Review by Booklist Review
Collette has changed her name many times. She has lived many lives. And now, as she runs an elite day care in upstate New York, all she wants is quiet and rest. Unfortunately, the hunger that she's felt for hundreds of years is getting harder to resist. Have her many lifetimes finally caught up to her? What will Collette do when faced with yet another end? Holland's debut alternates between Collette's past and her present day. Her long life is measured by the connections she makes with mortals, both good and bad. Collette's fear as her life spirals out of control, as well as her concern and care for her tiny students, humanizes her. The novel is full of the suspense of living a double life and figuring out how to go on when you have very little left to give. Recommended for fans of literary vampire stories that focus on the struggles of immortality, like Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire (1976).
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Holland debuts with a reflective and poetic take on the nature of immortality. Ana, a young girl in the 1830s, watches her family and the rest of her village succumb to tuberculosis without knowing what's happening. Before the disease can take her, too, an older gentleman claiming to be her grandfather arrives to whisk her away. At the moment of her death, he decides her life is worth saving and changes her into a vampire like himself. Ana slowly learns to survive in this new form--and watches everyone around her die in the process. A century-and-a-half later, Ana has taken the new name of Collette and travels to her grandfather's country estate at his request, as he's in need of a caretaker. She's happy enough running a preschool for the rich out of the mansion until her hunger grows suddenly insatiable and nightmares from her past reappear. Holland's refreshing vampires lean philosophical as they struggle with immense grief and loneliness. The intrinsic magic of her worldbuilding, meanwhile, creates a consistent feeling of mystery. The result will especially wow fans of Katherine Arden and Sophie Anderson. Agent: Jennifer Gates, Aevitas. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Head of a prestigious fine arts school for children, Collette LeSange was made immortal centuries ago by her grandfather and has led a troubled life ever since. Now a student arrives at the school whom she recognizes as a stalking presence from her past. Rising star Holland gets a 200,000-copy first printing for her debut.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Following a vampire across more than 200 years, this novel considers "whether this world and life in it is a kindness or an unkindness, a blessing or a curse." At the age of 10, Anna faces illness and death daily as an epidemic sweeps through her town. After the deaths of her father and brother, and when she's at her sickest, her grandfather arrives. Just as she's about to succumb to the illness that killed her whole family, he transforms her into a vampire like himself. When she asks him why he did it, he replies: "This world, my dear child, all of it, right to the very end if there is to be an end, is a gift. But it's a gift few are strong enough to receive. I made a judgment that you might be among those strong few, that you might be better served on this side of things than the other. I thought you might find some use for the world, and it for you." The years that follow are difficult and often wrought with loss for Anna. She lives many lives over the centuries and eventually takes on the name Collette LaSange, opening a French preschool in Millstream Hollow, New York. Chapters alternate between Anna's life beginning in the 1830s and her current life in 1984 as Collette. Notable points of tension arise when Collette tries unsuccessfully to sate her hunger, which is becoming increasingly unbearable, and as her interest in the artistic growth of a student named Leo deepens. Through decadently vivid prose--which could have been streamlined at times--this hefty novel meditates on major themes such as life, love, and death with exceptional acumen. The final questions in the book--"How presumptuous is the gift of life? What arrogance is implicit in the act of love that calls another into existence?"--serve as an anchor to meditations on these themes found throughout. A new and contemplative take on the vampire novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
