Ghosts Bite Back

May 15, 2023
A young vampire falls afoul of a persistent vampire hunter in this tumultuous sequel. The long-standing enmity between ghosts and vampires comes to a boil as 111-year-old Eleonore "Leo" von Motteberg--having kept her forbidding, undead mother from finding out that she not only failed to bite a living victim in her centenary rite of passage, but has actually befriended a spectral child--is summoned to the Ghostly Realm to stand trial for killing the evil Orphanmaster. Readers who don't mind a tale with ghosts who can be solid or not, depending on the needs of the moment, or a vicious but futile climactic melee between the dead and the undead that leaves no casualties beyond a few body parts will enjoy following Leo. On the one fang, her soul travels into the great beyond to confront a spectral judge still, as in life, stubbornly bent on staking vampires, while on the other, her soulless body chows down on tasty eyeball canapes at a formal dinner and starts a loose-jointed dance craze. If logic isn't Foulkes' strong suit, he at least sets his redoubtable protagonist, who has a wooden leg and can run up walls and whose pacifism is strong enough to bring the main battle to a close and convince her judge that it's OK to have different priorities after dying, at the head of a White-presenting cast centering strong girls. Doesn't hang together very well, but there are some tasty morsels, and peacemongers will bite. (Paranormal. 8-12)

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