After a hard season the team,
Kingsbarr United are down and Johnny Knox, the local football hero takes his
normal pilgrimage to Transylvania, where he lost his son, Callum. The main
characters son went missing years ago and he keeps going back in a hope of
finding him. On the trip something more surprising happens and he ends up
coming home with a young boy. The problem is that he is no ordinary boy, and
when he starts crying out for blood and the cat comes back to life, people
begin to ask questions. He is not the
only one. Now there are vampires in England, and they want to join the football
team. Will Kingsbarr United ever be the same again?
When first hearing about this book,
I assumed that it would be a very light read, footballing vampires, it has to
be a laugh a minute. What surprised me was the starting point. The main
character has lost his son and goes every year to the place he went missing.
With his heart broken, he travels the area hoping against all odds in finding
him, and we are drawn into his loss.
For me, even when we talk about
fantasy and myths, it still has to feel real or it loses its impact, what I
found hard was finding a boy, and not deciding to take him to the local authorities,
but he uses his son’s passport, puts him on a plane, without any real
contemplation, and then accepts him into his home. It needed to be done in
order to move the plot along, yet it jarred a little for me. Saying that, it
moved well, the writing nicely paced. The characters are enjoyable to get to
know. Johnny and his family, the team and even the vampire coven all play a
part in creating a very unique story.
The characters grow throughout, and
I found the biggest change in Professor Cesar. From wanting to increase his
coven, falling in love and ultimately willing to sacrifice himself to save
others. It was a fast, fun, fascinating read.
