Amazon Dancing with the Moon - Trafford Publishing Category:  Horror Publisher: Trafford Publishing ISBN-10:  1412000866 Type: Fiction Pages: 309 Copyright: June, 2003 ISBN-13: 9781412000864 Amy Cavanaugh is a very special 13 year old girl whose grandmother has a rather dark secret. Amy's grandmother is a vampire. From the shadows, an old enemy of her grandmother's emerges to threaten Amy and seperate her from the only person who has ever loved or protected her. Amy Cavanaugh is a special 13 year old girl in the small town of East River, Connecticut.  Her greatest dream is to be a ballerina, just like her loving grandmother was when she was her age.  Little does Amy know that there's is so much more to her Grammy than meets her eye.  Amy's grandmother happens to be a vampire. From Colette Paul-Michelle's past comes an ancient enemy, from within her own bloodline, destined to take from her an ancient relic.  This relic, the "Dragon's Tear" necklace, has been a blessing to her and her grand-daughter, Amy, who is protected by its strange magic and guarded by its spiritual aura.  There life had been only peaceful and relatively happy until Colette's mysterious enemy showed up in East River. A trap is being set and Amy becomes the precious bait to lure Colette out with her precious gemstone.  Can Colette rescue Amy from the grasp of her enemy, or is Amy doomed to become immortally damned and live out her worst possible nightmares? Find out in the first installment of the Dragon's Tear Chronicle.

Dancing with the Moon: The Dragon's Tear Chronicle 1
The first book in an intriguing vampire/fantasy trilogy tips its hat to Charles Dickens, Anne Rice, Bram Stoker, Lemony Snicket, and Harry Potter, but this time Harry's counterpart is a mentally disabled but suspiciously wise (of course) 13-year-old girl, whose special magic is a boundless optimism not unlike Troy Tomler's in Troy's Amazing Universe: M For Mall. Mental disability, a topic no one likes to think about, gets a mature treatment in contemporary literature (and in this case far more believable than "Forrest Gump"). David Conlin McLeod combines this with a riveting, action-packed, well-planned-out vampire blood war, and the tender portrayal of a girl's relationship with her vampire grandmother.

Thirteen-year-old Amy Cavanaugh doesn't know that in addition to being mentally handicapped because of her father Adam (who gets the Mike Tyson Award for violence and immaturity and the Enron Award for greed), she's the target of centuries-old vendetta against her loving grandmother Colette, transformed by being bitten by a vampire in WWII France. It seems the vampire elders, including one Whitworth, dislike anyone getting into their vampires-only club, and for Whitworth in particular, a would-be Viktor Frankenstein, the idea of a female receiving immortality is particularly disgusting. Interestingly, in a subtle comment on sexism and prejudice, Amy's father Adam creates the mental handicap he so loathes because Amy isn't the son he desired.

But Amy and Colette, through their deep affection, prove stronger than sexism, ancient blood feuds, Whitworth's Stepford house of horrors in England, and Whitworth's gruesome creation that hunts Amy and her Colette-sent protectors, a pair of ancient gypsy vampires named Tsigane and Moon, who find Amy's personality more powerful than Colette's magical Dragon's Tear jewel, a mysterious artifact from a sinister vampire bloodline that Colette promises to Moon. Amy's ability to see the truth, her pure love, and her passion for dancing transform lovers Moon and Tsigane so that they emerge as fully rounded dimensional people, not just the stereotypical evil vampires, although there are plenty of vampire villains. The riveting surprise cliffhanger ending makes us, like Amy, eager to continue the dance with the moon.

Reviewer, Kristin Johnson, is the author of CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING, co-written with Mimi Cummins. Her third book, ORDINARY MIRACLES: My Incredible Spiritual, Artistic and Scientific Journey, co-written with Sir Rupert A.L. Perrin, M.D., will be published by PublishAmerica in 2004.