LEECH david eveleigh

Playwright Jean Kerr once said “I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want - an adorable pancreas?”. But in the word of leech by David Eveleigh, vampire-like beings see, smell and hear humans inside and out—and so have very different notions of beauty. Thus reluctant paparazzi photographer “just pretty” Maria, becomes an unfortunate participant--and ultimately pawn--in a game of wits between a brave private investigator and an evil vampire king.

Leech is really a fairly straightforward horror/adventure story with a hero, hero’s girl, villain and minions and a small cast of secondary characters. It flirts with more adventurous themes such as what really makes one a parasite, but never gets very far into them. It toys with taking a new angle on vampires but uses them ultimately as a stock embodiment of evil. It strays somewhat into romance territory with the unusual decision to have Maria be the point of view character for much of the middle of the book, but its culmination of the story is the triumph of hero over villain not love over adversity.

Leech is a very readable vampire novel with hints of greater ambitions but, in my estimation, the different between good and great is the willingness to take at least one major risk. Any one of Leech’s more novel elements could have represented an exciting departure from tried and true tropes of the genre, if pursued just a little further.

3/5

New Release: Other Side of Night: Bastian & Riley Series: Other Side of Night by S.L. Armstrong & K. Piet

Out today: Other Side of Night: Bastian and Riley by S.L. Armstrong and K. Piet (Storm Moon Press)

"Vampires walk among us. For centuries, they have adapted, learning to pass undetected in our world. They no longer fear the day, only the sting of direct sunlight. They are students, bankers, lawyers, and even actors. But when the sun goes down, they are all united by their eternal thirst. We do not see them from our safe and comfortable side of the night. But sometimes, one of us is drawn away from the light and we cross into their world. Into the other side of night."

Vampire as Baby/Baby as Vampire

One of the most interesting theories about the essential nature of the vampire comes to use from Lloyd Worley at the University of Northern Colorado.  Worley identifies the vampire as one of the stock mythical figures of the our culture.  Something that is changeable on the surface but derived from an enduring and fundamental fear.

 

Worley proposes that the the vampire somehow springs from our feelings about fetuses and babies.  The fetus, after all, is sustained directly by its mother's blood for none months.  While young babies are active throughout the night and demand nourishment directly from their mother's body. 

 

References:

• Worley L (1991). The Prenatal and Natal Foundations of the Vampire Myth. International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts.