Monster: Memoir of A Vampire Paperback

Description

Sarah didn’t believe in ghosts, werewolves, or vampires.

She was sure those movie monsters didn’t exist.  Instead, she knew human monsters were real because one lived in her house, her father.  So, she is confused when she escapes one night with her brother, Marcus, and runs right into the arms of a clan of vampires, who give her acceptance, friendship, and even love.  Sarah and Marcus find a home with them, but there is a darkness in the Clan, real monsters that she will need to fight.  What will Sarah become to save herself and those she loves?

Monster: Memoir of a Vampire

The debut novel by Josephine Napiore

Sarah’s young life is a troubled one.  Abused by her father and neglected by her mother, her only chance for escape happens when her brother Marcus finds himself in trouble with the law.  Running away, the siblings fall in with a group of teens who seem to offer support and companionship, but they are ruled by Johnny, one of the charismatic princes of the vampires.  Once Marcus becomes a vampire, the siblings’ fates are sealed.  Turning back no longer an option and in love with Johnny, Sarah succumbs to his world.  But only more abuse and domination await her as she becomes a mother to Johnny’s children.  Only maternal instinct and a desire for inner strength will help her now.  Sarah will need to find a way to become strong and independent or be forever ruled by abusive men.

Praise for Josephine Napiore

“Josephine Napiore is a deeply compelling author. Her narrative has its own kind of Glamour that puts a reader under its spell from the first page. I tore through this book with an insatiable hunger for more.”

–Tate Hallaway, best selling author the Garnet Lacey series

“In Monster: Memoir of a Vampire, it’s not just the vampires who are to be feared, it’s the things that make us so monstrous in the first place: the drunken father who crawls into his daughter’s bed at night, or the desperate measures you’ll take when you need to go off in search of a new home. That is what makes Josephine Napiore’s novel so memorable. It’s not just that she takes her vampires out of the dark into a bright and shiny new world. It’s that her story is grounded in a reality as familiar as any teenager’s struggle to learn how to live and love in a world where the most important family is often the one you have to create for yourself.”

— Stephan Eirik Clark, author of Sweetness #9 and Vladimir’s Mustache

Excerpt from Monster: Memoir of a Vampire

The boardwalk looked different to my vampire eyes.  Like I said, it was April, so there weren’t a lot of tourists yet, but some had come for the warm early spring.  There were some businesspeople in town for conventions.  Their blood distracted me from all the things I had previously loved on the boardwalk: the food, the music, the rides.

Instead of smelling the salty tang of popcorn and sweet breading of corn dogs, I could smell the intoxicating aroma of sweat mixed with lavender perfume of the older lady walking close past me in a wool coat, too warm for the weather.  The man she was with smelled of woodsy Old Spice, overlaying an aroma of garlic that oozed from his pores.  And the blood.  The smell of their blood distracted me from enjoying the time with my friends.  These people smelled delicious.  I leaned into their wake, and Darren’s hand holding mine pulled me back away from the scent of their humanity.  I watched them as they met up with some colleagues, and I could smell their blood too and hear it swishing through their veins and arteries, pumping through their hearts.

I understood why Steve had smelled me that night so long ago, burying his face into the space between my neck and collarbone.  I realized that it wasn’t just a sex thing, but Hunger.  Chris suddenly blocked my path as I pulled free from Darren and turned to go to the woman and lavish in her lavender and sweat scent.

“Where ya goin?” she asked me and turned me around.  Darren grabbed my hand again.

“Look at this cute shirt,” Marcus called to me from the front of a nearby store, holding up a T-shirt from a clothes rack.  It had a white fluffy kitten on it, just my style.  “Should we go into the store, Sarah?  You could get a new shirt.”

I shook my head.  My demon said to follow the woman.  I fought it, but the demon was still stronger.  I tried to go to her, but I was not given a choice by my friends as I was pushed by Chris and pulled by Darren into the store.  They pushed me past the displays in the front into the back area by the racks of more clothes and tried to distract me with them.  The smell of cotton and starch invaded my nostrils, dampening the call of my demon.

I stopped next to a small boy, maybe around eight years old, who was looking at some small souvenir toys next to the clothes while his parents looked through the racks.  He wore jeans and a t-shirt with an unwashed baseball cap on his head that read, “Tigers.”  He smelled sweet and warm and comforting in his innocence.  His savory blood smelled like the best prime rib in town.

I leaned toward him, inhaling deeply, licking my lips.  I couldn’t help myself.  I couldn’t fight it.  My demon said I should drink his blood, and at the time it sounded like a great idea.  He looked up at me, startled.  His heart pounded louder.  This just increased my Hunger.  I’m not sure if my eyes Changed then or not.  But the boy looked terrified, with big eyes and gaping mouth.  He backed up into a display to move away from me, almost knocking it over.

Suddenly Marcus stepped between us, pushing me back and turning me around.  “Let’s go on a ride,” he suggested.

“You never saw us,” I heard Chris say to the boy in her Commanding voice as we moved out of the store.

Back on the boardwalk again, I moved over to the railing.  The hands that gripped it were shaking.  I felt like I would imagine a drug addict trying to kick the habit felt.  The others followed.

Marie rubbed my back reassuringly.  “Hang in there.  You got this,” she said.

Do I?” I asked.  All I could think about was the blood.  I wanted desperately to lavish in it, to feel it flow through me.  This was the Hunger.  The demon inside of me yearned for blood and caused me pain when I turned away.  It was very hard to control, this demon.  I say demon because I have no better way of describing it.  It felt, at times, as though there were another entity inside my body, burning me, trying to manipulate me.  At other times, I felt ill, like I had a fever.  I turned to the garbage can next to me and threw up all the hotdogs I had eaten at the house to stave off my Hunger.

I understood why the others had sometimes turned their eyes to me and stared.  I had been food for their demon.  Only knowing that punishment from the others would be the consequence of breaking the law of Protection had kept them in check.  The vow I had made to the girls secretly under the boardwalk the night before my birthday helped, but my main check was the sun.  I convinced myself that I needed the sun more than I needed the blood.  I wanted to live in the daylight, to have a normal life, as normal as I could have.  I wanted my nice bedroom and not some dirty mat on the floor of a dirty basement.  I wanted the library.  I wanted to not be vulnerable, to not have an Achilles’ heel.  Be strong, Little Sister.