Here's a novel that had me in two minds while reading it and more so later after thinking about it for this review. Half of it is fascinating, a thoughtful new approach to both vampires and demons that comes wrapped up in intriguing mythology. Half of it feels like the publisher wanted a bunch more words and Compton didn't have more story to throw them at. There are a bevy of characters for whom I saw huge potential but ultimately they're all sidelined because it's destined to only be about two of them. And perhaps my favourite aspect, an unusual and unnerving revelation around which everything turns, doesn't seem to get the attention it deserves.

For a little while, it's achingly good. In the very first chapter, Angelo manifests out of nowhere and brutally murders Sarita's husband Frank on their wedding night, pounding his head into mush. It's shocking in itself but it's all the more so for Sarita because, until now, she's believed Angelo to be her guardian angel. Over the next few chapters, we learn why. He only appears when she's in some sort of serious danger: pulling her out of the Gulf of Mexico when she was nine, getting her to the hospital before her appendix bursts at seventeen, ensuring she doesn't get into a particular car in Austin when she's twenty-one. He doesn't care about anyone else but he clearly cares about her.

That's a fantastic setup for Sarita. Why would someone she doesn't know but trusts absolutely do this to her? It's also a fantastic setup for us. Why would he do it at this time and in this way? Now, the police either believe that she murdered her own husband or that she knows who did and isn't telling, because, hey, the truth is the last thing they'd ever believe. Johnny Compton also ensures that we don't believe this is all in Sarita's head because others around her have seen Angelo too, not least her mother, her brother and her best friend, Tori.

If the first five chapters are excellent to begin with, the sixth elevates the book still further. This is the point where we learn at least some of what's going on here. Sarita Bardales may feel that she is just another girl, albeit one who's half black and half Mexican and feels invulnerable because, if anything should ever put her in danger, she has a guardian angel to pull her out of it. However, she is apparently also the Godbride, the Martyred Mother. Her husband, Frank Stallworth, is the Devil of Devils. So says Cela, the Godmaker and Devilmaker. There are prophecies in play and it's crucial to powerful creatures that they come true.

I adored this approach and my appreciation didn't decrease as Compton built his mythology. He's happy to pick and choose unusual approaches to vampires and demons, then combine them into a heady new mixture. What would you do if you suddenly learned that a weird cult of supernatural creatures has been worshipping you since before your grandparents were born? That's a heck of a revelation to spring on someone. It's not unfair to suggest that Sarita, who thinks she's living her own life, suddenly discovers that she's Jesus and her entire life and death is already mapped out, far beyond her control. Maybe I should say the Blessed Virgin Mary, as that's a closer comparison. Either way, what can you do about that?

Unfortunately, five excellent chapters and one glorious one fade away somewhat as the next few drag on without any sense of direction. Focus shifts to Harrah, Frank's biological mum, who didn't attend the wedding on account of him wanting to give his stepmum Misty the first dance honour. She's not happy with Frank but she blames Sarita and that gives Cela something palpable to work with, now that plans laid generations ago are starting to go awry. Harrah definitely has promise, but we've just been let in on something epochal and we really don't want to suddenly sit back to watch her play the slot machines and wonder who she's going to pick up to ease the tension.

If this shift in focus is where the book starts to lose its way, it's not the only such moment. Chapter fifteen is a particularly glorious one, shifting Sarita's story into a new gear and setting up Frank's uncle Everett and Sarita's best friend Tori to have important parts to play. This is a chapter of real expansion that promises much but Compton doesn't deliver. Everett doesn't get a better scene to warrant this build and, while Tori does, it wasn't enough for me. I wanted so much more from both of them and it seemed like Compton thought so too.

I do wonder how much of the negative side of the book has to do with poor planning. Certainly the positive side feels like good planning, Compton mapping out a mythology and prophecy and then slamming them into an unsuspecting lead character at a particularly powerful moment in her life. Did the author have plans for Tori and Everett, not to forget Sarita's brother David, that seemed unimportant when it came to writing, so he simply ditched them and didn't go back to remove the promise? I got that impression about the police investigation. Clearly there is one, not only after Angelo murders Frank but after a similar murder happens in Harrah's hotel room. The cops talk to Sarita, who was hundreds of miles away from that, but that's the last we hear of them.

In the end, what I found was that I cared about much of what drifts off into the periphery. Sure, it all has to come down to a particular boss battle and that's fine for the story, but it's too focused to work for me at this length. If Compton only cared about the core of his story, he could have turned this into a wonderful novella. A novel length story needs more and that's why he brings in Tori and her study of magic, Everett's hinted history of violence, back stories for the Exile and the Viscount, the purpose of the Northman, an echoing lifelong chorus of worship by a cult of vampire demons, an underground lair protected by a sleeping god. Each of these things is a worthy element for the novel version but each of these things ends up either underwhelming or drifting away.

I haven't read Johnny Compton's first published novel, 'The Spite House', but it's received plenty of good press, so I wonder if he wrote this first and it's only come to light after the success of that one. It feels like a first novel, because it has some glorious bones but it needs plenty of work. It's a revelation and a disappointment and not a lot in between. ~~ Hal C F Astell