Lately, I had been thinking that vampire stories were overdone. I have my favorite authors in the genre and honestly wasn't looking for anymore. It seems that authors don't want to write about normal people anymore. The stories all seem to have vampires, witches, wizards, and zombies in them. I was looking for an author that wrote normal stories not paranormal. Spies, police officers, detectives, these were the heroes that I was looking for.
I first ran across J.R. Rain's work on myspace. I had a friend request waiting in my inbox. I accepted and went to look up his work. Wow, what an impressive list of reviewers, what could my thoughts possibly mean after so many great authors have said such positive things about his work.
While I was debating which book to start with for our book club I got the opportunity to read Moon Dance. I have never been overly impressed with first person fiction, with a few notable exceptions. Maybe, because I never felt like I could become the character.
Right there Mr.Rain's story had two strikes against it. Strike One - Main character is a vampire (paranormal). Ball One - Detective. Strike Two - First Person narration. The count was 2-1 and I was waiting for that third strike to fly directly over the plate and pound into the catchers mitt, instead Mr. Rain's story connected directly with the ball (my mind) and knocked it out of the park.
Mr. Rain managed to make me fall so far into the character that I couldn't put the story down once I started reading. I laughed at the reference to The Greatest American Hero and remembered sitting in front of the TV to watch it as a child. I even cried during some of the scenes where Samantha Moon was upset.
Samantha Moon is a fairly new vampire. She is just an everyday woman trying to juggle a husband, her children, and working out of her home as a detective. This story shows us how she copes with these normal challenges while coming to terms with the fact that she is indeed a vampire.
With a teaser like this how can a book fail to pull a reader in.
Blood....
I ripped open his flannel shirt, buttons pinging
everywhere. His chest was awash in a sea of caked red.
The hole in his chest was a dark moon in a vermilion sky.
His blood would contain alcohol, as he had been
drinking. I didn’t care. The blood would be pure enough.
Straight from the source. The ideal way to feed. Then
again, ideal was relative. Ideally I would be feasting on
turkey lasagna.
I dipped my head down, placed my lips over the massive
wound in his chest, and drank....
The visually compelling way that Rain writes was pure enjoyment to read. As shown above the sky wasn't just plain every day red it was a vermilion (brilliant scarlet red) sky.
After finishing this I wanted to know more. More about Mr Kingsley Fulcrum, more about Randolph ,more about Detective Sherbert, and more about Fang. I just wanted to know so much more about this fictional world that had managed to pull me so completely in.
I bought Teeth as an ebook. This short story is a little bit more information about one of the characters that inhabit Samantha's world. The story is very well written and I wont say any more than that because I am still a little bit confuzzled and bemused by it.
I am eagerly awaiting Vampire Moon the next book in Samantha Moon's life that J.R. Rain has coming out soon.
While I await that book I will be adding some of Mr. Rain's other stories to my library. Check out his site at jrrain.com.
Good Books, Good Wine, Good Friends What Could be Better.
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