The Reformed Vampire Support Group

From School Library Journal Grade 7 Up—Nina Harrison has been 15 years old since 1973. That's because she is a vampire. She and the members of the Reformed Vampire Support Group break the mold when compared to the accepted vampire lore that has been around since the time of Count Dracula. They are not beautiful, strong, powerful, rich, or in control. Instead they are sickly, struggling just to stay alive, living on the blood of the guinea pigs they keep, and making the best of their affliction. They have vowed not to drink human blood or be responsible for the creation of another vampire. Nina hates her boring, uneventful life, which changes drastically when Casimir is staked and the group, realizing that the killer knows who and where they are, all move in with Nina and her mother, a nonvampire. With only a silver bullet as a clue to track the vampire slayer, Nina, Dave, and Father Ramon, who sponsors the group, set out on a dangerous journey. Along the way they rescue a werewolf from an illegal fight ring, deal with a villainous father/son team, and discover that their immortal lives might have more to offer than they ever thought. Support Group is truly like no other vampire story. It is witty, cunning, and humorous, with numerous plot twists and turns. Jinks has conjured up an eccentric but believable cast of characters in a story full of action and adventure.—_Donna Rosenblum, Floral Park Memorial High School, NY_ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From It’s hard to get too involved in a cast of barely likable whiners and pathetic hand-wringers, but somehow that isn’t much of a problem in Jinks’ droll vampire send-up. These bloodsuckers are anything but sexy and mysterious, as here vampirism is a cross between a defining addiction and communicable disease; those infected spend most of their time being seriously ill and attending AA-style meetings with fellow sufferers. Nina, permanently arrested at 15 years old, can’t stand her fellow group members, but when one of them is found staked they all must work together to uncover the slayer before he can kill again. While readers might feel pushed rather than led through the plot, Jinks offers some wry vampire-centric twists on mystery conventions (having to repeatedly piece together what happened while literally dead to the world from sunup to sundown); and when the humor hits its mark, this can be laugh-out-loud funny. Most of the comedy, though, lies in the wide-angle skewering of support groups and fringe characters more suited to hemming and hawing than biting and sucking. Grades 8-12. --Ian Chipman Think vampires are romantic, sexy, and powerful? Think again. Vampires are dead. And unless they want to end up staked, they have to give up fanging people, admit their addiction, join a support group, and reform themselves. Nina Harrison, fanged at fifteen and still living with her mother, hates the Reformed Vampire Support Group meetings every Tuesday night. Even if she does appreciate Dave, who was in a punk band when he was alive, nothing exciting ever happens. That is, until one of group members is mysteriously destroyed by a silver bullet. With Nina (determined to prove that vamps aren't useless or weak) and Dave (secretly in love with Nina) at the helm, the misfit vampires soon band together to track down the hunter, save a werewolf, and keep the world safe from the likes of themselves. The perfect anecdote to slick vampire novels, this murder-mystery comedy of errors will thrill fans of Evil Genius. Wickedly witty, this alternative vampire story combines humour, romance and mystery with fast-paced action.'If being a vampire were easy, there wouldn't have to be a reformed vampire support group.'Nina became a vampire in 1973 when she was fifteen, and she hasn't aged a day since then. But she hasn't had any fun either, because her life is so sickly and boring.It becomes even worse when one of the other vampires in her therapy group is staked by a mysterious slayer. Threatened with extinction, she and her fellow vampires set out to hunt down the culprit. Trouble is, they soon find themselves up against some gun-toting werewolf traffickers who'll stop at nothing.Can a bunch of feeble couch potatoes win a fight like this? Is there more to being a vampire than meet the eye?

Fifteen-year-old vampire Nina has been stuck for fifty-one years in a boring support group for vampires, and nothing exciting has ever happened to them--until one of them is murdered and the others must try to solve the crime.

Fifteen-year-old vampire Nina has been stuck for fifty-one years in a boring support group for vampires, and nothing exciting has ever happened to them, until one of them is murdered and the others must try to solve the crime