The Vampire Of Highgate by Asa Bailey: Review

The Vampire of Highgate
By Asa Bailey
Published July 7th 2012 by Hodder Children's Book
Pick up your copy at B&N, Amazon, or your local indie today!
Synopsis borrowed from Goodreads:

Kathy is an innocent, an outsider who longs to belong somewhere. Anywhere. Dreams of her half-sister Amber and of the centuries old Highgate Vampire are taking her to places she doesn't want to go. Kathy can't stop the sequence of events. If her nightmares and reality collide, the Highgate Vampire will come to take her soul...

Darkfallen's thoughts:

Welcome to the story of the Highgate Vampire...

Kathy has spent her entire life in New York being raised be her two adoptive parents, and aside from being adopted has she is just your normal girl. That is until she starts having weird dreams about her sister that she hasn't seen since she was a baby. Dreams that her sister is in trouble and needs her help. The only problem is that her sister lives in London. Doing what she feels she has to Kathy goes to London after a mysterious book shows up in the mail from her sister. A book in a weird language that she can't even read. All she knows is she has to try and save her sister, but from what? Landing herself in the in a world of vampires can Kathy save her sister? Or will she fall to the same fate at the hand of the Highgate Vampire?

This isn't your swoon worthy vampire novel. No these vampires are the things of nightmares and legends. All fangs, blood, and thirst! And the same goes for this book. With page after page of suspense and running for your life from blood crazed vampires this book brings back the traditional vampires we loved to be scared of in Anne Rice novels. I loved how the story kept me on the edge of my seat, and even scared me a few times. It was a nice change of pace from our cuddlepires that we all swoon over these days.

The only thing that is keeping this from getting 5 stars is the the way it was written. The story is told from Kathy's POV and she is from New York, yet the whole book sounds like it is being told from a Brit's POV. Yes I get that the story takes place in London, but Kathy wouldn't talk like she was from there being that she has never left the United States until she flew over to find her sister. Personally I just think it should have a more American accent to it. And say things like "tennis shoes" instead of "trainers", or "flashlight" instead of "torch". Again I only say this because it is being told by Kathy and she is, as the Brits would say, a Yankee; therefore I think the story should be told like one.

Other than that this was a great, fast read with vampires that just mught keep you up at night.

Lymi...



Guest Post with Asa Bailey/The Vampire of Highgate Giveaway!

Today we sit down with author Asa Bailey to get a look at the folklore that inspried her new book, The Vampire of Highgate.

AND....one lucky winner will get their own finished copy of the book!

But first...the story behind the story, with Asa Bailey.

Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated with the bizarre the fantastic and of course the dark. When I was introduced to the legend of The Highgate Vampire I was inspired by how it was a modern dark legend, one that had taken hold on the internet and throughout it's life it had used the media to spread itself - like vampirism is - this legend itself is a virus. In the age of the Internet local folk lore can go viral and grow into something that previously was not possible.

I wanted to create a world not just a story, given the chance I had been given, to write a novel I wanted to expand on the mythology of the vampire and add to its world. When I dug deeper into the Highgate Vampire legend and the areas folk lore, I found that the stories of the undead walking in the Highgate area was not something new, in fact it went back further and further in time.

The area around Highgate woods was once a Roman burial ground and is known to be one of London's oldest mass grave sites. The area has inspired stores of ghosts vampires and demons for centuries. It's maybe one of the reasons that Bram Stocker visited it for inspiration for Dracula. I took the legend right back in time, tracing it to it's roots that lead me back to biblical times. Here's why.
With a cast of modern characters charged with digging up the legend of The Highgate Vampire, I wanted to use my creative license to connect the king of the vampires to the blood line of Christ - to create a whole new vampire mythology, to give readers a richer and alternative vampire world. In the World of Highgate the vampire started with Aliza drinking the blood of Jesus, he was given the power of immortality and in these early beginnings Aliza was in fact the leader of a new religion, the Vampires. But as the times passed and the opposed religions of Christianity and Islam rose up the vampires became hidden, down trodden even and this was the turning point in vampire history that sent them along the fork in the road, one towards anger, malice and eventually the evil we see in them today.

Obviously vampires are dark and sexy, but why. This was where my thinking began.

Best

Asa Bailey

http://highgatevampire.com

And now that you know how it all started it's time to win a copy of the book so you can see how it all ends! One lucky winner will get a finished copy of the book. All you have to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form below. This is open internationally!!

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