Evelyn is a newly minted vampire looking for love in all the wrong places.
It's cold and dark and Evelyn is in the morgue. In a drawer. She doesn't know how she got there, and Tammi, the morgue attendant who hustles her out into the night, doesn't have time to answer questions.
Evelyn has been robbed of the gift of immortality her absent lover promised her, and plunged instead, alone, into the night-time world of the vampire, where she must learn to survive alone.
Excerpt
I was cold when I woke up, and confused. I should be in my narrow bed in my dorm room at the Academy, where the window was a square of faint orange from the parking lot lights and another bright bar of light from the hall seeped in under the door. But it was too dark. Was the power out? It was so dark that I wasn't sure I had my eyes open at first, but then I blinked and my lashes brushed against something that was over my face. I moved my right hand to push it away and my fingers felt numb and cold. They brushed my thigh and I could barely feel either my thigh under my fingertips, or my fingers passing over my skin.
There was something over me and my first thought was that I was wrapped in silk like a spider's prey, silk spun by a giant spider with Simms' head, and each of its eight legs ended in a needle.
I was drifting off into a quicksand of unconsciousness and I deliberately pulled myself out of it.
I opened my mouth to speak, and pain lanced me in the side as I inhaled. It made me think of the crucifix hanging in the school chapel with a plaster Jesus bleeding from below his ribs. "Where...?" I whispered. My voice sounded like the rustle of tissue paper.
Rustling papers.
Papers, rustling, as Missus checks through them. She is seated behind the desk and Mister stands beside her beaming benevolently at me. Or is it leering?
I came to again with a sickening lurch. I had drifted off.
Professional Reviews
A great debut from a new author.
In this book we meet Evelyn, who's a young girl of mixed parentage, enrolled and about to graduate from an all-girl boarding school. Evelyn was sent away at a young age by her grandparents who were raising her. During her senior year, she decides to take piano lessons from the new professor after listening to tales and rumors by some of the other students. A choice that will have lifelong consequences.
I read this book in just a few days. I'm a big fan of Vampire books and this one was worth the purchase.
There were a few things I would have liked the author to explore in more detail, like more background on the characters but nothing that takes away from the story.
The story is primarily about Evelyn's journey into her new world which she immortalizes in the journals that she'd been filling for years. Part of that journey is finding and experiencing love. She soon finds out that not all love is healthy and sometimes hurts, physically hurts.
This is the first book in a series from a new indie author. I read a lot of books and primarily indie authors. In some cases it's not difficult to tell when a book was written by a new author but in this case I was happy to find a well written book with a great story and well written characters.
Highly Recommended
Evelyn's Journal is about vampires in the same way that Madame Bovary is about arsenic. It's worth reading even if you're not particularly interested in vampires. The title character is a young woman who had all of the physical comforts in life, but whose family was absent throughout her life. Becoming a vampire put the consequences of her upbringing into relief, and probably, eventually, was her primary humanizing influence.
Evelyn's Journal is the story of Evelyn's humanization, social recovery, perhaps even redemption after some pretty horrific choices. The world she inhabits is rich and interesting, the prose is rock-solid and concise, and the story moves at a good pace, with a gripping final act. The most interesting character certainly warrants a book of his own, which, lucky for us, is in the works.
Definitely Worth a Read- Vampires Have Feelings Too!
I cannot recall where, but I once read this wonderful piece online, more than 10 years ago. I have tried to find it online a few times since, because it, and its sequel, are quite compelling and beautifully written.
When I first read this novel, I was around the same age as Evelyn, and could empathize with her reasoning for doing silly teenage things, like whatever it took to make sure you got a guy's notice, and trying to please a guy to make him like you. Through Evelyn's Journal you get to travel not only as Evelyn, a teenage girl trying to figure life out, but also a creature that suddenly has to learn to live a much different life than she was accustomed to.
Grab those side-irons, saddle up and join former Civil War sharpshooter Luther Henry for a ride into pure terror, western-style…think ‘Wild Wild West’ meets ‘The X-Files’.
