I haven't read anything by Rachel Harrison before, but it seems that she's known for writing cozy horror from a female perspective in books like 'Black Sheep' and 'Such Sharp Teeth' and this is an excellent example of the same. The title has a double meaning, applying both to the fact that it's a vampire novel and to the underlying theme of change, the ability of women to escape their ruts; here, epitomised in the form of marriage to a serial cheat, and live once more. The irony, of course, is that Sloane gets to live more when she's dead.

For all that we begin with Sloane, who's the lead character, it initially seems to be all about Noami, her best friend for forever. Sloane has settled down and got married to Joel, but Harrison cleverly avoids actually telling us her name for a while, because Sloane doesn't see herself as important at this point in her life. She feels acutely trapped and so lives vicariously through Naomi, a wild child who lives a vibrant life on the road with her rock star boyfriend Levi.

On page one, we learn Naomi speaks with certainty. On page two, we learn Naomi has an answer for everything. On page three, we learn that Naomi's life is a wild, glamorous adventure. On page four, we finally learn Sloane's name, firmly in the context of wife because it's realistically all she is now, as she faces down her thirty-sixth birthday. No wonder she's feeling old, even though she's so young.

Given that there's no way we're going to get a story about Sloane that doesn't involve Naomi, the setup is that Joel has paid for the two of them to spend a girl's weekend together, at a cottage at the expensive Waterfront Collective retreat, resort and spa "in the heart of the Finger Lakes ", so: upstate New York. And, just so she doesn't have a chance to talk him out of it, it's scheduled for the coming weekend and Naomi already has flights booked back from Europe. Sure, it's a self-serving gift, given that he can hook up with another woman while his wife celebrates her birthday, but it's also an opportunity for her to live a little with her best friend.

The irony of that soon comes home to roost, because Naomi meets some men while they're eating out and that prompts an invitation to a party at a lakeside mansion, which turns out to be the sort of party Sloane doesn't want to be at but Naomi's absolutely fine with, given an open relationship with Levi, and before they know it, Naomi's dying on the floor, her throat bitten out by some sort of weird beast that got let out of the cellar and suddenly we're in a vampire novel and everything changes.

By the way, I don't think any of that counts as spoilers because this proudly proclaims "a vampire novel" on the dust jacket and, while it's not quite stated that these women are turned within the jacket blurb, it's pretty heavily implied and it will absolutely not surprise anyone reading. Where it goes from there, however, I'll leave for you to discover, albeit with a pair of references as hints. While it would be inappropriate to dismiss this as "The Lost Boys for thirty-something women", it does feel that way for a while, until it takes a turn into the other, even better, Hollywood vampire movie from 1987, which is 'Near Dark'.

The other thing I'll add is that there's a real change of focus when Sloane and Naomi are turned. Up to this point, the latter has led the way, charging ahead without any thought of consequences because she's young at heart and the young are immortal. From this point on, Naomi fades, into someone who can't control herself, almost a slave to her new thirst for blood. Of course, this isn't really new for her, because she's lived her life as a slave to other thirsts, but that was acceptable and manageable and even socially desirable. Now, it's a problem. Suddenly Sloane is the adult in the room, the one who can think and plan. She has control and power now, as palpably scared as she is, and that means that she has agency.

The most telling line comes late in the book, maybe sixty pages from the end, when Sloane's new undead love interest tells her, "Just because you have all the time in the world doesn't mean you can't still waste it." Obviously, he's talking about an immortal existence as a vampire, but it's just as applicable to youth, especially Sloane's, because she made the wrong choices and ended up in the wrong place and saw much of that time as wasted even while she was living it. And that means that she has a second chance, which isn't remotely a new theme for vampire stories but one that I don't believe I've read from quite this angle before. Paranormal romance fans will probably laugh at me for that.

I liked 'So Thirsty' but it's an easy book to like. Harrison writes swift and clean prose so I whipped through this novel in a single sitting. The question is always going to be how long its impact lasts and that may be its downfall. There are certainly themes here and I've already mentioned a bevy of them, all of which are worthy, but none are explored particularly deeply. While we learn plenty about Sloane and Naomi, more in mood and attitude than detail, the other vampires are kept in the background. We learn some rules, of course, because that's de rigeur for vampire fiction, but we don't learn much background, only a few hints here and there as they shift from mere flavour to active guides. Everyone else human is a prop. So maybe this will fade pretty quickly.

As a horror novel, it's nothing special but it's breezy and fun. As a vampire novel, it's even lesser, except in metaphor, because being undead is a means to a theme. As a romance, I'm hardly a good literary guide but it feels pretty flimsy. I'd think that its real value, other than to combine those two 1987 Hollywood vampire movies into a single coherent story, which is neat to this film fan, will be in how it adopts all the above into a novel that's fundamentally empowering to women. That's valuable but, not being either thirtysomething or a woman, I can't really say how well that works. It seemed to work to me, but I'm not the target audience. I might suggest that it's a lot of fun and, if this review spoke to you at all, you won't regret reading it, but how much of a bonus you'll find in its pages will be up to you. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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