The Reformed Vampire Support Group by Catherine Jinks

Nina Harrison was made a vampire at fifteen, in 1973. But being a vampire isn't all it's cracked up to be in the numerous books, movies and other stories. No, life for Nina is a struggle- a struggle with a disease that can be worse than dying, sometimes.

To deal with the endless problems, Nina writes books about her alter-ego heroine, Zadia Bloodstone, a kick-ass vampire fighting heroine who only preys on criminals and is both beautiful and strong. While Nina is still living with her aged mother and vomiting up the blood that she drinks nightly from the Guinea Pigs raised by another vampire. That vampire is part of the Tuesday Night Reformed Vampire Support Group, and the group, under the leadership of Stanford, a medical man bitten by a vampire named Casimir back in the late 19th Century meets in a church to discuss their problems along with a kindly priest named Father Ramon.

But when Casimir appears not to be home one fateful Tuesday night, they break in to look for him, because if Casimir has backslided and fanged another human, they are the ones who will have to clean up the mess. But Casimir isn't out fanging people. No, he's been staked and reduced to ashes, and his address book is missing. An address book in which he probably kept the names and addresses of all the other members of the support group, from the 15 year old Nina to the elderly 82 year old Bridget- now stuck with her pains and arthritic hips forever.

Someone has found out about them and is trying to kill them. But who could it be? In the ashes of Casimir's body, they find only one clue- a silver bullet, and from there, they must find out who bought it, and who targetted them- and if they can stop the person before this person kills again. For while Casimir might have deserved killing for all the innocent people he turned into vampires- none of the rest of them deserve to die simply for being what they are.

But when the silver bullet leads them to a place called Dubbo, where a man named McKinnon is holding strange animal fights... could that be a Werewolf that's fighting? Can Nina not believe in Werewolves when she's a vampire? And if McKinnon isn't the one killing vampires, who is? And when it appears that they have led the real killer to their very own doorstep, can Nina and the others break out of what she calls "Real Vampire Behavior"- being scared, insular and cowardly, and actually get off their butts and do something to help themselves?

I loved the title of this book, and honestly, I picked it up for that reason alone. Not so much for the cover image, but the title, which really appealed to me. Did the book live up to the title? Well, yes and no. I found the beginning got me into the story quickly, but while the problem of a vampire slayer affects the whole group, it generally comes down to mainly Nina, Dave and Stanton to actually do something about it, so the rest of the group kind of disappears for a lot of the book, and honestly, I didn't miss them.

This was a good, solid book, but it didn't really set my night on fire, to say the least. Entertaining, but not overly so. I found a lot of the characters, Nina included, rather whiny and annoying, especially Stanford. Sometimes, I actually cringed when I saw him appear in the book. But the idea of vampires as damaged and weaker than humans was a new one, and I welcomed that point of view- up to a point, for how did vampires become so feared if Nina and Crew are examples of what a real vampire is like?

Maybe it comes from them not drinking human blood (or 'fanging people' as they call it. But when one of their number does fang someone, the results aren't much better for them- especially as his victim was already drugged, so I thought that vampirism in this book is not the same as vampirism in history and legend- something that caused a disconnect between the story I was reading and the actual legends of what vampires were supposed to be like. And eventually, that interfered with my enjoyment of the story.

I do recommend this story to anyone who wants to read a story about a very different sort of vampire from the kind we usually see- where vampirism truly is a curse and something to be feared- because it makes you weak and cowardly. But it's not a book that will change your mind or expand your horizons, something you'll be telling all your friends that they must read. It's a nice change of pace, and nothing more.