When Ian came into Kerry’s room to ask a favour, it never occurred to her that her four-year-old brother could ask her to do something that might get her killed.

I came across this one whilst searching out reads for the Mythopoeic Awards Challenge and I spotted Heir Apparent, by Vivian Vande Velde.

Now, I had read and enjoyed Remembering Raquel by the same author earlier this year, so I hopped on over to Bookmooch to try and pick up a copy, unfortunately, there were none, but, there was a copy of this one, and thinking "What the heck, it’s only a point," I quickly mooched it and hoped for the best.

Was it worth it?

Yeah, I think so.

The story follows teenager Kerry Nowicki as she goes to rescue her younger brother’s teddy bear from the local Laundromat, what should be a simple lost-and-found trip, turns into a nightmare as while she is there three men arrive, dragging in another younger man, Ethan, gagged, bound and bloodied and who they insist is a vampire.

This is of course a load of rubbish, and all Kerry wants to do is help the young man escape.

When they finally do, Kerry learns that he really is a vampire after all. Then when her family is kidnapped and another vampire is killed, the only way to find her family is to help Ethan track down and deal with this new vampire hunter.

It is a teenage vampire romance, but thankfully for anyone who isn’t a teenage girl, the cringe worthy aspects that you would normally expect to see are ramped right down and only occasionally rear their ugly heads (and can be excused as the main protagonist is a teenage girl!) so there is much for all to enjoy in this intelligent tale that that measures the value of life, death, and, most importantly, choices, than it does about romance.

I was by turns intrigued, amused, and disturbed by the growing relationship between Kerry and Ethan, thrown together by circumstance and then need, it slowly becomes apparent that despite the fact each is using the other to meet the own agendas, there is a friendship and attraction forming with a certain amount of respect and a nice line in sparky banter.

And yes, Ethan is a vampire, but he is also just a little too controlling, and sneaky, and willing to prolong her suffering to meet his own needs,for Kerry to be putting her full trust in, in my opinion, but then she can and does give as good as she gets and he does have (possibly centuries of) trust issues, so the ambiguous ending works well.

I think I’d prefer a deep and abiding friendship over true love with this one, but then what do I know, I’m not a teenage girl.

All in all a fun read with a fair measure of original touches.

The cover is terrible though, not sure what the 9 year old carrying a candle really had to do with the story…

[rating:75/100]

Buy, Companions of the Night, from Amazon.

Related Posts

• Rememering Raquel ~ Vivian Vande Velde
• Marked (A House of Night Novel) by PC & Kirsten Cast
• Life Sucks ~ Jessica Abel, Gabe Soria and Warren Pleece