Fair disclosure: I received an Advance Readers' Copy of this book in exchange for a review on the day of official publication. ARCs are final-stage drafts; changes will usually be merely typographical (check spelling and punctuation, tweak lines to improve the way the text fits on the page). ARCs are usually e-books (as this one was) or paperback mock-ups with generic covers, so what readers buy will usually be the same book reviewers have read, only in a nicer cover.
Title: Carrion Reach
Author: London Clarke
Date: October 14, 2026
Quote: "[T]his guy was good-looking...too good-looking..."
When River left her boyfriend Carlton, she took some of his ill-gotten money and took a casino cruise. There she met an even more attractive man and, despite all the signs that she was picking up another man she'd soon throw away with revulsion, she went back to his family manor to work as his accountant.
He is Charles Cannon. The manor is Cannon Reach, which some locals are beginning to call Carrion Reach because so many animals die there. Charles, or Chaz, lives there with his creepy mother, even creepier aunt, and a home nurse, and the house is big enough that River has her own suite, so she's "safe" from the sort of "danger" she was thinking about. Indeed, River's emotions are undone by Chaz's ability to wait.
Readers will, however, notie something strange about Chaz. For those who remember "Sesame Street," Chaz's obsessive "arithmomania" strikes a chotd. "They call me 'The Count' because I count things," said the little vampire Muppet. Chaz is a vampire. But such a polite one...not only does he wait for River to throw herself at him; he even asks permission to bite before they start kissing.
She's tempted to marry him. She even considers becoming a vampire, before she finds out what's become of the orher women who've been tempted to marry Chaz. And what's happened to the men who made themselves inconvenient to Chaz or his mother or his aunt.
After that events move quickly and logically--at least if we allow the logical possibility that any vampire could be human enough to repent of having been a vampire. In most vampire stories this does not happen, but Chaz is a Southern vampire, so he might. For those who like unrepentant vampires, arrogant and ruthless to the end, no worries, there are some of those too.
This full-length novel can be read on its own, though an afterword connects it to an earlier series. I enjoyed it; people who like vampire stories should love it.
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