Marie Marshall

From My Cold Undead Hand (Where the Vampires Are), by Marie Marshall, is the first book in what promises to be a thrilling, interesting take on vampire legend and lore. Chevonne Kusnetsov is a teenager living in the near-distant future, a world that you will recognize but is subtly different from our own. Chevonne is like any other normal teenager - she goes to school, has friends, has a mother who worries about her, stays home alone after school reading books, but she her "job" is not the job of normal teenagers - she researches and kills vampires. This isn't a Buffy the Vampire Slayer world, where the vampires are all beautiful, but our world where the vampires just want you dead. Chevonne is a Resistance fighter, and she's out to save mankind.

Marshall does a fantastic job with setting an alternate world for us, where the action happens at a breath neck pace. From using technology that isn't developed yet, to using weapons not designed yet, to using language and phrases not spoken yet, she creates a universe that is strangely familiar to us, yet it's a place where you have to watch your back, or you'll be dead. Vampires aren't glamorous, it isn't romantic to meet a vampire in the alley way behind the school, and they most certainly don't sparkle. Marshall also does a remarkable job of tying in the classic vampire novel, Dracula, but makes you believe that it's all real. This is a book that will leave you breathless for more!
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