Made in Blood (The Vampire Communion) by Alex Redford; Vampires Approach The End of the World

 Made in Blood (The Vampire Communion) by Alex Redford; Vampires Approach The End of the World 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Here's a question that I thought that I would never be asking. What do vampires do when the world is coming to an end? This unlikely brain teaser is the raison d'etre of the Horror novel Made in Blood The Vampire Communion by Alex Redford.

In the book, an asteroid will destroy the Earth in 55 days. Despite the government’s assurance that everything will be fine, it's on its way and nothing can stop it. This is a problem for everyone but especially Oliver and his fellow vampires. They need sustenance and more vampires so they try to transform as many humans as they possibly can. Oliver engages in a romance with Emily, a mortal woman. As if that's not bad enough, a newly created vampire is going on a senseless killing rampage.

This book is a strange combination of Horror and Science Fiction that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. It makes the book unique in the glut of vampire horror and end of the world Apocalyptic science fiction to combine the two. However the blend has a tendency to muddle the two halves to the point where they are explored too much or not enough.

The vampire aspects are rather interesting if typical for the genre. Oliver is the usual brooding, Byronic, wealthy vampire despairing about immortality while thinking about that one human love. His relationships with his fellow vampires are insightful as he treats them as family with some that he considers siblings and parents. 

Then there are others who are sworn enemies and rivals. It's kind of odd that despite this upcoming destruction, the vampires still retain their centuries of rivalry. I suppose even when the natural elements are all depleted, they will still have years of scores to settle. 

There is another monstrous vampire character that frightens even the long term vampires. They operate on rules, codes, and logic. They are part of clans and protect one another. Sometimes, they even broker alliances with humans which are on the increase now since they need meals and some humans want to survive the end by any means necessary.

The Vampire Monster has no rules or standards. They are the vampire equivalent of a psychopathic serial killer. They kill without remorse, feeling, and out of a deranged kill or be killed mentality. The other vampires despair about a monster that they created but now can't handle and technically don't have time to do so.

With one exception, the human characters are a bit more wanting. Emily is not much of a presence. She is the typical naive innocent who loves her strange brooding boyfriend but doesn't know his real secrets until it's too late. But there isn't a whole lot of depth to her character. It doesn't help that she disappears through much of the book before we really get to know her.

Other human characters either try to go on with their lives or know the asteroid is coming and panic and find any means to survive. Actually most of the strong human characterization comes from Emily’s father Bruce who stands out in the entire cast.

He is among the first to see and calculate the trajectory of the asteroid so he knows that it's coming long before anyone else does. He is desperate to hold onto his daughter because he fears that he might literally never see her again. 

His anguish about Emily’s situation and the upcoming asteroid push him into some dark places. He was once a rational scientific man who was fond of his daughter. He regresses into alcoholism, depression, and violence. At the end of time, Bruce is on the cusp of reaching the end of his mind and life.

Speaking of the end, the asteroid seems to be a story arc that continues throughout the series. That means that it doesn't occur in this book. This volume instead focuses on what happens during the initial announcement.

Many are in denial. Some characters are going on with their lives. Government officials downplay the severity. With the exception of a few characters like Bruce, Emily, and the vampires it's business as usual. 

Halfway through the book, we see more characters that live in fear and looking for ways to survive. But still the end is in the background in favor of the vampires. At this point, the asteroid could almost be removed from the book. Not to mention that if humans die, vampires will eventually starve to death.

The asteroid collision and impact will more than likely turn The Vampire Communion into a different series entirely. It will be interesting to see what happens during the end and most importantly what happens afterwards.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig; 1,000th Blog Post is About a Captivating Enchanting Library of Lives

 

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig; 1,000th Blog Post is About a Captivating Enchanting Library of Lives

By Julie Sara Porter 

Spoilers: Wow, 1,000th blog post! 9 years! It has been quite a ride! I have been a Book Reviewer longer than I have been anything else and I love it! 

There have been so many authors, so many books, and so many stories that I shared. I feel like I have lived thousands of lives vicariously. So it is fitting that my thousandth review should be The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, a Contemporary Fantasy novel about a library that tells of several potential lives of one woman. 

