NYV: PUNK New York Vampire Book 1
Urban Fantasy/Paranormal
Black Marque Press
September 24, 2015
309
Reviewed by: Linda Tonis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Review Team
Fifteen year old Christian Lecleres grew up in Texas with his super religious mother. He was home schooled but that meant reading the bible and staying in the house or on their property. The only person he ever saw was the woman who would come once a month to drive his mother to town for supplies. Chris knew that his mother and grandmother were not thrilled when he was not born a girl and he assumed that was one of the reasons his mother never showed true affection. It was on his fifteenth birthday that she gave him his first present, a pair of used boots, but to him they meant the world. She also gave him a medallion, a medallion that was passed down from one generation to another to the first daughters of the family. He is the last of the family and the medallion is now his.
When Christian’s mom goes shopping he does something he is not allowed to. Chris takes out an old bike he had and rode it until it actually broke down leaving him far from home with night coming. Chris is definitely not ready to return home to have his mother once again lay into him and so he finds an open car at a closed gas station and sleeps. It is a couple, Reed and Sandy in an RV that will help him on the next step in his journey. . They offer him a ride and when he chooses to go to New York after seeing some postcards Reed gives him money and drives him to the bus station.
It is at the bus station that things go very wrong for him. In the restroom he is attacked by a dirty old bum who shoves a knife into Christian’s stomach. If it wasn’t for the ticket master coming in with a gun Chris would be dead. In the hospital he begins to experience horrible nightmares of people having their hearts ripped out and every time it is his attackers face that he sees. Finally arriving in New York he realizes how out of his element he is. After never being around people he is inundated with them. He is in a city that can chew you up and spit you out without anyone knowing what happened to you.
It is only when Chris meets a group of Punk kids that he finally has friends and people who care for him. These are the kids that fill the parks in the city, sleeping on benches and on the grass not knowing where their next meal will come from. These are the forgotten kids, I know because I live in the city and have passed them many times.
Chris did something he was told not to, something so many kids do when they feel home is to difficult for them and they think the grass is greener anywhere else. The reality is that homelessness is not the way to go. The book is full of rock and roll and drugs. Although this is a book about a fifteen year old the degree of violence was difficult to take when it was directed at a child.This was a very different kind of vampire book that I am used to but it was interesting. I found myself skipping through a lot of the book but I did love Chris and I know that the first book in a series is all about world building and the next books are way better so I do look forward to the next chapter in Chris’ life.
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