REVIEW: Companions of the Night
Apr. 26th, 2025 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllCompanions of the Night: Vivian Vande Velde, Magic Carpet Books, 2002
Kerry Nowicki is sixteen years old, has a learner’s driver permit and an afterschool job at a supermarket. When her four-year-old brother Ian begs her to go back to the laundromat to rescue his stuffed toy, despite it being the middle of the night, she gives in. Their mother recently left their father and them.
But her very late-night errand turns violent and something well out of her control. Three men have brought in a bloodied and injured young man who can’t be much older than Kerry. They claim he’s a vampire, and Kerry is a witness to the fact that one of them is happy to beat this guy up, while the others are waiting for an associate to turn up with a video camera, as they plan to await dawn.
Kerry manages to persuade them that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but decides to help the guy who says his name is Ethan and he’s a student. More by luck and the element of surprise than anything, she does so. Of course, Ethan isn’t a vampire, those people were crazy, but when they get away to Ethan’s uncle’s house, things aren’t what Kerry was expecting either. Though she’s not sure what she was expecting.
Still, Ethan says that he’ll report the crazy people to the police and keep Kerry out of it if he can – she doesn’t want to get into trouble with her father of the law for driving illegally and being out at night. The next day, it seems like she will get away with it, until her father doesn’t turn up to pick her up after her shift at work. Instead she walks into Ethan, who gives her a ride home, but there she finds a message, ‘VAMPIRE, WE HAVE YOUR FAMILY.’
Kerry is forced to rely on her own wits as she is repeatedly told impossible truths and plausible lies, in the hope of staying alive long enough to rescue her father and brother. Can she trust Ethan, who she noticed was attractive, and who claims to owe her his life?
What I really liked was that the book, aimed at readers of 12 or over, takes its premise pretty seriously, Kerry’s concerns are very grounded, even as things quickly get very abnormal. At one point, her inability to drive stick is crucial. But there’s also an awareness of the need to build its own vampire lore, with would-be vampire hunters trying everything they’ve ever heard of, not all of it working. Though there is an age-appropriate interest in the eroticism of vampirism, the horror of it is also always present.
The book was first published between the release of the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer and when the TV series came out, and so must have been influenced by the same zeitgeist. I was somewhat reminded of Robin McKinley’s ‘Sunshine’, which is more layered and complex, but this happens over a compressed period of time, with fewer characters, and is more of a thriller. The emphasis on choice, as Kerry has to make decisions that no 16 year old should, because her family and others’ lives depend upon it, works really well for a book with a teen heroine.
Kerry Nowicki is sixteen years old, has a learner’s driver permit and an afterschool job at a supermarket. When her four-year-old brother Ian begs her to go back to the laundromat to rescue his stuffed toy, despite it being the middle of the night, she gives in. Their mother recently left their father and them.
But her very late-night errand turns violent and something well out of her control. Three men have brought in a bloodied and injured young man who can’t be much older than Kerry. They claim he’s a vampire, and Kerry is a witness to the fact that one of them is happy to beat this guy up, while the others are waiting for an associate to turn up with a video camera, as they plan to await dawn.
Kerry manages to persuade them that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but decides to help the guy who says his name is Ethan and he’s a student. More by luck and the element of surprise than anything, she does so. Of course, Ethan isn’t a vampire, those people were crazy, but when they get away to Ethan’s uncle’s house, things aren’t what Kerry was expecting either. Though she’s not sure what she was expecting.
Still, Ethan says that he’ll report the crazy people to the police and keep Kerry out of it if he can – she doesn’t want to get into trouble with her father of the law for driving illegally and being out at night. The next day, it seems like she will get away with it, until her father doesn’t turn up to pick her up after her shift at work. Instead she walks into Ethan, who gives her a ride home, but there she finds a message, ‘VAMPIRE, WE HAVE YOUR FAMILY.’
Kerry is forced to rely on her own wits as she is repeatedly told impossible truths and plausible lies, in the hope of staying alive long enough to rescue her father and brother. Can she trust Ethan, who she noticed was attractive, and who claims to owe her his life?
What I really liked was that the book, aimed at readers of 12 or over, takes its premise pretty seriously, Kerry’s concerns are very grounded, even as things quickly get very abnormal. At one point, her inability to drive stick is crucial. But there’s also an awareness of the need to build its own vampire lore, with would-be vampire hunters trying everything they’ve ever heard of, not all of it working. Though there is an age-appropriate interest in the eroticism of vampirism, the horror of it is also always present.
The book was first published between the release of the film Buffy the Vampire Slayer and when the TV series came out, and so must have been influenced by the same zeitgeist. I was somewhat reminded of Robin McKinley’s ‘Sunshine’, which is more layered and complex, but this happens over a compressed period of time, with fewer characters, and is more of a thriller. The emphasis on choice, as Kerry has to make decisions that no 16 year old should, because her family and others’ lives depend upon it, works really well for a book with a teen heroine.
