s also a (almost) 200-year-old vampire whose apparent helplessness in life has been heightened into a supernatural gift in undeath. But while the helplessness was true in life, she’s since turned it into a weapon. She looks like the girl the vampire chased into a dark alley, but is actually the vampire who lured the muggers into the dark alley. The back cover copy says that her gift only works on men and implies that it works in a sexual way, but this isn’t true. It can work on anyone, and how it manifests tends to depend on the person it’s working on. In one person, it can inspire lust, in another a maternal instinct, and in another, an exasperated sympathy that can’t be ignored.
It’s the Mary Sue-est trait of vampire fiction turned into a deadly weapon.
Eleisha lives in Portland and takes cares of William, an elderly vampire with Alzheimer’s (it sounds odd, but why a vampire is an elderly man with Alzheimer’s is actually a crucial plotpoint). Her life is relatively mundane until her old friend Edward, walks into the sunlight and kills himself in front of several police officers. Two of whom happen to be specially trained psychics, one of whom sees Edward’s life as he dies. To make things worse, Edward had apparently slowly been going mad, and had a collection of corpses in his basement.
And so Eleisha is on the run with William, under the threat of exposure, in more ways than one. Along the way, she begins to question various things about her race, such as why there are only six of them, why they all came from the same generation when there used to be stories about them all across Europe for generations before any were born, and why it’s considered strange for them to live near each other.
One of my biggest problems with vampire fiction is how they’re always moping about their souls and lost humanity and not being able to go out in the sun and wallowing in guilt and self-hatred. Not these vampires. They don’t mope about their lot in life, they deal with their situation and live. Eleisha regrets that she has to kill humans to live, but she doesn’t regret living, or feel guilt about doing what she has to to survive, and she doesn’t feel guilt about using her gift when she needs to. Unlike other vampires, these vampires don’t read like humans with a “curse” and angst piled on, but as something inhuman walking around with human trappings, and are more interesting for it. The book is also almost devoid of the typical and overused romantic hijinks of vampire fiction, with the closest relationship to a romance not being about sex or romance, but about the need for companionship.
I have no idea if this book is a standalone, or the beginning of a new series. Everything that needs to be addressed and wrapped up is, but the ending doesn’t preclude a continuation.
Eleisha Clevon is exceptionally pretty and looks about 17. She also looks small and fragile and meek, something that has always inspired people to try to take care of her. She’s also a (almost) 200-year-old vampire whose apparent helplessness in life has been heightened into a supernatural gift in undeath. But while the helplessness was true in life, she’s since turned it into a weapon. She looks like the girl the vampire chased into a dark alley, but is actually the vampire who lured the muggers into the dark alley. The back cover copy says that her gift only works on men and implies that it works in a sexual way, but this isn’t true. It can work on anyone, and how it manifests tends to depend on the person it’s working on. In one person, it can inspire lust, in another a maternal instinct, and in another, an exasperated sympathy that can’t be ignored.
It’s the Mary Sue-est trait of vampire fiction turned into a deadly weapon.
Eleisha lives in Portland and takes cares of William, an elderly vampire with Alzheimer’s (it sounds odd, but why a vampire is an elderly man with Alzheimer’s is actually a crucial plotpoint). Her life is relatively mundane until her old friend Edward, walks into the sunlight and kills himself in front of several police officers. Two of whom happen to be specially trained psychics, one of whom sees Edward’s life as he dies. To make things worse, Edward had apparently slowly been going mad, and had a collection of corpses in his basement.
And so Eleisha is on the run with William, under the threat of exposure, in more ways than one. Along the way, she begins to question various things about her race, such as why there are only six of them, why they all came from the same generation when there used to be stories about them all across Europe for generations before any were born, and why it’s considered strange for them to live near each other.
One of my biggest problems with vampire fiction is how they’re always moping about their souls and lost humanity and not being able to go out in the sun and wallowing in guilt and self-hatred. Not these vampires. They don’t mope about their lot in life, they deal with their situation and live. Eleisha regrets that she has to kill humans to live, but she doesn’t regret living, or feel guilt about doing what she has to to survive, and she doesn’t feel guilt about using her gift when she needs to. Unlike other vampires, these vampires don’t read like humans with a “curse” and angst piled on, but as something inhuman walking around with human trappings, and are more interesting for it. The book is also almost devoid of the typical and overused romantic hijinks of vampire fiction, with the closest relationship to a romance not being about sex or romance, but about the need for companionship.
I have no idea if this book is a standalone, or the beginning of a new series. Everything that needs to be addressed and wrapped up is, but the ending doesn’t preclude a continuation.