The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix @grady_hendrix narrated by @TheRealBahniT #bookreview

Hello book friends, I hope you are all doing well?

I am not a huge paranormal reader, but occasionally one hits my radar and I have to check it out!

This was the book that did it for me!

My Review

Ok so I have to admit, this was a bit of a “Bookstagram made me do it” kind of thing, everyone was talking about this one, and I don’t like to be left out Lol

So I had a spare Audible credit, and checked to see who was narrating it, when I saw it was my favourite narrator Bahni Turpin, I was sold!!

I’m so glad I did, because I loved it!!

There is something about a book set in the South that gets me all grabby, I’m not sure if it is the accent (I think that’s what it is) or just the thought of one day travelling there myself, but I’m all in either way.

Hailed as Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula, this book is exactly what it says on the tin, a Southern Book Club.

Patricia is our MC in this story, she is married with a couple of kids, and is in a marriage that isn’t perfect, her kids are brats, and her husband need Yeeting into a distant planet in my opinion!
The only thing that Patrica looks forward to every week is her Book Club, with the other local women of the Charleston neighbourhood.
After a rocky start with the group, with book choices etc. they eventually start reading True Crime stories and Thrillers.

When a handsome stranger moves into the neighbourhood, he is the new topic of conversation amongst the women, and Patricia in particular is intrigued.

She gets even more intrigued after a series of incidents involving children, especially after they go missing.

Patricia automatically goes back to her True Crime novels and assumes that the new stranger is involved and is some kind of serial killer, but she uncovers something a lot darker than she expected.

I absolutely loved this story, it was funny but also dark in some places, a few people have said that it was gory, I didn’t find that myself, but I am a Horror reader, and this wasn’t gory to me at all, but I can see some parts being a bit gruesome for some.

🎧🎧

I would absolutely recommend the Audiobook, Bahni Turpin is an absolute genius at narration as always, she always brings an extra oomf to a story, and that is why she is my favourite! If you have never listened to her before, please check her out as she is absolutely brilliant and deserves every award that she receives.

Enjoy
Vicci 📚💛✨

The Blurb

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a real monster.

Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a goodbye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip.

This predictable pattern is upended when Patricia meets James Harris, a handsome stranger who moves into the neighborhood to take care of his elderly aunt and ends up joining the book club. James is sensitive and well-read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in 20 years. But there’s something off about him. He doesn’t have a bank account, he doesn’t like going out during the day, and Patricia’s mother-in-law insists that she knew him when she was a girl, an impossibility.

When local children go missing, Patricia and the book club members start to suspect James is more of a Bundy than a Beatnik, but no one outside of the book club believes them. Have they read too many true crime books, or have they invited a real monster into their homes?

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Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris @RealCharlaine #JohannaParker #AudiobookReview #UrbanFantasy #Paranormal #Romance #Mystery

Hello from over here is a wet rainy UK!

I kind of knew what i was getting into with this one as I had watched the True Blood series on TV,  however I only watched about half of the first season, so I have no idea where it goes from there.

Why did I pick it up? – Well Urban Fantasy isn’t something that I would chose to pick up as a rule, but it was for a reading challenge, so I pulled up my big-girl panties and dove in, I’m so glad I did as I loved it!

Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a bar, she is very ordinary and has nothing special about her, well apart from the fact that she can read your mind and hear your thoughts!

She hates that she can do this, and tries her best not to, but it isn’t always that easy.

Now the town that she lives in is very open, in fact it is so open that they are OK with the fact that vampires live there, they keep themselves to themselves and there isn’t usually any trouble.

I loved the way that it is seemed as quite normal for Vampires to be living there, I mean they are not your normal neighbourly have-a-chat friendly type, but the world has grown used to these things now, Vampires can go into a local bar and have a beer, or a synthetically modified bottle of blood, and nobody really cares that much.

Bill is such a character, Sookie is drawn to him because unlike the others, she cannot hear his thoughts or read his mind, it is quiet for her for the first time, and she likes that.
They soon become friends and then more.

Her grandmother is horrified that she is seeing a vampire, until she meets Bill and is taken by is manors and how handsome he is.

With a mystery, and a few sub plots going on, I think that this is a series that I am going to really enjoy, there was lots of blood, violence and actually a nice love story.

🎧🎧 – Perfectly narrated by Johanna Parker, I just fell in love with her accent, the way she pronounces words was just beautiful, I’ve always been a sucker for a southern accent, and this made my heart swell with love for it even more

About the book

Dead Until Dark
Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery #1
By: Charlaine Harris
Narrated by: Johanna Parker
Series: Sookie Stackhouse, Book 1
Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 10-08-09
Language: English
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group Limited

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She’s quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn’t get out much – not because she’s not pretty – she’s a very cute bubbly blonde – or not interested in a social life. She really is…but Sookie’s got a bit of a disability. She can read minds.
And that doesn’t make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill: he’s tall, he’s dark and he’s handsome – and Sookie can’t ‘hear’ a word he’s thinking. He’s exactly the type of guy she’sbeen waiting all her life for. But Bill has a disability of his own: he’s fussy about his food, he doesn’t like suntans, and he’s never around during the day….Yep, Bill’s a vampire.
Worse than that, he hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation for trouble – of the murderous kind. And then one of Sookie’s colleagues at the bar is killed, and it’s beginning to look like Sookie might be the next victim….

Happy Reading

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Vicci 📚💛✨

 

Year One by Nora Roberts #NoraRoberts @justjuliawhelan #AudiobookReview @audibleuk #BrilliancePublishing #Dystopian #Fantasy #Magic #aktbmbookblog

4 Dystopian Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I do love myself a Dystopian story, most of mine that I have read have been Young Adult, and I haven’t really thought about reading any others.

Nora Roberts isn’t really an author that I have picked up, which is strange because her one other book that I have read, ‘The Witness’ is one of my favourite books (Which i still need to review)

It also isn’t a secret that Nora’s pseudonym is J.D. Robb, and her hugely successful ‘In Death’ series is something that keeps getting recommended to me time and time again, but quite frankly the size intimidates me (insert joke here)

Anyhoo, Audible UK had a Boxing Day sale, and I may (or may not) have seen all of the books for £2.99 and went a bit crazy…12 books crazy! This was one of my bargain buys, so I thought let’s try it.

The Blurb

It began on New Year’s Eve.

The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed–and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.

Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magic rose up in its place. Some of it is good, like the witchcraft worked by Lana Bingham, practising in the loft apartment she shares with her lover, Max. Some of it is unimaginably evil, and it can lurk anywhere, around a corner, in fetid tunnels beneath the river–or in the ones you know and love the most.

As word spreads that neither the immune nor the gifted are safe from the authorities who patrol the ravaged streets, and with nothing left to count on but each other, Lana and Max make their way out of a wrecked New York City. At the same time, other travellers are heading west too, into a new frontier. Chuck, a tech genius trying to hack his way through a world gone offline. Arlys, a journalist who has lost her audience but uses pen and paper to record the truth. Fred, her young colleague, possessed of burgeoning abilities and an optimism that seems out of place in this bleak landscape. And Rachel and Jonah, a resourceful doctor and a paramedic who fend off despair with their determination to keep a young mother and three infants in their care alive.

In a world of survivors where every stranger encountered could be either a savage or a saviour, none of them knows exactly where they are heading, or why. But a purpose awaits them that will shape their lives and the lives of all those who remain.

The end has come. The beginning comes next.

My Thoughts

4 Dystopian Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Looking at the cover picture, I honestly thought that this was going to be a fantasy book…and it is, but it also isn’t, clear as mud right?

I was crossing my fingers that this wasn’t going to be a High Fantasy book, I’ve tried so many times to read them, and each time I’ve failed…HUZZAH…It isn’t!

The story starts on New Years Eve, and here begins the end!

After the Doom Virus is contracted, it soon starts to spread like a plague, first through the hospital, then to the streets, then to the rest of the world, wiping out EVERYONE!

Well, almost everyone, you see some people seem to be immune to the virus, a good thing right? But some of these people also seem to have developed a side effect of the virus, giving different magical powers to those left alive that varies from person to person.

Some have developed wings (Fairies) some have ‘The Sight’ some can also Shape-Shift, these people are now known as Uncannies, and are very unwelcome.

We watch three separate groups, coming to realise that they are probably the only people left, we watch them try to survive in a place that is now full of people that wish to do more harm than good, how would a pregnant woman cope?

We see how people help each other out, and how power hungry others can get when faced with certain decisions.

🎧🎧 – Narrated by Julia Whelan

You won’t be surprised to hear that Julia Whelan is one of my favourite narrators, in fact, if I hadn’t seen that she was narrating this book, then I probably wouldn’t have picked it up, because as I mentioned earlier, I thought this was going to be a High Fantasy book.

As usual, Julia gives a fantastic performance, her narration always makes me feel comfortable, and wraps me up in her gorgeous warm blanket voice.

If you are thinking about trying a new genre and are a little worried about it, then give this one a shot, I’m so glad I did, and will be adding book 2 to my Audible Wishlist

Try it, You might like it!

Vicci

Grab your copy here:

Audible UK – https://amzn.to/2St9ns0

Audible U.S – https://amzn.to/2SqGOeO