In this feral feminist vampire novel, cats-and cat ladies-are out for blood.
It's 2005, and Vera Valcourt is an aimless goth waitress in New York City, desperate for something to sink her teeth into. Caged by her Catholic upbringing, her dead-end job, and her deadbeat boyfriend, Vera's only solace is her rescue cat, Sammy. But when Sammy disappears, Vera is forced to claw her way out of the domestic life she's been trapped inside.
The frantic search for her missing cat drives Vera into the dark underbelly of cat lore. Following a blood-soaked trail blazed by a medieval abbess and a roaring twenties witch, Vera is cast into a world of ancient myths and ancestral magic, ruthless cults and cutthroat cat ladies. If she and her beloved Sammy are to survive, Vera must uncover the secrets of a deadly feline species with more than nine lives.
A suspenseful mix of occult horror and urban fantasy drenched in dark humor, Nightcats explores the unbreakable bonds between women and their cats, and what we sacrifice to keep our teeth sharp in a world that wants us defanged.
What did I think?
Nightcats is the perfect read for the dark nights and I think I might read it every year just to experience it all over again. It’s very creepy and a little scary.
It is told from three points of view: Cassandra in London in 1925, Vera in New York in 2005 and actress Candy, who Vera meets when interviewing her for a cat adoption. As well as the dual timeline and various points of view, there are excerpts from a 13th century book called the Lonetal Heresy.
It is a very enjoyable read and I positively raced through it. It’s perhaps not as gory or as feral as I expected but the vampire cats freaked me out a bit and their feeding actions, that Kristen J. Sollée describes very vividly, really made my skin crawl.
As the chapters are quite short, there’s a lot of back and forth with the different viewpoints but it’s not confusing at all and they start to link together nicely towards the end. Kristen J. Sollée’s writing is very accomplished and the whole book played like a Hitchcock movie in my head. It would be great to see Nightcats made into a film.
Nightcats is a chilling feminist horror novel that is deliciously dark and skin crawlingly good. It’s incredibly imaginative and shockingly vivid; it’s definitely a book that horror fans will lap up.
I received a gifted paperback for the Black Crow PR review tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
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