Nora Seed attempts to take her own life. When she wakes up, she finds herself inside The Midnight Library. The librarian, Mrs. Elm tells her that it is filled with books that represent the various lives that Nora lived had she made different choices. All she has to do is choose one and she is transported to become that particular Nora in that particular reality.

This book has an amazing concept with wonderful themes of choice, regret, memory, loss, possibility, personal happiness, and finding one's true path. The library itself is filled with an endless collection of books, lives, that are untitled and unmarked. They seem to convey sameness and monotony, but instead the stories inside provide a variety of lives with different situations, experiences, and memories.

Nora is the right character for something like this to happen (even if her surname, Seed, and Mrs. Elm’s names are a bit on the nose.) Nora works at a music store and despairs over missed opportunities and lost career paths. She has broken romantic relationships and is estranged from family members. Her life is just going through the motions and feeling like she isn't a part of anything. She feels that her life is one of past regret and barely living in the present.

The lives take Nora through various situations. In many ways, this book is similar to the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once, which presents another woman entering various realities based on different worlds and choices. The realities come from different initial choices. Then those choices result in other outcomes. Some good, some bad but eventually lead to her becoming a more sagacious and perceptive person because of her experience with them.

Nora becomes a pub owner, animal rescue shelter worker, an Olympic swimmer turned public speaker, rock star, climate change scientist, and philosophy professor among other careers. Her family and love life fill the gamut from single, cohabitating, in romantic relationships, married, divorced, to widowed. Her friends are still in touch, grown apart, connected on social media, lost because of breakups, or are completely out of her life.

She is childless, had various miscarriages, has one or two children. She has plenty of pets, allergic to animals, or had pets that died. Her parents are divorced, widowed, still together, both dead, or out of her life. Her brother is estranged from her, supporting her, acting as her manager, alive, or dead. She can be healthy and destined to live a long life, sickly and dying, physically healthy but suffering from various psychiatric disorders, or caught in a serious catastrophic accident.

It's exhausting and also exhilarating keeping track of the various realities, moving along Nora’s life paths, understanding the changes, and finding out the knowledge and wisdom that she obtains from them. Each reality is different but tells a complete beautiful story of a woman receiving the opportunity to explore all of her potential lives to find the one that fulfills her the most.

That is the secret to the various realities. All of them have positive and negative aspects. One where she is rich and famous could also see her as depressed and suicidal. One where she married an ex boyfriend that she still has feelings for gives her lots of friends but various marital problems. 

One where she travels and sees many great places reveals that she experiences them alone. Another where she works for important humanitarian causes puts her in Nihilistic despair when she believes that nothing will improve. Even when she is in a mostly happy reality, there is something that she lost or gave up on. Even when a possibility leads to negative results, she can find something positive inside it. 

The point of the novel is not to find the perfect life or the life where Nora left the biggest impact. It's to find the possibilities that surround her and in turn us. It's for all of us to recognize the hardships and appreciate the pleasures. To find meaning and existence in living no matter the reality. To find everything instead of nothing. In my case, to find the meaning and possibility that exists in every story. All 1,000 of them.

The Dark Side of Dreams by Marjorie Kay Noble; What The Mirrors Knew by Linda Annas Ferguson

 The Dark Side of Dreams by Marjorie Kay Noble; What The Mirrors Knew by Linda Annas Ferguson 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

The Dark Side of Dreams by Marjorie Kay Noble

This review is a summary. The full review can be found on LitPick. 

Marjorie Kay Noble’s The Dark Side of Dreams is an astute, insightful, and vivid look at a future of simulated reality and corporate control. 

In the future where consciousness can be uploaded to a simulated afterlife called Shemathra’s Realm, Mira Patel uploads a digital copy of her grandfather Gunter Holden, protagonist of the book Babylon Dreams. She recruits her grandfather to help her fight the oppressive system controlling the real and virtual worlds. She also learns more about Gunter’s nefarious past which challenges her previous view of him.

The world that Mira lives in and Gunter saw the start of is one where gigantic corporations openly control everything and everybody from birth to beyond death. This is a sad situation that the current dictators created but Gunter also has to bear a lot of responsibility for what he openly caused and what he allowed to happen during his own climb to success. 

