Nightblood by T. Chris Martindale

 

If you're in the mood for an action-packed vampire story that is darkly funny, wildly violent, at points crude, and non-stop fun, have I got a recommendation for you!

Chris Stiles is (cue gravelly voiceover) "a Vietnam veteran they couldn't kill" whose dead brother's ghost leads him to a small Indiana town to hunt down some unknown evil. 

Bart and Del are stepbrothers dared to spend the night at the old Danner house, abandoned for almost a century after rumors of a gruesome double homicide. 

They don't find any ghosts, though. They find a walled up vampire! And he's thirsty! And EVIL.  

The book pretty much explodes from there, Stiles unloading bullets from his impressive arsenal and the boys wielding nunchaku and Molotov cocktails while they gather a militia of townsfolk. Martindale writes with gusto and glee and his descriptions are cinematic. See here this vision:

"There was a demon in the road. It stood backlit by hellspawned flame, its wings folding and unfolding restlessly, its impossibly long arms drooped at its sides and reaching all the way to the ankles." The light shifts, and it is revealed to be Chris with billowing overcoat tails and two shotguns. Look out vampires! 

Speaking of which, this is not the book to read if you want sensitive, moody vampires struggling with the ethical dilemma of blood-sucking. These are monsters of insatiable hunger and that's it. Once your friend, girlfriend, or neighbor is turned, the only thing they need is to be staked, beheaded, shot up with silver, or burned. Or all of the above. Often, all of the above. 

I wasn't sure how I'd like Nightblood, to be honest. It's very macho. But it's also a complete blast and well-written and I loved it. I'm thrilled that indie publisher Valancourt Books is re-publishing horror gems from the 70s-90s with their Paperbacks from Hell line and I'm excited to add a few to the library's collection. 

-Michael G.

Change by Edouard Louis

"What I'm writing shouldn't be seen as a story of the birth of a writer but as the birth of freedom, of being uprooted at all costs from a hated past." - Edouard Louis

Though it began with a sordid scene I would have preferred not to witness - which the author returns to later in the book with more context - this autobiographical novel quickly became engaging reading. It is about an extreme makeover - not as much in the physical sense - though there is a little bit of that - as in transforming the author's entire persona through enormous, unrelenting effort as he grows into young adulthood. 

This is not a story of someone maturing by way of the usual developmental milestones of life. Edouard Louis (the character shares the name of the author) spent his early years in an impoverished, intellectually empty, emotionally abusive, alcohol-soaked environment in a rural French village steeped in xenophobia and homophobia, the latter of which was a daily source of cruelty to him. He didn't learn even the most basic table manners, and sometimes had to beg for food for the family and to ask officials at his public school to reduce incidental fees because his parents were too embarrassed to do these things when they couldn't pay for things. The homophobic hostility he experienced from family, schoolmates and strangers, while deeply cutting, was also what propelled him to a better life. He becomes the only person in his family to be educated beyond primary school.

In his early twenties, Edouard found that the more educated he became, the more he realized he didn't know - and yearned to know. He couldn't overcome a sense that he had to continually do more to catch up to what others knew. So he read constantly - all the great writers and all the books recommended by friends - finishing a new book about every other day. 

He is tested by the world again and again, sometimes in ways that leave him feeling humiliated. Those sometimes humbling tests and their accompanying setbacks made him increasingly determined to elevate his life and in doing so, to once and for all sever himself from the hostile, oppressive home town milieu that he often feared would reclaim him and drag him back down. How he finally resolved this dilemma for himself comes at the end of the book.

I found it fascinating to accompany Edouard Louis and witness his phenomenal transformation from poorly educated, uncultured working class boy to Paris sophisticate mingling with royalty at that city's most exclusive dinner parties, and ultimately to globally recognized author whose work has been translated into several languages. He succeeded due to dogged determination to continually educate and refine himself, and he did so in a remarkably short time. All the while his parents rejected him and the direction his life was taking him. 

What resonated most with me and kept me reading was Edouard's forthright manner both in writing his story and in his interactions with everyone he met during his ascendancy. He has a knack for attracting people and forging friendships with sympathetic, caring, accomplished and wealthy people who help mentor him along the way and want him to succeed. There is some sexual exploitation in a few of these relationships but in most of them there is encouragement, generosity and solid friendship. This is undoubtedly due to Edouard's openness about his embarrassing upbringing without any self pity or intent to manipulate others. He's a likeable human being whose transparency in relationships helps propel him forward while he works like hell to achieve a life makeover.       

This is one extreme makeover, and  it was very satisfying to see this man overcome such a dead-end, mean start in life. For this gay writer, it truly did get better. His book tells how he made that happen. 

Reviewed by Marianne W

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Lauren has an interesting problem.

After coming home to her London flat from her best friend's bachelorette party, still a little drunk, she discovers that she has a husband. Except he definitely wasn't there when she left for the evening, and she definitely doesn't remember marrying him, despite what the wedding photos on her mantel and saved in her phone might suggest. Then, just as suddenly, this husband goes up into the attic to change a lightbulb, and a new husband appears on his way back down.

And so begins one of the strangest years of Lauren's life.

Equipped with a seemingly magic attic and a never ending supply of husbands, Lauren cycles through different versions of herself, based on the husband that emerges from her attic. Sometimes they barely have time to settle in before she sends them back up to try another. Sometimes she sticks with them for a little, trying them on to see if they fit (if you're getting dating app vibes from this, you're not wrong). Each new husband resets her life - oftentimes, it's cosmetic, like different paint colors and decorations in her flat, but sometimes it results in more seismic changes, like her sister suddenly single with no children, or a different job that she has no idea how to do. While her life resets with each new husband, time continues to move forward and Lauren begins to wrestle with some hard questions. Chief among them is this - how do you know you're making the right decision when the possibility of something better is just a short trip into the attic away?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The author, Holly Gramazio, is a game designer, and I think her skills in writing games lent themselves well in how this story plays out (pun absolutely intended). Like a game, we're dropped into the action right away, as we meet Lauren just minutes before she meets her first husband. As the story continues, more information is teased out. Sometimes it's small things, like Lauren figuring out that switching husbands wipes out any bad decision-making (which she absolutely takes advantage of), and sometimes it's big things, like when she figures out that her attic isn't just creating husbands. One of things that struck me about this story has to do with the fact that Lauren always gains a husband, and never just a long-term relationship, or fiancé (though once, the husband is someone she is about to divorce). There's something interesting about the idea of skipping out on all of those early relationship struggles, but now having to suddenly deal with the struggles of being married, and Lauren realizes that too, to a certain extent. In true magical realism form, not everything is explained - the magic attic just is, and there isn't an explanation as to why this is happening to Lauren. That didn't bother me, but I know that could be a turnoff for others. Lauren also has to sometimes go to extremes to get the husband back into the attic, and some of the decisions she makes in those moments will either be funny or shocking, depending on how you feel. I did find Lauren to be relatable and sympathetic, but we also don't get a full sense of who she is outside of this particular moment in time. Ultimately, I thought this was a fun read, and it has stuck with me since I finished it a few weeks ago, so I highly recommend it!

- Amy R.

P.S. Holly Gramazio designed her very own husbands generator and published it online, in case anyone wants their own taste of the magic attic: https://www.hollygramazio.com/husbandsgenerator/row.html#96113. I think I'll stick with this one for awhile: