Slaying Vampires, Southern-Style! 🧛‍♂️

Grady Hendrix's Latest Novel Has Teeth...

Apr 22, 2020

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Written by Grady Hendrix
Published by Quirk Books
Genre: Vampire Horror / Southern Fiction
Release Date: April 7, 2020
Length: 408 Pages (Hardcover)

What’s It About?

“Patricia Campbell’s life has never felt smaller. Her husband is a workaholic, her teenage kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she’s always a step behind on her endless to-do list. The only thing keeping her sane is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime. At these meetings, they’re as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are about their own families.

One evening after book club, Patricia is viciously attacked by an elderly neighbor, bringing the neighbor's handsome nephew, James Harris, into her life. James is well-traveled and well-read, and he makes Patricia feel things she hasn’t felt in years. But when children on the other side of town go missing, their deaths written off by local police, Patricia has reason to believe James Harris is more of a Bundy than a Brad Pitt. The real problem? James is a monster of a different kind—and Patricia has already invited him in.

Little by little, James will insinuate himself into Patricia’s life and try to take everything she took for granted—including the book club—but she won’t surrender without a fight in this blood-soaked tale of neighborly kindness gone wrong.” — Quirk Books

Why You Should Check It Out

Award-winning novelist Grady Hendrix has written a bevy of popular books, including HORRORSTÖR (about a haunted IKEA), MY BEST FRIEND'S EXORCISM, which is essentially BEACHES meets THE EXORCIST, and WE SOLD OUR SOULS, a heavy metal horror epic. He's also the author of PAPERBACKS FROM HELL, a history of the horror paperback boom of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and screenwriter of fright flicks like MOHAWK and the FANGORIA-produced SATANIC PANIC.

His new book, THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES, is FRIGHT NIGHT meets STEEL MAGNOLIAS — an extremely entertaining (and often unnerving) page-turner that will delight horror fans looking for something new to sink their teeth into. The setting — Charleston, South Carolina in the ‘90s — is so accurately captured by Hendrix that reading the author’s words is akin to time travel. It’s clear that Hendrix has a genuine affection for this setting and the fantastic, fully-realized characters that inhabit it. You know these underappreciated women. You know their overbearing husbands. And you know that beneath the sophisticated charm of Southern living there is something sinister — an ancient evil that’s always hungry; that takes and takes until there’s nothing left.

THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES is funny, warm, and filled with laughs, and yet it’s genuinely creepy and disturbing too. There are a couple of sequences — one involving rats, another with cockroaches — that legit almost made me hurl. This Southern-flavored supernatural thriller is perhaps the best vampire story I’ve invited into my life since the 2008 Swedish film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. If you’re looking for something to read during quarantine, look no further! After reading Hendrix’s latest, I have a feeling you’ll find yourself consuming his entire bibliography.

THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES is now available at Amazon in hardcover, audiobook, and Kindle eBook.

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