People usually consider this a good childhood book or something they look back on as a sort of cute thing they read when they didn't know any better. I thought the same thing until I reread it a couple months ago. I never guessed I would enjoy it just as much as I did when I first read it.

Sure, the story might not be high literature, but it's extremely well-crafted. Sita's voice is so strong and perfect that it just blew me away, and the pacing is superb. Maybe if more vampire stories were written like this one, the genre would be taken more seriously. ( )

I quite enjoyed this book when I was younger; it was one of the first gory "gothic" books I ever read. It certainly lacks the atmosphere and heavy drama of Anne Rice's vampire series, but if you just want a quick gothic story with a strong heroine, this is good for a fun read. ( )

The Last Vampire introduces us to Alisa Perne (aka Lara Adams aka Sita). She is a very rich and very beautiful young woman who also happens to be a 5000 year-old vampire. When she finds herself blackmailed by a private detective who seems to know too much about her background, she quickly neutralizes the situation by killing him, then later realizes that she needs his password to get into his computer and find out who hired him and put him on her trail. To access the files, she uses her connections to have herself enrolled at the high school that the detective's son attends. Her plan is to seduce him, access the files, and then deal with whoever is on the other end of the threats.

Everything goes as planned except that Sita finds herself falling deeply in love with the detective's son, Ray. He reminds her so strongly of her husband (who she married before she was turned into a vampire and who is the only man she ever loved) that things become way more messy for Sita than they have for centuries. To add to her troubles, a dark force is on her trail and it means business.

You know, this book was actually pretty good. I like vampires, so that might have a lot to do with it, but adding the supernatural elements really enhances Pike's often goofy dialogue and overly dramatic descriptions. I particularly liked Sita's backstory -- which also happens to cover the origin of all vampires everywhere, and which has a neat twist of Hindu mythology built in.

[full review here: http://spacebeer.blogspot.com/2009/04...] ( )