The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Narrator: Bahni Turpin
Published by Blackstone Publishing
Publication Date April 7, 2020
Goodreads
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 blood-sucking fiend.
Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.
But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.
There is so much to like about The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. The storyline was witty and unique, it revolves around books and, vampires. However, any character that wasn’t a vampire made my eyes roll. All the women in the book club were so stupid and annoying. Despite enjoying the overall plot characters make or break a story for me, and these Harriet the Spy wannabes made the book difficult to read at times.
Bahni Turpin has yet to disappoint me with her narration. Her tone was perfect for a southern novel. Grady Hendrix’s writing style is the star of the novel but Bahni Turpin knocks it out of the park.
I read The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires as a “bonus book” for the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club. This is a book I would have never picked up myself but I’m so happy to have read it and discovered a new author to try. Overall, it did have its flaws but was an interesting read outside of my comfort zone.
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