My rating: 🌟🌟🌟 (3 stars)
Publisher: Mullholland Books (June 5)
This was like Villareal tossed a bit of Justin Cronin's The Passage and Trueblood/Sookie Stackhouse novels into a Vitamix and poured out this interesting concoction that's two parts social/religious/cultural/political satire and one part horror (make your own determination where the real horror lies for you).
The format is many disparate pieces from, tabloids, law reviews, medical and scientific journals, personal journals, news papers and more without anything to much bridge them together, save the date on each entry which lets you know how long the outbreak has been going as you progress through the story. Patient Zero, Liza Sole and the CDC investigator seeking her were to me, most likely characters to glom onto to follow but after we're introduced to them we're quickly ushered off to what this book really wants to show, the more important story of how the Gloaming literally shift society through many mechanisms and ascend to power. With a wry eye winking at the reader, Villareal wends this tale with timely situations, references and even celebrity mentions (I did think the celeb and social media gaze will quickly date this story, so read it within a year or so people!). I liked this take for its originality and keeping me hooked on a mysterious thread (like seriously, that gold!) but would have loved more character fleshing out. They felt like they were just here to service the story and that was a bit unsatisfying for me. Still, if like me, you're a fan of the books I mention at the outset, give this one a read.
Thanks to Mullholland Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my unbiased review.
Summary: This panoramic thriller begins with one small mystery. The body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town, presumed to be an illegal immigrant, walks out of the town morgue. To the young CDC investigator called in to consult the local police, it's a bizarre medical mystery.
More bodies, dead of a mysterious disease that solidifies their blood, are brought to the morgue, and disappear. In a futile game of catch-up, the CDC, the FBI, and the US government must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.
Impossibly strong, smart, poised, beautiful, and commanding, these vampires reject the term as derogatory, preferring the euphemistic "gloamings." They quickly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society: sports, entertainment, and business. Soon people are begging to be 're-created,' willing to accept the risk of death if their bodies can't handle the transformation. The stakes change yet again when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, decides to do what none of his kind has done before: run for political office.
This sweeping yet deeply intimate fictional oral history--told from the perspectives of several players on all sides of the titular vampire uprising--is a genre-bending, shocking, immersive and subversive debut that is as addictive as the power it describes.
More bodies, dead of a mysterious disease that solidifies their blood, are brought to the morgue, and disappear. In a futile game of catch-up, the CDC, the FBI, and the US government must come to terms with what they're too late to stop: an epidemic of vampirism that will sweep first the United States, and then the world.
Impossibly strong, smart, poised, beautiful, and commanding, these vampires reject the term as derogatory, preferring the euphemistic "gloamings." They quickly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society: sports, entertainment, and business. Soon people are begging to be 're-created,' willing to accept the risk of death if their bodies can't handle the transformation. The stakes change yet again when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, decides to do what none of his kind has done before: run for political office.
This sweeping yet deeply intimate fictional oral history--told from the perspectives of several players on all sides of the titular vampire uprising--is a genre-bending, shocking, immersive and subversive debut that is as addictive as the power it describes.
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