Fans of the Twilight Saga and Buffy the Vampire Slayer will enjoy Cynthia Leitich Smith’s debut into dark fantasy.
Quincie Morris has never felt more alone. Her hybrid-werewolf first love threatens to embark on a rite of passage that will separate them forever. And just as she and her uncle are about to unveil Austin’s red-hot vampire-themed restaurant, a brutal murder leaves them scrambling for a chef. Can Quincie transform the new hire, Henry Johnson, into a culinary Dark Lord before opening night? Will he be able to wow the crowd in fake fangs, a cheap cape, and red contact lenses? Or is there more to this earnest fresh face than meets the eye? As human and preternatural forces clash, a deadly love triangle forms and the line between predator and prey begins to blur. Who’s playing whom? And how long can Quincie play along before she loses everything?
With her chef murdered and her missing shape-shifter boyfriend the prime suspect, Quincie, age 17, has a month to open Sanguini's, a vampire-themed restaurant. There's just too much on her plate, which is the same problem that plagues this overly ambitious supernatural thriller. The stew of overdone plot twists and subtexts thwarts narrator Kim Guest's valiant efforts to save this doomed romance. After a suspenseful opening chapter, Guest finds few opportunities to vocalize Quincy's grief, worry, and fear. The campy atmosphere at Sanguini's undermines the serious murder mystery, forcing Guest to portray Quincie as a confident young woman more stressed about revamping the restaurant than by the genuine vampires invading the neighborhood. A good narrator can't spice up what should have been a tantalizing story. M.M.O. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
