Book talk: Fighting vampires is in Micheline's blood. It's been the family business ever since Van Helsing fought Dracula, and her bloodline gives her a distinct advantage: the ability to see the aura of the undead. For her, exorcising ghosts and shooting vampires is just another day in the office. Micheline and her crew respond to emergency calls armed to the teeth with weapons both mundane and specialized, including a modified camera that can capture the spiritual energy of ghosts. But for Micheline a bad day at the office doesn't mean a paper jam. It results in her and her crew getting infected with a soulchain that will kill them in a week or less, unless they can exorcise the ghost that cursed them. With new purpose and higher stakes than ever before, Micheline does what her family has been doing for centuries: she hunts.
Rave: This is a fantastic horror story. It pays homage to Dracula while creating its own world. The explanations of the science behind the supernatural elements is satisfyingly detailed instead of the typical hand-waving and explanation of "because magic". The horror elements are truly terrifying and the plot fast-paced, except for a few passages of backstory. I particularly enjoyed that it's set in the SF Bay Area.
Rant: The narrative got a bit overly dramatic at times and there were some cliched elements, but that's to be expected in a horror story.
Every book its reader: The book is pretty intense, but it should be perfect for horror fans and I don't know why someone who doesn't like horror would read it anyway. 8th grade and up.
Topics and Trends: SF Bay Area, Horror, Vampires, Ghosts, Supernatural,
Extras:
The wonderful Naiomi Bates has made a trailer for the book:
I found this great image with a quote:
Bonus Quotes:
“Bloodlines and last names didn't make a man extraordinary — the extraordinary existed in what we did in life, not in who we were.”
Source: public library
Shutter by Courtney Alameda
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