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Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.
One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor’s handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well traveled and well read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in.
Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.
The Southern Book Clubs Guide to Slaying Vampires ending up being equal parts what I expected it to be and not. I went into this having heard that the author wrote this book as if he was pitting his mother against Dracula, and that’s exactly how it read. But it’s also so much more than that, it’s a hard look at how we treat certain women, how we close our eyes to atrocities that are happening to other people’s children, how we look down on the women who call themselves housewives believing them to be lesser, when in reality they could be some of the strongest women we know. It’s a story that both plays into certain stereotypes, whilst also subverting them, and I found myself so invested in these characters.
Patricia was a character I instantly felt a bond with. She’s someone who loves her life, her husband, her kids, but also someone who longs for a little excitement from time to time… just not the kind she ends up with. She’s a housewife yes, but she’s also a force of nature, someone who keeps the household running like a finely tuned clock, and even if her husband doesn’t think her job hard, she takes pride in her work. Though she is the main character, the one who first starts to question James, this stranger who turned up at the same time Black kids started going missing, she isn’t the only character in this story. The other women in her bookclub may not get the same amount of page time, but they are all so brilliantly developed as characters, each has their own unique voice, allowing them to stand out.
Hendrix paints a pretty picture at first, of these housewives and their lives, but as the story progresses, it’s not only the horror surrounding James that we get to see. He also shows us how these women live by their husbands rules, their whims, how their husbands are fine with them being housewives, until they start to step out of the carefully curated box they put them in. But he also hows how when push comes to shove, they will do what needs to be done, and I actually found myself cackling at the detached sense we get from some of the scenes, because I could 100% imagine that’s how a lot of women, mothers, would react in that situation.It’s a story that takes it’s reader through a rigmarole of emotions, I found myself getting so angry at certain parts of this book, but also so incredibly heartbroken for these women who were just trying to protect their families. How these husbands so blithely pushed away any concerns they had, even after certain events had been witnessed, claiming that the books they had been reading were swaying them, because how could a good-natured man, one who was putting money into the community be causing people harm?
It’s the kind of story that starts off slowly, dragging you in and then sinks it’s teeth in. The horror elements are certainly horrific and this was absolutely a daylight only read for me. Hendrix’s take on vampirism was on the creepier side for the lore and even knowing what was going to happen I still found myself scared at some of the scenes. His writing builds the tension so subtly that you aren’t even aware it’s building towards something until the scene hits, whether it’s a eureka moment for one of our characters, or an attack of some kind. It was horrible and gory and horrific and had scenes that made my skin crawl, but I guess at it’s heart it a story about the women, not the monsters. About how far they would be willing to go to save the ones they love.
The tone of the story, as well as certain elements felt incredibly right for the time. The southern hospitality seeps through the pages, and while his characters do prevail in the end, it takes most of them a while to warm up to the idea that Patricia might be right. This is mostly shown through their ambivalence to help when the only children getting taken were Black. Even Patricia herself falls at the first major hurdle, and only really picks up again after her own children are at risk. Hendrix manages to create these wondrously complex, not always good characters, but characters that he has you rooting for nonetheless, even if you sometimes feel like whacking them over the head with one of their books.
It’s a story that had me seething with anger one second and almost crying with heartbreak in another, but it’s also seriously creepy and horrific and not necessarily a book I would recommend to those who scare easily. But if you’re looking for a horror that will scare you to death, whilst also making you cackle with laughter, one filled with a lot of heart and some beautifully written characters, I would definitely give this one a go.
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