He is made to face many of the decisions that he made, the people that he hurt, the financial gain but emotional abandonment, and the corruption that occurred when he made the first choice but others took his ideas and made them worse. 

He has to make the choice to be the hero after death in simulated reality that he wasn't in life in the physical world.

Coming soon What The Mirrors Knew by Linda Annas Ferguson to here and Reader View

Saffron by Justin Hughes; Spooky, Sinister, and Strange Supernatural Psychological Horror

 

Saffron by Justin Hughes; Spooky, Sinister, and Strange Supernatural Psychological Horror

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery 

Spoilers: Justin Hughes’s potentially supernatural horror novel Saffron is not overly scary so much as it is eerie and ominous. It concerns a situation that could be supernatural or psychological. We are encountering a protagonist who is either seeing ghosts or losing his sanity.

Toby, a British boarding school going teen, suffered tremendous loss and is depressed. He sees a strange saffron figure in the distance. As the figure gets closer, Toby thinks that this figure is stalking him. However his friends and family don't see anything and wonder if he is heading towards a psychotic break.

This book depends on a sense of eeriness in an unknown situation not so much with ghosts or other creatures that are upfront with a history. The figure is the main horror in the novel. It begins gradually and grows into an overwhelming presence in Toby's life. 

The book alternates between Toby's point of view and those of other characters. Some of the creepiest chapters are the ones told by Toby's friends. They see their friend looking in a specific direction and yell at something to keep away from him or suddenly quake with fear. 

When they ask him what's wrong, he doesn't tell them for fear that they think that he is going crazy (though he is running that risk anyway). His friends can't help because they can't see or hear anything. Is Toby losing his mind?

In their defense, Toby has suffered from emotional turmoil. His father and brother died and he, his mother, and sister are having a difficult time coping. In fact, Toby prefers to be at school than at home.

He also has difficulties at school and with his classmates. Besides their concerns about Toby's sanity, there are several love shapes going on. A female friend of Toby’s has a crush on him, while he has a crush on another female friend, who is dating a boy, who is also attracted to an older guy.

All of these relationships hover around Toby’s spectral encounters which increases his emotional instability and inability to confide in his friends and family about what's happening making him lonelier than ever.

What is haunting Toby isn't just this spectral figure. What is haunting him are the emotions that he feels and is unable to express: loneliness, isolation, alienation, anxiety, grief. The feelings that one gets when they are surrounded by people and yet feel like they are the last person on Earth. He is isolated not just by this figure but by himself.

Spies Among Us An Alex Boyd Thriller by Mel Harrison; The Warrior Strong Manifesto by Karen Bentley; Flamingo Express by Kenneth D. Michaels

 

Spies Among Us (An Alex Boyd Thriller) by Mel Harrison; The Warrior Strong Manifesto: The Path to Power Based on The Ancient Shamanic Strategy of Life Energy Conservation by Karen Bentley 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spies Among Us (An Alex Boyd Thriller) by Mel Harrison 

This review is a summary. The full review is on LitPick. 

Spies Among Us is a tight well constructed spy thriller with fascinating characters, particularly the main protagonists and antagonists. It's great for readers who are looking for an action novel to keep their blood pumping in suspense during hot summer days.

Alex Boyd, senior special agent with the Diplomatic Security Service and his wife Rachel Smith are assigned to London because of her job as a political officer with the State Department and the U.S. Embassy. Unfortunately, all is not well as anomalies, misinformation, inconsistencies, and leaked news occur. 

Alex and Rachel believe that an insider is passing highly confidential information to Russian spies. However their investigations reveal that the informants and the spies are closer than they thought and those revelations could put them in danger.

The main spy thriller plot is well organized and carries the usual transfer of information, secret messages, surprise allegiances, dubious identities, plot twists, deception, cliffhangers, dangerous situations, betrayal, and fractured relationships when the truth is found out. 

This is a two character narrative. Alex and Rachel are a happily married couple that use their intelligence and expertise in Special Services and the State Department to solve this crisis.Their contributions to different facets of the case are augmented by their repartee and romantic life. 

