Review: Excellent spooky thrills
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 28, 2013
Review courtesy of All Things Urban FantasyWith Halloween coming I decided to read NIGHTLIFE since based on its description it seemed like just the right scary suspenseful story to read in October on a dark rainy night. I was not disappointed and was met with an incredibly riveting, edge of your seat plot that was equal parts spooky mystery and gruesomely tragic horror novel. Horror works well when there are slow, quiet moments yet there is an underlining panic for what unknown evil is coming. NIGHTLIFE does this type of suspense very well as the beginning of the story takes its time setting up the world then the creepiness slowly seeps and then it hits you with the full extent of its horror. The monsters are what really makes this a truly great horror story.The vampire like creatures in NIGHTLIFE are less suave and sexy and more primal, inhuman parasites who use their powers to ensnare their prey in devious ways. They seemed like a combination of vampires from different cultures and it was nice to have the characters acknowledge those myths as well as the movie vampires in their discussions on what the characters were dealing with.Jack Jackson has dedicated his life to vampire hunting and while I’ve seen this solitary male fighting against an impossible threat many times I liked him. He’s funny, has some great ideas for how to kill the vampires, and came off like an all around decent guy who I would want to have with me during a vampire attack. Beth, who ends up embroiled in all of Jack’s monster hunting, took a bit more time to warm up to as I was in the mindset that she was going to be the ‘damsel in distress’ for this horror story. Luckily she wasn’t for the most part and she turns out to be very resourceful and maybe just as kickass as Jack by the end of the book.NIGHTLIFE is a perfect blend of suspense and creepy horror mixed with a dash of paranormal. With the way this book ended I think there could be plenty of story left for a series and I hope there is.