by Piper Maitland
Berkely NAL, $9.99, 537 pages
Acquainted with the Night is the story of Caroline Clifford who is searching for the murderer of her uncle. On her way to claim her uncle’s body she meets a biochemist name Jude and soon discovers he may know something about her uncle. Together they travel across Europe. When they find themselves in a cliff-side monastery in Greece, they make a shocking discovery; vampires are real.
This book was fantastic. A perfect blend of Dan Brown’s religious intrigue, Micheal Crichton’s scientific thriller, and Anne Rice’s vampire novels. The writing is wonderfully done, keeping the reader engaged, not letting go until the last page has turned. The science and explanation behind how vampires came to be and their folklore is believable, and by the end of the story, the reader finds they are checking over their shoulder to see if a vampire is close behind.
Although the book was phenomenal, there were a few minor shortcomings. With the story being so fast-paced, sometimes the author made leaps in the story, leaving the reader wondering how the story got from point A to point B. The vampire characters were also a little stereotypical, listening to heavy metal music and being obsessed with sex. From a highly creative author who thought up this story line, more care could have been given to deepen the vampire’s characters, and make them even more believable. ||All-in-all, this book started great and ended fantastically, never letting up for a second. Anyone who enjoys a good story and getting lost in a book will not regret picking it up.
Andrew Keyser