 Thanks to the characters' relationship, Spies Among Us is both an action thriller and a love story. 

The WarriorSTRONG Manifesto: The Path to Power Based on The Ancient Lost Shamanic Strategy of Life Energy Conservation by Karen Bentley 

Karen Bentley’s personal development book is a written declaration to create strategic beliefs and life force energy-saving principles exclusive to warriors. This approach is so readers can find their own inner strength and fight their personal struggles by unleashing their inner warrior.

The book encourages readers to open up the warrior's strategy by saving life energy and opening up personal power. Bentley provides tips on how one can discover and use their personal power through actions like journaling, maintaining awareness, and developing inner, emotional, and physical/nutritional strengths. 

Chapters include information on the Warrior's Strategy, Mission, and Mindset, The WarriorSTRONG Advantage, Stop Wasting Your Life, Become Harmless, Calm Yourself Down, Eliminate What You Don't Want, Solve Your Problem, Ask For It, A New Forgiveness, Use the Warriorsdailycode to Discipline Yourself, and Do You Hear The Warrior's Call?

This book emphasizes taking action, living in moderation, being in emotional control, facing adversity and hardships, opening communication, atoning for mistakes, making clear plans, and having the determination and fortitude to succeed. 

Flamingo Express (A Nick and Norm Gay Detective Series Book) by Kenneth D. Michaels

This is a summary. The entire review is on Reader Views.

If ever there was a book written this year that is more perfect for summertime beach reading than Kenneth D. Michaels’ Flamingo Express, part of his Nick and Norm Gay Detective Series, then they had better have the sun shining from every page. 

Nick and Norm, detective partners, are recovering from their last case. They go to visit their friends, Jojo and Lola, in Key West, Florida. They are recruited to solve a string of fentanyl overdose deaths and the kidnapping of two flamingos, Lucy and Desi who are the star attractions at The Bird House.

The book has many excellent qualities and one of them is the Key West setting. Like authors of other murder mysteries where the protagonists are in a new location, Michaels takes great care in turning Key West into a character itself.

The setting isn't the only bright spot in the book. The mystery plot is pretty straightforward with the usual clues, interviews with witnesses and suspects, cliffhangers, suspense, plot twists, and resolution. 

The book sparkles with plenty of wit and charm from the cast of characters. Nick and Norm are more than just dedicated mystery solvers and a witty comedy duo. They are loyal friends. Nick has a serious subplot which involves trauma from previous cases and Norm tries to help him through.

Flamingo Express is perfect for adult mystery fans to read during hot summer nights, in airplanes, in hotels and vacation spots, or just sitting at home in an air conditioned house. It's witty, comical, warm, touching, suspenseful, and has plenty of fun and sunshine. 

Illusion of Time by Omar Hamoud; Strange Beautiful Philosophical Literary Fiction Novel

 Illusion of Time by Omar Hamoud; Strange Beautiful Philosophical Literary Fiction Novel 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Illusion of Time by Omar Hamoud is a beautiful transformative philosophical novel that touches on various subjects like time, memory, death, fatalism, destiny, spirituality, and whether we are truly in charge of our lives or a part of someone else's design.

The book covers two lives who are connected on the same day in 1967. As restaurateur William Van Dyck dies of natural causes in Charlotte, North Carolina, Andrian Davis is born in New York City. Throughout the book, we are treated to the lives of both men and they seem to be linked. It's never stated why specifically but they seem to share minds, souls, memories, and experiences.

My copy of the book has no transition between William and Andrian's stories. No long white space, no separation of paragraphs, no subheads. Nothing that separates one story from another. Just jumps from Andrian to William and back again.

Now that could be a mistake in formatting or just found in the Advanced Review Copy but it could be intentional. It might be a way of forcing the reader to pay attention to the transitions through time and William and Andrian’s individual accounts. It tells us that even though they have different experiences and separate beliefs and perspectives, they are essentially the same soul living the same story. Each man is just taking half of it.

This is a book that captures both the real and the abstract. Ordinary lives intersect with esoteric discussions about what connections might mean in the deuteragonist’s lives, what their lives mean, or what anyone's life means for that matter.

