Review:   BENDING NATURE: A Different Kind of Vampire Novel, by Samantha Stone

Good news for readers bored with the same old I-vant-to-drrrink-yourrr-blooood vampires. Author Samantha Stone has given lots of time and energy to re-imagining vampires as (spoiler alert:) extraterrestrials.

Told in the tone and vernacular of a teen or YA novel, the story follows high school senior, Julie, to her after-school job at the museum — where she, Pygmalion-like, has got a crush on a beautiful manly statue of an angel with outspread wings. She calls him Michael. I don’t want to give away the startling opening of the saga, but in due course, Michael turns out to be not a statue, nor an angel, but, in fact, what humans call a “vampire.”

Vampire Mike enrolls in high school and socializes with Julie and her friends and family. Things might have gone well enough except that, of course, Michael is not the only being to have arrived from his home planet. His enemy — and former betrothed — has come seeking him and intends to force him to do her bidding.

Readers will want to discover all the details and twists and turns of the story for themselves, so there will be no further plot developments described here. The book is suitable for teens as well as adults, and there is minimal bad language. Sex is discussed and implied, but not explicitly portrayed.

Hats off to Samantha Stone for a fresh look at a popular, old genre. It’s a fun read for vampire fans.