Synopsis: Kathy is an innocent, an outsider who longs to belong somewhere. Anywhere. Dreams of her half-sister Amber and of the centuries old Highgate Vampire are taking her to places she doesn’t want to go. Kathy can’t stop the sequence of events. If her nightmares and reality collide, the Highgate Vampire will come to take her soul…

Review: If you avoid vampire novels like the plague because you didn’t like Twilight or any other paranormal romance, then you probably don’t want to apply this prejudice to The Highgate Vampire because this is the real deal. Gritty, action packed and a smart story line that even until the last pages had you guessing, I flew through this book.

Kathy is our main charatcter, and I really liked her. She is vulnerable but not frail, awkward and yet attractive, shy but at times able to put on a false front. She’s a bit of a paradox. She flys out to London in search for her sister Amber who has gone missing. There’s some family history that explains why Kathy was raised in America whilst Amber was raised in England. Kathy arrives in London with no knowledge of what exactly she’s gotten herself into with her search and soon finds herself knee deep in vampires. Scary vampires too, not the Cullen kind.

Speaking of the vampires, you can probably tell already but I really found them reshreshing. They reminded me of the old 1950’s style vampire horror movies we would watch as kids, where vampires where simple and scary. And that was it. These vampires of course aren’t that straight forward, however I liked the traditional approach and I genuinely found myself scared at parts in the book!

I loved that whilst reading our main story, there are sub storylines from the past appearing with people being attacked by The Highgate Vampire. Usually I hate flicking back and forth, but the way the author did this was with deliberate intention and it certainly serves a purpose in enhancing the story. He was very smart in how he wrote this book.

The end of the book does somewhat leave us in position where it could either be the end of a stand alone book or the start of a trilogy. I am to believe that this is the first of a trilogy if the internet is telling me the truth. I am really excited by this, because there really isn’t many other YA vampire novels of this kind on the market. It’s a real horror/thriller style of novel.

Overall, really loved it, and I’ll be reading any more books that Asa Bailey brings out about The Highgate Vampire!

Rating: 4 out of 5