The Gathering

Loved this! Perfect winter read. I love when an author is not afraid to steer away from the standard vampire tale and it pays off. This is my second book by Tudor that I have really enjoyed (loved The Drift as well)

"Age might bring wisdom, but it also brought indigestion and elasticated pants.”

So, C.J.Tudor’s 6th novel is set in the small Alaskan town of Deadhart (pop. 673 alive). They share an uneasy peace with a colony of vampires who live in a disused, rundown mining settlement not far away. When a teenage boy is found murdered with vampire bite marks on his neck, it’s up detective and vampire expert Barbara to find out the facts and decide if a cull of the colony is needed.

OK so lots going on here, lots of characters, lots of small-town thinking, pretty much everyone has something to gain or lose by a cull being authorised, lots of secrets, plenty of surprises.. The whole setting and sense of place is really great. Some of the back stories are excellent, two that really stand out are the girl in the basement and the bone house, both utterly grim.

I suppose making the vampires everyday things, ala True Blood, takes some of the horror and threat away from the story, the vampires here have reason and even if they have desires for blood they don't generally act on them. Most the horror comes from the moments of cruelty some of the characters are subjected to and some of it is horrific.

Overall, this was great fun. All over the place with the rating. Probably if I was being mean it would I would give it a 3 but I went up to 4 just for the sheer enjoyment I had when reading. Not her best but her bar is very high. Might have been a 5 had it been set in Mansfield.

3.5

I didn't realize Alaska was so woke! Multiple gay relationships. A transgender bar owner. Somehow white supremacy linked to being anti vampire.

The story wasn't that great either. Just kind of drug on.

I have read, and enjoyed, all of CJ Tudor's books to date. Not so The Gathering. I absolutely loved it. It was probably the most bizarre book I've read so far this year, and that's exactly why I loved it.
Set in present day Alaska, the book starts off with Detective Barbara Atkins being sent from New York to the small Alaskan town of Deadhart to investigate the murder of a teenage boy. Before you can say From Dusk Til Dawn, the reader soon realises that this is no ordinary police procedural, and Detective Atkins is no ordinary detective.
I'm not going to give too much away, but I'll give you a small clue: Vampyrs.
The Gathering has some very interesting characters. It's big on atmosphere and suspense, and there are one or two surprises. It is, dare I say it, fang-tastic.

Note: If you're a fan of the Twilight series, this is NOT the book for you.

A thriller-esque and horror-ish mystery set in Alaska where Detective Atkins of the Forensic Vampyr Anthropology Department is sent to investigate the murder of a teenage boy — and the human town is demanding an authorized cull of the neighboring vampires. This is exactly like our world, except in 1983 a US law was passed making vampires a protected species.

I thought this was a fantastic murder mystery story. I liked the detective, deputy and vampires (and how all the characters were written even if I despised them), the premise and the world building around the vampire-human history were really fascinating, and there's actually some themes on hate, discrimination, oppression and the depravity of humanity that I found interesting too. I had some minor issues and on the petty side it is evident Tudor is not from Alaska and didn't seem like she did much Alaska research outside of the fact that Denali and reindeer exist. This was my first Tudor and I only picked this up for the Alaska setting so I was disappointed, grump. But I would read more, including a sequel to this one.

I would highly recommend for mystery folks. If you're looking for horror, I would say this is not it, for me it has more disturbing elements than eliciting fear. There is reference to trafficking, torture and child abuse. If you avoid blood, you might want to avoid this book.