Mostly these facets are found in William and Andrian who represent the split between the physical and the metaphysical, the material and the spirit, the body and the mind, what we can see and experience with our five senses, and what we think and believe with our extra senses. William represents one side and Andrian represents the other.

William’s life from his birth in 1893 Belgium to his death is one of poverty, abandonment, and desperate financial need.His mother abandoned him and his father lost himself to alcohol and self pity. 

William was raised with a brother who resorted to theft to earn a living and a sister who was the closest thing to a mother figure that he ever had. This exposure to loss and poverty propelled him to pursue financial earthly gain at any cost.

Andrian was also shaped by his upbringing but to follow a different path. His parents were baffled by his genius intellect, vivid dreams, and questions about Biblical characters and teachings that challenged their Christian faith. He isn't isolated by circumstances around him but more by people who don't know what to do with this brilliant but baffling child. 

His primary source of encouragement is from his uncle who follows the boy's education and career development for his own personal avaricious interests. This exposure to intellectual curiosity and human weakness propels him to pursue scientific knowledge and clear answers at any cost.

Their chosen professional lives are also indicative of their life paths. William's work in farming, meat preparation, and the restaurant business are about keeping people fed, providing sustenance, and attending to people's basic needs. It's the type of professional life for someone whose focus is on the things of the physical world that can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted.

 Andrian's work in physics and psychology are about studying the deep philosophical questions, providing knowledge and wisdom through learning and research, finding out why people live the lives that they did, what dreams they had, and what messaged the higher consciousness is sending. It's the type of professional life for someone whose focus is on the mental and spiritual worlds that can be learned, studied, experienced, thought, and believed.

Both men have circles of friends, lovers, siblings, and others who are drawn by their character. William’s wife and friends are drawn to his strength, determination, and earthiness. Andrian's friends and wife are drawn by his acceptance and intuitive intelligence. 

If they ever met, William would probably see a stuffy egghead that he wouldn't understand half the things that he was saying but would appreciate his understanding and the long interesting talks they would have. Andrian would probably see a blunt instrument who operates on emotion but would be touched by his devotion to those around him.

They don't meet in life or death nor do they know about each other but their lives connect in various ways. They share similar problems like conflicts with an older sibling and betrayal from an older mentor or parental figure. They marry similar women who are supportive but aren't afraid to disagree with or call them out. Deaths of loved ones cause them to spiral into Depression for a time. 

They also share much deeper connections that aren't shared in the mortal world but through the metaphysical. Andrian has dreams of various moments in William's life that could be past life regression or evidence of reincarnation. However, what muddies this interpretation is that William has flash forward dreams and thoughts of Andrian! 

Even though William was mostly a practical man of the physical world, higher curious thoughts entered his head. As Andrian experienced many similar earthly experiences of family, friends, and work William experienced some of Andrian's intellectual curiosity and academic research. His dreams of Andrian confuse him and he questions his life path and higher consciousness. 

Since William lacks the education and scholastic research, they are mostly stagnant thoughts pushed aside for reality. Towards the end of his life, William wonders if someone will have the answers. Little did he know but might have imagined that someone would be born on his death day.

There is an interesting theory that Andrian poses towards the end about what this connection means. In the book's universe anyway, it seems to be the right one but up to a point which sends the book spiraling to another direction. It pushes the book’s themes of interconnectivity and the split between mind and body to a higher level. 

Most of the book suggests that we are made by memories, dreams, time, social circles, choices, education, and experiences. This theory suggests that our paths are not made by us but by a greater design and higher power. It is disconcerting for this theme to be thrown in the last couple of chapters without time to dwell on it further into the novel. Though it is suggested that's why William and Andrian's lives are so parallel in some ways and so divided in others.

However, it is left open ended whether this theory is correct even within the narrative. Like many great philosophical novels, Illusion of Time invites the readers to inquire, discover their own views, provide their own answers, and ask questions about their own lives. We ask who made us the people that we are, some outside force or ourselves? 

Where The Sweet Vines Grow by Sadie Sloan; Ominous and Plutonian Psychological Thriller Features Teen Victims and Their Perpetrators

 

Where The Sweet Vines Grow by Sadie Sloan; Ominous and Plutonian Psychological Thriller Features Teen Victims and Their Perpetrators 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: There is something more genuinely threatening in a Psychological Thriller when the victims are kids and teenagers than when they are adults.

There is always a terrifying edge when such a book goes into the mind of an assailant and their traumatized victim. Many characters and readers wonder why this happened and what in their youth could have happened that created this situation. Somehow the wondering becomes sharper when this situation happens to a young character who hasn't even reached their twenties.

 That is what happens in Where The Sweet Vines Grow, Sadie Sloan’s ominous and plutonian psychological thriller about a series of kidnapped teen girls, the perpetrators behind the abductions, and the trauma that is inflicted.

Willow Alves moves from her mother's home to her father's dairy farm in Modesto. She is introduced to Julian and Roman Sullivan, heirs to the Sweet Vine Winery and the wealthiest family in the area. She is attracted to the charming Roman Sullivan who has had an active love life. While out on a date with Roman, Willow becomes the victim of a serious crime. 

The book pulls no punches in describing how a young girl can be made vulnerable by the manipulations and intentions of those around her. The conflict between Willow and her perpetrators are that of appearance and reality, deception and truth, maturity and innocence, predator and victim. It's also a metaphor of the conflicts between men and women and how they are shaped by the society around them. 

The teen years are a time of experimentation and raw emotions because brains haven't fully developed. That doesn't occur until they reach their early twenties. This is among the many reasons that 18 and 21 are considered the legal adult age.

 They are hormonal, emotional, argumentative, surly, vulnerable, arrogant, self-centered, immature and hopelessly naive. This age span makes them easily susceptible to manipulative tactics that predators use. The tactics could be used to turn them into predators, prey, or both.

Willow is an example of such a teen. She has had a difficult home life: divorced parents, an alcoholic mother abdicating responsibility, and a loving but distant and overwhelmed father. She also had a previous relationship with a 22 year old at age 16, so her history of toxic relationships is apparent. She is the type of kid who is stressed and looking to belong and be accepted. 

Willow makes some new friends like Craig, a nice guy who flirts with her but accepts the friend zone and Tangy, a saucy mouthy girl who has her own reasons for disliking the Sullivans. Willow feels safe around them but she is drawn to Roman Sullivan.

Roman is charming, charismatic, and the typical popular rich athletic kid. He is somewhat full of himself but is the type of guy that girls can't resist. He has had several girlfriends in the past and while that is a source of gossip, no one pays much attention to his love life.

There is the difference between Willow and Roman that is found all over the book. Willow had one previous relationship when she was certainly too young to weigh options to give serious informed consent. This aftermath leads to a rupture in her family and separation. It becomes part of her identity and is the source of gossip at her new home and school.

Roman however has had several romances, some with girls who no longer live in Modesto. Something serious must have happened to them since they are no longer here to defend themselves. While he is considered suspicious particularly by Tangie and Willow's father, nothing happens to him except the occasional rumor and gossip.

 In fact, Roman’s reputation makes him more alluring while Willow’s wards people off. Willow and Roman’s reputations are microcosms of how men can get away with being open about their sexuality but women are held under scrutiny if they are not as pure as the driven snow.

One of the eeriest things that occur throughout the book is that Willow is left unprepared when she is a victim of a serious crime. She is told what to wear, how to behave, not to drink too much, not to be too open, not to reveal too much, and who to stay away from. The type of advice that many women are told and then victim blamed for if they are attacked.

What this advice fails to recognize is that many perpetrators don't need or require such patterns to attack. If they want someone, they will take them. It won't matter what their victims wear or how they behave. If the perpetrator is skilled just like in this book, they will find a way in. Also as long as the victim is blamed for their behavior, the perpetrator or perpetrators will find other means to capture them and probably get away with it too.

The book has some interesting twists that challenge the perceptions in this book over who is guilty and who is innocent, how involved  people are in crime, what is often condemned and what is ignored. The final chapters make some chilling observations.

If these crimes continue with other faces and other names without condemnation is the whole system corrupt and complicit in allowing them to continue? Are our perceptions of males and females to blame in creating predators and prey and are they shaped by the exposure towards those perceptions in our youth?