I was between audiobooks and browsing through my library app when I stumbled across this gem by Nat Cassidy. I had never heard of Nat Cassidy before, but something about the book intrigued me, so I went ahead and borrowed it.
It’s so good!
It’s told from alternating viewpoints, but I think most of it is told from the perspective of Ana, with some alternate chapters told from the perspective of her husband, Reid. The narrator is Cassandra Campbell, which may have had something to do with my assumption that Ana is the main character.
Ana and Reid have a daughter, Charlie (I assume that stands for Charlotte, but I don’t think that’s ever spelled out) who is about to turn 1 year old. Ana suffered serious spinal injuries during delivery and is now stuck in a wheelchair, and she’s not happy about it.
They’re also not very well off. Ana works as an audiobook narrator, which made me that much more glad I listened to this book on audio, because it just seemed perfect.
Reid is an aspiring musician, but to make ends meet, is working an administrative job at a law firm. It’s one of those gigs that required everyone to return to the office as soon as COVID vaccinations started getting handed out, even though Reid could just as easily do his work from home.
As soon as they were required to go back into the office, the one other office administrator retired, meaning Reid has been given her work to do as well as his own, without any raise. In addition to dealing with the sleep deprivation that comes with having a new baby, the stress of moving and finding himself suddenly in the position of caretaker to his wife, it’s all a bit much.
But I’m getting ahead of myself because I forgot to explain the move. Ana and Reid are constantly struggling financially, and after a few rounds of IVF so they could get pregnant, not to mention the ensuing medical bills that came with Ana’s post-partum injury, money is tight, to say the least.
But they recently won a lottery and have been awarded a beautiful, spacious apartment in one of New York City’s oldest, fanciest apartment buildings: the Deptford. It’s right off Central Park with a courtyard designed to look like Central Park.
Even before they moved into the Deptford, things haven’t been easy for Ana and Reid. In addition to dealing with the new reality of not having working legs, Ana has been suffering from post partum depression. One night she got up to take care of Charlie, found liquid poop everywhere, went to get paper towels to clean it up, making more of a mess as she went, and without realizing what she was doing, came back with a knife. Fortunately, Reid woke up and found her leaning over the crib with the knife and asked what she was doing. That was enough to snap her out of it, but she continues to live in horror of what she almost did … what she might have done if Reid hadn’t happened to wake up and find her.
They move in, and things don’t seem to be getting any better. Charlie seems to be even more restless than usual, Reid loses his job, but doesn’t tell Ana right away, and that goes exactly how you think it will.
Ana is the first to notice that things aren’t quite right in their new place, but due to her history and lack of sleep, she’s hesitant to say anything for fear of sounding crazy. For example, the building has stone gargoyles decorating the exterior, and at one point she looks out the window and notices the gargoyles are gone. It’s definitely weird, but easy enough to think she must have been mistaken.
Another easy thing to write off is the fact that they keep finding the window in Charlie’s bedroom left open, even when Ana is sure she closed it. At one point she finds some kind of sticky goo coating the window sill. But again, maybe they just left it open without realizing it. And some weird animal left the sticky goo?
The reader knows things have really gone downhill when they find bite marks on Charlie’s inner thigh. Ana’s first thought is bed bugs. Reid convinces her to hold off until they see more signs of an infestation, but they do arm up in case it turns out to be bed bugs.
Of course we know it’s not bed bugs, but it takes a while for Reid and Ana to wake up to reality.
The process of turning a human into another vampire takes longer in this book than in others. Instead of the vampire biting their prey and making their prey drink the vampire’s blood, this involves a longer process, and if you can believe it, a more disgusting one.
The goop that Ana found on her windowsill is secreted by the vampires. Some sort of long tube goes from their mouths and down the throats of their victims to do … something? If you’re a victim, it liquefies your organs so the vampires can feed on you while you slowly die. It’s not clear what the purpose of the tube is when creating new vampires.
There was also something about how the building is more than just a place for vampires to live. The building itself is alive and feeds off its residents. It also secrets weird translucent spiders every now and then. Apparently Charlie took to the process of turning into a vampire better than most and even took an active part in the process when she voluntarily ate a translucent spider all on her own. I usually like spiders, but even I found that pretty gross.
That’s not to say these vampires can’t be glamorous when they want to be. One of them is a legit movie star, but a girl’s gotta eat.
I also like the fact that this book pointed out that vampires do age and die, it just takes them a lot longer than it takes the rest of us. As Camilla says, what would be the point of making more of them if they never die? That’s an excellent point I had never thought of before.
If you’re thinking this is one of those horror stories in which the hero manages to take down the villain and make it out OK, that’s only partially true. I won’t spoil it for you because I think it’s excellent, but I did enjoy the fact that this book was about so much more than vampires.
It was about marriage and grief and post-partum depression and what it means to be a parent. It’s also about poverty and what people are willing to overlook when they get a chance to get ahead. It’s so good and I will absolutely be reading more of Nat Cassidy’s books.