Melody Writes

Vampire Hunters combines several things that I love - found fiction, creepy atmosphere, history, and monstrous vampires. This collection is dark, gripping, and genuinely scary. Beginning in ancient Greece and continuing to the modern day, these twenty-two tales offer a rich variety of vampire lore told through a collection of letters and diary entries compiled over the centuries. Presenting the stories as historical records only adds to the unsettling nature of the work and adds a sense of realism few books possess. Tying all these stories together is a sort of bonus tale. The book is divided into sections and at the front of each one is correspondence from one curator to the next. The main difficulty with found fiction is the question of “why was this recorded”? The individual stories do a good job of this on their own. This framing story really adds to the suspension of disbelief that this is a real curated history. This is an excellent anthology for vampire fans of all types. I do r...

A story of growth, change, and acceptance – The Knave of Graves – is a profound piece of work. It starts as a slow burn but soon evolves into a harrowing exploration of right, wrong, and learning from our mistakes. The story is easy to settle into, but difficult to climb out of. I took my time reading it, but it was still over too soon, leaving me with that post-book “can I have some more, please?” that often comes of good books. Jeppo is a grave digger, but he does not want to be. His true calling is an apotropaist – someone who makes charms/trinkets to ward off evil or for luck. Many take him for a charlatan, but his charms actually work and, despite perceptions, are what saves the little town he lives in from unseen disasters. He protects their cemetery from ghouls, and during the course of the novel, an evil sorcerer who seeks the bones of the saint protected by Jeppo and will stop at nothing to get them. Yet, Jeppo is not a standard hero. Resentful of his position, he often abuses...