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Testament
Talk about seeing the sunny side of when Thomas is turned into a vampire, he sees the terrifying transformation as a gift from God. Being a vampire is not a death sentence but a second chance at life for him, and he sets off to do God's work in his new role. Too bad there are older vampires who do see their transformation as a curse and resent God. A battle ensues, pitting vampire against vampire and threatening the existence of everyone.
Richard W. Kelly's Testament puts a new twist on two old tales, blending biblical stories from Christianity with vampire novels. Readers who are interested in religion and horror, and don't take either too seriously, will love it.
Richard W. Kelly's Testament puts a new twist on two old tales, blending biblical stories from Christianity with vampire novels. Readers who are interested in religion and horror, and don't take either too seriously, will love it.
- GenresFiction
Audible Audio
First published July 14, 2010
8 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Richard W. Kelly
19 books27 followersRichard William Kelly was born in Arlington, Texas in October of 1980. The second born and first son of Stephen James and Carolyn Ann Ferguson Kelly. He and his older sister Kerry spent their childhood in the suburbs between Dallas and Fort Worth. From an early age he had wild aspirations to become either a professional wrestler or a writer and imitated both.
Richard graduated from Martin High School in 1999. Throughout school he wrote as a hobby with a dream to one day become a writer, but not enough bravery to attempt it. While his sister moved out of state and his parents relocated to the Houston area, Richard moved to Denton, Texas and attended school at the University of North Texas. He worked various retail jobs while he studied. Always at a loss for a dream that seemed rational he majored in History, Political Science, Anthropology, Mathematics... He eventually graduated with B.A. in Economics in May of 2005.
He married his wife in July of 2005 and bounced back and forth between Houston and Denton. They had met in high school at a coffee shop in Arlington called Scared Grounds.
Unfortunately, college degrees lacked the guaranteed employment both were expecting, and they spent two years moving around and looking for work. Richard finally landed a job as an analyst in Katy, Texas in February of 2007, a career that is still growing today.
In 2009 at Richard’s twenty-ninth birthday he set a goal to write a novel. On July 14, 2010 he released Testament. This, just like the college degree was not a guarantee of a career. Writing remained a hobby as he released books slowly as the years went on as he changed analytics jobs and Texas towns.
In 2017 he relocated his family to Broomfield, Colorado. Although he loved the atmosphere and slowed down pace of Colorado, he was no match for the high cost of living or the altitude. He and his wife now reside back in Texas.
Richard graduated from Martin High School in 1999. Throughout school he wrote as a hobby with a dream to one day become a writer, but not enough bravery to attempt it. While his sister moved out of state and his parents relocated to the Houston area, Richard moved to Denton, Texas and attended school at the University of North Texas. He worked various retail jobs while he studied. Always at a loss for a dream that seemed rational he majored in History, Political Science, Anthropology, Mathematics... He eventually graduated with B.A. in Economics in May of 2005.
He married his wife in July of 2005 and bounced back and forth between Houston and Denton. They had met in high school at a coffee shop in Arlington called Scared Grounds.
Unfortunately, college degrees lacked the guaranteed employment both were expecting, and they spent two years moving around and looking for work. Richard finally landed a job as an analyst in Katy, Texas in February of 2007, a career that is still growing today.
In 2009 at Richard’s twenty-ninth birthday he set a goal to write a novel. On July 14, 2010 he released Testament. This, just like the college degree was not a guarantee of a career. Writing remained a hobby as he released books slowly as the years went on as he changed analytics jobs and Texas towns.
In 2017 he relocated his family to Broomfield, Colorado. Although he loved the atmosphere and slowed down pace of Colorado, he was no match for the high cost of living or the altitude. He and his wife now reside back in Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 30, 2010
So, to start out this review, we need to explain that the author himself sent us signed copy for review of this book. We were more than excited about this, considering it was our very first free, signed review copy, and we appreciate the author’s generosity. But we promised to give an honest, blunt review, same as we’d give any other book, so it is with heavy hearts that we have to say…
There is almost nothing in this book that we can recommend. The main character, Thomas, is an unlikeable fanatic lunatic, who we seriously suspect is just literally insane. Reading from his point of view left us questioning our own sanity, and in need of a shower. The writing is tedious to read, with awkward and repetitive phrasing. And the whole story has this underlying feel of fanatic, old-school eye-for-an-eye Christianity that kind of creeped us out.
But anyway, our hero. The entire opening chapter is devoted to describing Thomas’ apathetic lifestyle; he refuses to bath or clean his apartment, his social interaction is limited solely to strippers, and at work…well, we’ll let him explain:
"He was not concerned with customer satisfaction or the cleanliness of the store itself. In fact, he was constantly playing two games in his head.
The first was a counting game where he would see how many times a customer would ask for help before they decided he was either deaf or rude.[...] The second was a guessing game that centered on trying to see how much dust and dirt could collect around each customer. He had a person at one point that literally had a dust bunny that covered his entire shoe. This game almost felt like watching art."
He spends the next three paragraphs describing the dust.
The point is that the guy is an unlikable douche, and he is supposed to be. The problem is that everything that happens after his transformation seems like it’s supposed to be an improvement – Thomas fulfilling his destiny. But it’s not. He becomes a psychotic, serial-killing Jesus freak.
