I hated this book. It was boring, it wasn't frightening or spooky or even just a tiny bit creepy and although I have had a lot of time for reading this week I could hardly be bothered to pick it up.

Alice is contacted out of the blue by her ex boyfriend Joe with the weird request that she offer her spare bedroom to his eighteen year old new girlfriend. Joe does seem the insensitve, selfish type of man who wouldn't see a problem with that but I will never understand why the terminally dull Alice would agree. But she does and the weird and silent Ginny arrives, only to completely change her outfit and personality the second Joe leaves the house and disappears with a group of odd friends, despite Joe claiming she doesn't know anyone in Oxford but him. So obviously Alice follows her and discovers a mystery surrounding Ginny and her friends that risks her life. A dull back story telling the tale of Daniel, Robert and Rosemary is mixed in but does nothing to help the book along.

This book was written by the author when she was just 23 and it had disappeared from print and resurected when she became a more successful auther later on in life. In her foreword she questions republication and I think this one would have been better left in oblivion. It seems to be a poor attempt to cash in on her later success with a substandard book. I regret wasting my time and money on it and it went straight to the charity bag the second I finished it. ( )

Daniel knows her as Rosemary. Alice knows her as Ginny. But she is the same woman, Rosemary Virginia Ashley, a hauntingly beautiful vampire. Danny's tale gives us her past and Alice relates her present. As the stories begin to converge it becomes clear that, though ethereal in appearance, she is unquestionably master of her domain. Will Alice live to fulfill Daniel's plan?

Last year while doing World War II research for NaNoWriMo, I stumbled across a book called Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, an author I had never read before. I devoured that book in a few hours and when I finished the last page I knew instantly that I must read every word written by this woman.
My introduction to Harris was her fifth novel. This book is nothing like that one. It's more similar to Sleep, Pale Sister, her second novel, which makes sense as they were published consecutively. It has the same dreamy quality.
Now I must admit that I struggled through most of this book. Even though it's Gothic and I love Gothic. Even though it has vampires and I love vampires. At times it felt like a obligation, a labor of love. But somewhere along page 300 something clicked and the novel came into its own. I was no longer just along for the ride, I was enjoying it immensely. Here was the Harris magic. So, all in all, it's a little uneven. Not her best work and I'm not saying that it has to be, or should be. Knowing that the best is yet to come makes me itchy to devour the rest of her novels. ( )