Vande Velde, Vivian - Companions of the Night

[oyceter]

Several people recced this to me, particularly after I read Twilight.

This is up there with Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss as one of the more interesting takes on vampires, particularly if you're a bit fed up with the Anne Rice-an broody angsty vampires (Peeps is also a cool take, but I think the Klause and this will appeal to the same people). I am a huge vampire fan, but because of that, I am rather sick of the usual romantic, dark and painfully emo vampires that I usually get in fiction.

Kerry accidentally gets involved with the affairs of vampires and vampire hunters one night at the laundromat, and she ends up spending most of the book attempting to be helpful enough to a vampire so he won't just kill her.

I really loved the vampires in this book; they actually feel like they've lived for quite some time, as opposed to psychologically being a high school student for centuries. I particularly loved the moral ambiguity of the book, that the threat to Kerry felt real and immediate, and the lack of romanticization. This is what a vampire-human relationship might work out if vampires were real.

Kerry herself is also a neat character; she has realistic reactions to the reveal of vampires, and Vande Velde does a great job of portraying how shock has Kerry both terrified and strangely pragmatic, often at the same time.

On the other hand, I'm not quite sure if I completely buy the ending, but I did enough to enjoy the book, or as much as you can enjoy a tense thriller that never holds back on the sense of danger. I think I'll be looking for more of the author's books now.

Comments

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

OK, you sold me enough to request it through the library. :-)

[oyceter]

Whoo! As Mely says, world domination via book recs!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Oooh, now I'm regretting not buying it the other week... Maybe I'll pick it up when I go out to get Wicked Lovely, which I have been ordered to read.

[oyceter]

Oooo, I will check that one out too..

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Remember in the bookshop with the furless cat, I got all excited about finding a book that I thought might be the angstiest thing ever, based on the sample chapter in the back of the first book? That was Vande Velde's The Changeling Prince. Sadly, nothing in the rest of the book topped or even equalled the angst of the first chapter.

(In which the protagonist is a werewolf living in an incredibly abusive household headed by a witch who has taken a bunch of animals and transformed them into weres. He keeps waking up with blood all over his mouth and no memory, and then the other weres tell him he ate a little girl, etc, and he has no way to tell if they're serious or not. Also in the first chapter, he gets caught in a bear trap and almost freezes, and then his mother-figure, the witch, agonizingly heals him, and then all the other weres bully him while he's too weak to fight back.)

[oyceter]

I had completely forgotten! I am sad that the angst doesn't continue, although given your description, I think I would end up melting into a puddle of despair if I ever read that.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

This is definitly my favorite of her books. A close second (though I haven't reread in quite a while, so my recollection might be off) is Dragon Bait. I found that some of her other work isn't quite as strong. That the problems in Companions of the Night are a little more pronounced in some of her weaker books. But she's still generally a strong, enjoyable read.

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks! Glad to have a place to start; I was a bit daunted by her backlist.

[tatterpunk.livejournal.com]

I second the rec for Dragon's Bait -- haven't read Companions yet but that's my favorite of her books so far. It's a really marvelous twist on the "maiden sacrifice to beastie" tale.

[oyceter]

Gotcha, thanks!