Changed into a vampire by her step-grandfather and cast adrift upon the world, Anna falls in love and loses everything many times. Now a preschool teacher to the children of the wealthy, Collette becomes entangled in the troubled life of one of her students.
Why do I keep striking out with vampire books? I’ve read a variety of takes on vampires, so I don’t think it’s not any particular trope that’s throwing me off. Maybe I just can’t take them and their existential angst seriously enough. And Anna/Anya/Collette’s got plenty of that.
We start off with a bang, with a scene Anna and her brother being forced to consume the ashes of their father in a misguided cure for their tuberculosis (which is a thing that really happened in 1830s New England!). This sequence, as well some others such as Anna’s interlude with Paul and the children’s visit to the graveyard, are compelling little vignettes enlivened by lovely writing. The author has a knack for painting vivid scenes, which is doubly enjoyable since Anna is an accomplished artist.
However, the book is overlong for the amount of plot its got, and out of the many characters Anna runs into only a couple ever really make an impression. I also found myself utterly bored and somewhat uncomfortable with the preschool storyline – Collette’s relationship with Leo and Katherine is dark and tangled, but the way she becomes consumed in their drama was unintentionally disturbing for me, and so the ending was anything but cathartic. I also found myself frustrated by how much the author glossed over without explanation – how Collette reunited with her grandfather and came back to New England, for example, and the puzzle of her increased hunger throughout the whole book.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.