Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
By Grady Hendrix

Hardcover 408 pages, Quirk Books (April 7, 2020)

Reviewed by Karen Baker
June, 2020

I saw this very intriguing title on a list of new book releases and thought I must check this out! I like books, book clubs and enjoy the occasional creepy thriller. The press blurb describes it as "Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula". That is a too simplistic description of this fun book.

Patricia Campbell is a true Southern gal with good manners, her hard-working husband, Carter, and two children living in the quaint Old Village in Charleston. Here the children can play outside all day, you leave the house unlocked and windows open and everyone knows where your spare key is hidden. It is safe, beautiful and the perfect place to raise her family. The story is set in the 1990s and Patty is unfulfilled with her routine life and wishes for more excitement - a challenge, a bit of danger. She falls into a quirky group of ladies that form a 'not-quite-a-bookclub' that read true crime books alternating with a novel. One month they would read "Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy" then next read "The Silence of the Lambs". Patricia, Kitty, MaryEllen, Grace and Slick form a tight-knit group enjoying wine, friendship and crime-solving and gore.

Be careful what you wish for. It all starts with Patty getting her ear bitten off one night after interrupting a bizarre event at her trash cans. The ear biting leads Patty to meet James, a man of great mystery and charm now residing in their quiet enclave. Despite internal bells and alarms about inconsistencies in James's story, Patty's family and friends accept him into their lives.

As more strange events occur, Patty becomes obsessed with unfolding the truth about James and her picture-perfect life unravels. Has her mind been unduly influenced with by all the serial murderers, slashers and gruesome crimes she has been reading, or is something unnatural and terrifying going on? Convinced evil threatens her family, she pursues the irrational, eventually turning friends and family against her. Life in the Old Village is changed forever.

Yes, there were some gruesome moments and some not-nice things happens to children, but there was humor, suspense and characters that I swear I have known. There is a great underlying message of the resilience and the underestimated power of the everyday housewife. The story also touches on the sensitive issue of inequality in gender and race. Read it.