Michael Kilpatrick

I was very enthused by one of Kilpatrick's first books, the 1994 vampire novel 'Near Death,' and I've always thought it was cool that she's part of the goth scene... but for some reason, I haven't really followed her writing - I'm not sure why. Too many books, too little time!

'Eternal City' wasn't bad. The story moves along at a fast clip, and there's some good moments of horror and tension. The writing is pretty basic - it's there to get the story across. It feels almost YA at times... expect for a kind of out-of-place and unexplained scene of attempted rape. (I would have edited it out - not because I object to rape being portrayed in novels, but because it does nothing to forward the plot. The reader expects to get back to it... but it never happens. It's just random.)

Other than that, the story is a little silly, but it's fun. A recently widowed mother and her son travel up north to a small Canadian town by a lake. The mother, Claire, has inherited land from her aunt, and has to decide what to do with it.
The lake has recently become the site of an exclusive time-share resort, and the resort's owner, Virek, is heavily pushing to buy up all the land. However, the short-tempered but attractive hippie single-father neighbor points out to Claire that the resort seems to be ruining the local environment, driving the town's economy into the ground, and is generally shady.
However, the weirdly attractive Virek seems to be making Claire an offer she can't refuse...
But little does she know that the resort is shadier than even local-hippie-guy could have guessed, because, VAMPIRES!

Kilpatrick effectively captures the inherent creepiness of all-inclusive resorts. The vampires are original, cool and spooky.… (more)