Jun 24, 2010

New Vampire Releases for June 2010

Get ready for some great vampire reads coming out this month. Books by Cat Adams, Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, Angela Knight, etc. There is also an excellent anthology - Dracula's Guest edited by Michael Sims. Enjoy!



Blood Oath
by Keta Diablo

ISBN-13: 978-1-60272-704-5 (Electronic) 
Amber Heat, June 20,2010

From the publisher: When Kale MacDonald’s beloved grandmother dies, she leaves him a letter urging him to travel to Savannah, Georgia, to find his destiny.

First, Kale is confronted by a strange, decadent man named Sevastian who appears to be stalking him. Then, he also faces a trio of rogue vampires intent on killing him. Sevastian, however, seems intent on helping Kale stay alive.

Mystery and danger collide in the City of Secrets, and no one is who they appear to be. Will Kale ever discover the truth regarding his destiny and the clan of homicidal vampires targeting him? And will he also learn more about the handsome protector who seems to shadow him at every turn?




Blood Song
by Cat Adams
[pen name of C T Adams and Cathy Clamp]

Tor Books (June 8, 2010)

From the publisher:  Bodyguard Celia Graves has definitely accepted her share of weird assignments, both human and supernatural. But her newest job takes the cake. Guarding a Prince from terrorists and religious fundamentalists is hard enough, but it seems like the entire supernatural world is after this guy too. When she is betrayed by those she is employed to help, and everything goes horribly wrong, Celia wakes to find herself transformed.

Neither human nor vampire, Celia has become an Abomination—something that should not exist—and now both human and supernatural alike want her dead. With the help of a few loyal friends—a sexy mage, a powerful werewolf, and a psychic cop—Celia does her best to stay alive. On the run from her enemies, Celia must try to discover who is behind her transformation…before it’s too late.




Bullet (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter)
Laurell K. Hamilton
Berkley Hardcover (June 1, 2010)

From the publisher: The music came back up and the next group of little girls, slightly older, came out. There was a lot of that in the next hour and change. I liked dance, and it was no reflection on the kids, but my will to live began to seep away on about the fifth group of sequined children...

Anita Blake is back in St. Louis and trying to live a normal life-as normal as possible for someone who is a legal vampire executioner and a U. S. Marshal. There are lovers, friends and their children, school programs to attend. In the midst of all the ordinary happiness a vampire from Anita's past reaches out.

She was supposed to be dead, killed in an explosion, but the Mother of All Darkness is the first vampire, their dark creator. It's hard to kill a god. This dark goddess has reached out to her here-in St. Louis, home of everyone Anita loves most. The Mother of All Darkness has decided she has to act now or never, to control Anita, and all the vampires in America.

The Mother of All Darkness believes that the triumvirate created by master vampire Jean-Claude with Anita and the werewolf Richard Zeeman has enough power for her to regain a body and to immigrate to the New World. But the body she wants to possess is already taken. Anita is about to learn a whole new meaning to sharing her body, one that has nothing to do with the bedroom. And if the Mother of All Darkness can't succeed in taking over Anita's body for herself, she means to see that no one else has the use of it, ever again. Even Belle Morte, not always a friend to Anita, has sent word: "Run if you can..."





Dracula's Guest: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories

Michael Sims, editor
Walker and Company (June 22, 2010)

From the publisher:
Before Twilight and True Blood, even before Buffy and Anne Rice and Bela Lugosi, vampires haunted the nineteenth century, when brilliant writers everywhere indulged their bloodthirsty imaginations, culminating in Bram Stoker's legendary 1897 novel, Dracula.
Michael Sims brings together the very best vampire stories of the Victorian era—from England, America, France, Germany, Transylvania, and even Japan—into a unique collection that highlights their cultural variety. Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" to Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Good Lady Ducayne." Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and rounds out the collection with Stoker's own "Dracula's Guest"—a chapter omitted from his landmark novel.
Vampires captivated the Victorians, as Sims reveals in his insightful introduction: In 1867, Karl Marx described capitalism as "dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor"; while in 1888 a London newspaper invoked vampires in trying to explain Jack the Ripper's predations. At a time when vampires have been re-created in a modern context, Dracula's Guest will remind readers young, old, and in between of why the undead won't let go of our imagination.



The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Seance for a Vampire
by Fred Saberhagen
Titan Books (June 22, 2010)
[This is a reprint. Originally published in 1994]

From the publisher: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed, long out-of-print detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes’ career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds’ greatest detective.

When two suspect psychics offer Ambrose Altamont and his wife the opportunity to contact their recently deceased daughter, the wealthy British aristocrat wastes no time in hiring Sherlock Holmes to expose their hoax. He arranges for the celebrated detective and Dr. Watson to attend the family's next seance, confident in Holmes' rationalist outlook on the situation. But what starts as cruel mockery becomes deadly reality when young, beautiful Louisa Altamont appears to her parents in the flesh as one of the nosferatu--a vampire! The resulting chaos leaves one of the fraudulent spiritualists dead, Sherlock Holmes missing, and Dr. Watson alone and mystified.

