Review: Thirsty by Tracey Bateman

Oh how I wanted Christian fiction and vampires to work! But Thirsty is the second Christian fiction with vampire book I've read and it just....really didn't work. At all.

Thirsty is the story of Nina, an alcoholic who has 90 days sober and moves to her hometown to rebuild her life. Her hometown is small town Missouri and she's away from her husband and children. While she's there, some mysterious murders start happening in the town. Oh and she meets her mysterious neighbor who tells her all about the town's vampire legends.

I don't even know where to begin with the problems I had with Thirsty. First of all, I think Bateman was taking the approach that vampires lust for blood is a bit like an alcoholics need for alcohol. Been there, done that. It's weird, but the vampires really felt like an add-on to the story. You could just have easily pulled the vampires out and replaced them with serial killers and it really wouldn't have changed a thing. Not to mention, I couldn't figure them out. They were supposedly born vampires, but yet still some kind of human. I'm actually okay with the idea of vampires as a species but just be more clear about the mythology! The story itself....dragged. And I was left with unanswered questions, which I can't really get into without spoiling anything.

The bottom line for me is that I love vampire stories. I love rich, emotionally complex vampire tales. This book was not that. I don't think it offered anything new to the vampire mythology and while parts of it were relatively entertaining, the story on the whole dragged to me. It was told from multiple perspectives, did more telling than showing, and I failed to ever really connect to the characters or care about their fate.

Rating: 2.5/5
Things You Might Want to Know: Christian fiction
Source of Book: Received for review from publisher