In a nutshell, the premise is this: Thomas is turned into a vampire, decides that God has given him a second chance at life, and takes it upon himself to rid the world of thieves by murdering them for God. In the meantime, he abandons his old life to live in a church – well lurk in a church…basement….not sleeping…being transparent (literally – see next paragraph)…creeping out the priest…and stalking a parishioner…for Jesus. Primarily because being in the church robs him of his supernatural abilities, and he likes this.
Oh, and speaking of world-rules, the vampires of Testament are literally transparent. The longer they spend as a vampire, the more you can see through their skin to their musculature, like creepy, cave-dwelling fish. The book explains it like this:
"The creatures can not hold pigmentation in their skin nor eyes. Their entire existence is the constant dispelling of their pigmentation."
If someone could tell us what the Hell that even means, we’d be grateful.
Read full review at You're Killing.Us
There is almost nothing in this book that we can recommend. The main character, Thomas, is an unlikeable fanatic lunatic, who we seriously suspect is just literally insane. Reading from his point of view left us questioning our own sanity, and in need of a shower. The writing is tedious to read, with awkward and repetitive phrasing. And the whole story has this underlying feel of fanatic, old-school eye-for-an-eye Christianity that kind of creeped us out.
But anyway, our hero. The entire opening chapter is devoted to describing Thomas’ apathetic lifestyle; he refuses to bath or clean his apartment, his social interaction is limited solely to strippers, and at work…well, we’ll let him explain:
"He was not concerned with customer satisfaction or the cleanliness of the store itself. In fact, he was constantly playing two games in his head.
The first was a counting game where he would see how many times a customer would ask for help before they decided he was either deaf or rude.[...] The second was a guessing game that centered on trying to see how much dust and dirt could collect around each customer. He had a person at one point that literally had a dust bunny that covered his entire shoe. This game almost felt like watching art."
He spends the next three paragraphs describing the dust.
The point is that the guy is an unlikable douche, and he is supposed to be. The problem is that everything that happens after his transformation seems like it’s supposed to be an improvement – Thomas fulfilling his destiny. But it’s not. He becomes a psychotic, serial-killing Jesus freak.
In a nutshell, the premise is this: Thomas is turned into a vampire, decides that God has given him a second chance at life, and takes it upon himself to rid the world of thieves by murdering them for God. In the meantime, he abandons his old life to live in a church – well lurk in a church…basement….not sleeping…being transparent (literally – see next paragraph)…creeping out the priest…and stalking a parishioner…for Jesus. Primarily because being in the church robs him of his supernatural abilities, and he likes this.
Oh, and speaking of world-rules, the vampires of Testament are literally transparent. The longer they spend as a vampire, the more you can see through their skin to their musculature, like creepy, cave-dwelling fish. The book explains it like this:
"The creatures can not hold pigmentation in their skin nor eyes. Their entire existence is the constant dispelling of their pigmentation."
If someone could tell us what the Hell that even means, we’d be grateful.
Read full review at You're Killing.Us
February 3, 2016
This book is like no other that I’ve read. I am a fan of vampires and supernatural beings, from Dracula to Twilight, I love them all, but I can’t find the right group to put this story.
Thomas isn’t the average main character that you identify with, from the first page I found myself hating the guy, which speaks very well about how the author introduced him. We all have lazy days, but Thomas is beyond that, I mean, he doesn’t even have soap in his bathroom and he didn’t notice the milk was two weeks past its expiration date.
Thankfully, everything is about to change in his life, for good or not, that’s something that we will discover through the pages of the book.
I couldn’t help but to feel a bit surprised when all the religious topics started to appear, but I kept reminding myself that this is a work of fiction and so I was able to enjoy the changes and the unexpected ending.
I think this book will stand out in its genre and probably mark a new tendency among writers. I would love to read more from this author in the future and I hope he decides to write a sequel, at least as a short story, to know more about Thomas’ life after the events of this book.
Thomas isn’t the average main character that you identify with, from the first page I found myself hating the guy, which speaks very well about how the author introduced him. We all have lazy days, but Thomas is beyond that, I mean, he doesn’t even have soap in his bathroom and he didn’t notice the milk was two weeks past its expiration date.
Thankfully, everything is about to change in his life, for good or not, that’s something that we will discover through the pages of the book.
I couldn’t help but to feel a bit surprised when all the religious topics started to appear, but I kept reminding myself that this is a work of fiction and so I was able to enjoy the changes and the unexpected ending.
I think this book will stand out in its genre and probably mark a new tendency among writers. I would love to read more from this author in the future and I hope he decides to write a sequel, at least as a short story, to know more about Thomas’ life after the events of this book.
January 13, 2016
I’m usually really turned off by books that involve basically any kind of version of vampires (I blame all the mainstream authors butchering the archetype) but I stuck with “Testament” and found myself pleasantly surprised to find that Richard W. Kelly executed the concept in a really unique way that, for me personally, made the story refreshing. As well as this, and although I did spot a few idiosyncrasies within his character, I particularly like Thomas and think he serves a good example of a complex protagonist.
January 13, 2015
I like that there was a slightly different spin to a vampire story. It was an interesting story...but it could have used a lot more character development. And I think there is a flaw with the Cain and Abel story. Cain in the book says that the bible is true up to the point where he killed his brother, but Cain in this story says he lived in the garden of eden, but the bible says that Cain and Abel were only born after Adam and Eve were banished from the garden.
March 3, 2012
To read what I thought, please go to: http://ykmreviews.blogspot.com/
Thanks :)
Thanks :)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews