Bayou Bytes Blog

 Evelyn Perdanu owns of of the most powerful shipping companies in the dying city of Delphinium. Once a rich and successful port, war has cut Delphinium off from most of it's resources and the city is slowly fading. While many of the rich party in an attempt to ignore their slow decline, Evelyn leads a solitary and calculating existence. When one of her ships returns to port, she is horrified to find a mysterious illness onboard.  Despite her efforts, the sickness soon spreads beyond her ship. Infected persons, with an undeniable glint in their eye and manic energy, begin turning up in her daily life. And soon it becomes apparent that she is the common factor. Whatever is driving the infected, it's after Evelyn.  She retreats to the safety of her manor, determined to find answers. A cure if she can, before the whole city is overrun. This is a fantasy horror story, brought to you by the author of The Luminous Dead. Which I have praised extensively, and reviewed here . ...

 Holly is a young trans vampire, who has recently joined a vast underground colony. Modeling themselves after the honeybee, these vampires dutifully perform their assigned duties and defer only to the Hierophant, their founder. All Holly wants is to be fully accepted, for the Hierophant to give him a new name, which will wipe away the last of his human past and mark him as a true member of the colony.  But the Hierophant seems to be rebuking Holly at every turn, and Holly begins to wonder if this is really where he belongs. The Mellification  was an interesting story. At about two hundred pages, this is a novella rather than a full novel. And though it's a good plot, I think the length counts against it. This story introduces not only Holly, his partner Cain, and the Hierophant, but it also throws in some perspective switches and introduces you to Lila and Claudia -- two vampires locked in an eternal rivalry that dates back to their time as humans. It would have really be...