With time running out, Watson has no choice but to summon the only one who might be able to help--Holmes' vampire cousin, Prince Dracula. Alternately narrated by Watson and the charismatic Dracula himself, Seance for a Vampire demonstrates that heroes are sometimes found in the most unlikely places. Saberhagen has recast Bram Stoker's paragon of evil into a noble, witty and chillingly powerful character.




FVZA: The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency (Volume 1 TPB) by David Hine, Roy Allan Martinez, and Wayne Nichols
Radical Publishing (June 29, 2010)

From the publisher:  In a world where a deadly disease transforms innocent victims into Zombies, a long dormant government task force is called into action: The Federal Vampire and Zombie Agency. Throughout history, from the Civil War to World War II, the FVZA protected humanity from the blood-sucking and flesh-eating hordes - until a cure was discovered that sent the undead to their graves.

When a new, incurable strain of the virus ravages a small town in America, Agent Landra Pecos must call upon her lethal skills to eradicate the threat. But as Landra delves deeper into her investigation of the undead menace, she uncovers shocking secrets that will change her life forever. Based on the popular website www.FVZA.org and written by comics superstar David Hine (Civil War: X-Men, Spider-Man Noir, Arkham Asylum).





Grave New Day
by Lina Gardiner
ImaJinn Books (June 15, 2010)

From the publisher: Book three in this award-winning series. Vampire and New York City Police Black Ops Captain Jess Vandermire is faced with the hardest Decision of her life-become human again and regain her soul or remain a vampire forever and fight an ancient evil that is a threat to every human on the planet. Ensnared in a plan that might go terribly wrong, she has little choice.

As a human she can't fight the ancient enemy. Then a mysterious stranger shows up and offers to help, and she's not sure if he's really on her side. She discovers her entire existence has been leading up to the challenge ahead. A challenge that has insurmountable odds, and if she doesn't win, every human on the planet loses.





Hell's Warrior
by Jaye Roycraft
ImaJinn Books (May 1, 2010)

From the publisher: Sequel to Half Past Hell. It's been twenty years since the vampire-mortal war known to the undead as "Hell" ended, but peace has been hard for Chicago's doyen, vampire Che Kincade. Beauty and power ensure that blood, sex and money come easily, but compromises and concessions are hard for a half-breed undead warrior whose roots run centuries-deep in violence. Still, he's managed at last to make peace bearable. A secret affair with his mortal counterpart, Chicago Mayor Deborah Dayton, ensures that their weekly meetings at city hall to discuss the vampire problems in the city are accompanied by wonderfully delicious clandestine sex.

Cade's house-of-cards peace tumbles when, just hours after their usual tryst, news comes that a high-profile murder has taken place in the city. Soon Cade's very private and ordered world unravels when he's wanted first for rape, then murder. He goes on the run with no help but that given by Red, a blood whore whose bed he's in when the call comes that Chicago PD has a warrant for his arrest. The frame puts a whole new light on the assassination, and Cade tries to make sense of it as he dodges the police, mob assassins, and the vampire hunters known as the Brothers of the Sun.

Was the murder politically motivated--a way to return the city to the old days of persecution and hatred, or was it a personal attack on him? There have always been those who would dispose Cade as doyen and force him out of power. Cade suspects that even Thor, his tyro and master-in-training, is among those who would see him destroyed. When the people Cade cares about keep dying, he sheds his peace chief mien to return to that which he knows best--killing...



Insatiable
by Meg Cabot
William Morrow; 1 edition (June 8, 2010)

From the publisher: 
Sick of hearing about vampires? So is Meena Harper.
But her bosses are making her write about them anyway, even though Meena doesn't believe in them.

Not that Meena isn't familiar with the supernatural. See, Meena Harper knows how you're going to die. (Not that you're going to believe her. No one ever does.)
But not even Meena's precognition can prepare her for what happens when she meets—then makes the mistake of falling in love with—Lucien Antonescu, a modern-day prince with a bit of a dark side. It's a dark side a lot of people, like an ancient society of vampire hunters, would prefer to see him dead for.

The problem is, Lucien's already dead. Maybe that's why he's the first guy Meena's ever met whom she could see herself having a future with. See, while Meena's always been able to see everyone else's future, she's never been able look into her own.
And while Lucien seems like everything Meena has ever dreamed of in a boyfriend, he might turn out to be more like a nightmare.

Now might be a good time for Meena to start learning to predict her own future. . . .
If she even has one.



Night Myst (Indigo Court, Book 1)
by Yasmine Galenorn
Berkley (June 29, 2010)

From the publisher:  Eons ago, vampires tried to turn the Dark Fae in order to harness their magic, only to create a demonic enemy more powerful than they imagined. Now Myst, the Vampiric Fae Queen of the Indigo Court, has enough power to begin a long prophesied supernatural war. And Cicely Waters, a witch who can control the wind, may be the only one who can stop her-and save her beloved Fae prince from the Queen's enslavement.
[Night Myst is Bite Club's next read!]






The Passage
by Justin Cronin
Ballantine Books (June 8, 2010)

From the publisher:  “It happened fast. Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.”

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered. All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear—of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse.

As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary. FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey—spanning miles and decades—towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger. Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

Monthly vampire releases compiled by Patricia of Patricia's Vampire Notes

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