Walter Spence (–2018)

4.5 stars, rounded up to 5!

I read this book with my horror group at Shelfari and found it to be an original twist on an old theme.

Young Eugene looks out for his sister Barbie, because his mom is often otherwise engaged. Sometimes they are left alone for days at a time without anything in the house to eat other than bread and ketchup.
Then, a mysterious woman catches sight of him and Barbie and their lives are changed forever. In a good way? You will have to read this book to find out.

I was pleasantly surprised at the turns taken in this story. The characters were well drawn and believable, (as believable as can be in a story of this type), and I took a great liking to the protagonist, Eugene.

As I understand it, there is more to the story coming from Mr. Spence. I will be looking forward to that release. Recommended!

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, the author is part of our horror group at Shelfari, but welcomed honest opinions on his work. He also offered free copies to our members. I paid for my copy and even if I had not, my review is an honest one.… (mer)

First, The Secret Room is a compelling read. However, it cannot stand alone -- you must read Walter Spence's House of Shadows first to really understand what is happening. Since it is clearly labeled as the second in a series, that was fine with me. I didn't expect to find out as much about the BDSM scene as I did, but it makes sense that some vampires might be drawn there.

I didn't expect that I would enjoy the book as much as I did. Generally, second novels tend to be far weaker, but this one wasn't. The only drawback is having to read the first book first. Wrong, there is a second drawback -- not having book 3 finished is nearly criminal.

Write, Walter, write!… (mer)

It isn't often that I sit down to read a few pages of a book and look up hours later as I finish the book. This is one such book. Oh my goodness! And it is the first in a series, so now my fingers are scrabbling to turn the page and find volume two somehow hidden on my Kindle.

This is a vampire book for adults -- no sparkly vampires here or ones who steal from blood banks. And yet, it isn't focused on horror, so there's really no gore, except as necessary. The book includes a vampire culture, mores, and society that are intriguing. The background is organic to the story, and I want to learn more about it.

There's a mystery to be solved and there are enough hooks thrown out to pull the reader in. Surface answers for some of those hooks are hinted at by the end, but I want to know more. There are suggestions that paranormal themes will surface in the next book.

Oh, and the author knows his North Carolina settings. It adds a layer of verisimilitude.

Where's my next book? Write, Walter, write!… (mer)

Eugene has a difficult life with his sister, impoverished and with a mother who is, at best, neglectful and at worst outright abusive it is not a life with many opportunities. So when Penelope, a wealthy, generous benefactor appears to give them every advantage it seems like a wonderful gift and that they’re finally given a chance at life.

That is, until the price arises and one of them has to die. Faced with an impossible choice, Eugene elects to be Penelope’s prey – but death is hardly the end of Penelope’s plotting. After decades of unconsciousness, Eugene arises as one of the Breed and the last scion of a major House whose legacy (and his continued existence) requires him to learn extremely quickly.

There are a lot of vampire books out there and it sometimes feel like many of them are telling very similar tales. It’s always a pleasure, therefore, to find a book that seems to be bringing some genuinely unique elements to the genre and some fresh angles. Eugene’s reluctant passage into vampirehood, how he was moulded before transition, even following his journey from childhood adds its own angle.

In terms of pacing, it started slow, introducing us to the characters and bringing us towards the inevitable. Thankfully, once we get that transition, we hit the ground running. Eugene has to learn a lot about his new life extremely quickly and nothing is going to stop to allow him to catch up. There were a couple of tangents that were, perhaps, not entirely necessary but I think they all added up into building the character, the worlds and different facets of the story.

The world building is nicely restrained. It’s clear, especially if the lexicon in the back, that this is a very broad world and a lot of work has gone into characterising it. But the author resists the temptation to dump vast amounts of unrelated information on us. In fact, in keeping with Eugene’s own confusion, we often have words and references used and have to extrapolate their meaning. Like Eugene we’re plunged into a world we don’t know and have to keep up and learn as we go. I think this lack of explanation both keeps the story moving and excellently conveys the theme of being out of depth, of being overwhelmed by the new information he was faced with.

The decisions made by the characters, while not always perfect, were well informed – or, at least, based on reasonable emotion and didn’t frustrate me. The action stayed good and the story progressed well.

I found no great flaws in this book – but I did find a couple of minor stumbling blocks.

The first stumbling block I found in this book was the language. It’s not as bad as some books out there, certainly, but it is overly elaborate and overly formal. Part of that is because Eugene is trying to “better” himself with a determination to be educated and well spoken after Penelope gives him the resources. It’s even lampshaded in the book with his sister accusing him of having swallowed a thesaurus. But this language starts long before he meets Penelope and is used in everything from dialogue to describing action. Sometimes I think a more casual tone would have been better.

Read More… (mer)