Vampire Blood

Vampire Blood #1

by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

For years the vampire family lived in the shadows, hidden by the night and people’s disbelief; feeding on animals or throw away people who would never be missed. But as the family moves into a once elegant old theater, and uses it to cover up their crimes, the youngest of them are restless and determined to live as they like. Recklessly killing and feeding when and where they want; feeding on who they want.
Only the parent vampires have managed to keep them in check–but no longer.
Unaware of the undead menace, the townspeople of Summer Haven, Florida, blithely go about their daily lives until, one by one, they begin to disappear. Screams are heard in the night and fear grows in the small town of Summer Haven. The lost are never found…alive.
But Jenny Lacey and her father, who are hired to renovate the old Grand Theater, can’t escape when they find themselves caught up in the middle of the vampire’s war. And, in the end, it’s up to Jenny, her brother, Joey, and her ex-husband, Jeff, to get rid of the bloodthirsty fiends that are destroying their town…if they can.

Genres: Horror, Vampires, Paranormal, Fiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

About Kathryn Meyer Griffith 2023
Since childhood I’ve been an artist, and have worked as a graphic designer in the corporate world and for newspapers for twenty-three years before I quit to write full time. But I’d already begun writing novels at 21, over fifty-one years ago now, and have had thirty-five (romantic horror, horror novels, romantic SF horror, romantic suspense, romantic time travel, historical romance, thrillers, one non-fiction short story collection, dinosaur books, and murder mysteries) previous novels and thirteen short stories published from various traditional publishers since 1984. But I’ve gone into self-publishing in a big way since 2012; and upon getting all my previous books’ full rights back for the first time in 36 years, have self-published all of them. My seven Dinosaur Lake novels and Spookie Town Murder Mysteries (Scraps of Paper, All Things Slip Away, Ghosts Beneath Us, Witches Among Us, What Lies Beneath the Graves, All Those Who Came Before, When the Fireflies Returned, and Echoes of Other Times) are my best-sellers.
I was married to Russell for over forty-three years; have a son, two grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. I live in a small quaint town in Illinois. I have a quirky cat, Sasha, and we live happily in an old house in the heart of town. Though I’ve been an artist, and a folk/classic rock singer in my youth with my late brother Jim, writing has always been my greatest passion, my butterfly stage, and I’ll probably write stories until the day I die…or until my memory goes.
2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS *Finalist* for her horror novel The Last Vampire ~ 2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS * Finalist * for her thriller novel Dinosaur Lake.

*All Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s books can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/ld4jlow
*All her Audible.com audio books here:
http://tinyurl.com/oz7c4or

Novels and short stories from Kathryn Meyer Griffith:
Evil Stalks the Night, The Heart of the Rose, Blood Forged, Vampire Blood, The Last Vampire (2012 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS*Finalist* in their Horror category), Witches, Witches II: Apocalypse, Witches plus Witches II: Apocalypse, The Nameless One erotic horror short story, The Calling, Scraps of Paper (The First Spookie Town Murder Mystery), All Things Slip Away (The Second Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Ghosts Beneath Us (The Third Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Witches Among Us (The Fourth Spookie Town Murder Mystery), What Lies Beneath the Graves (The Fifth Spookie Town Murder Mystery; sixth, All Who Came Before, When the Fireflies Returned (the seventh Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Echoes of Other Times (the eighth Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Egyptian Heart, Winter’s Journey, The Ice Bridge, Don’t Look Back, Agnes, A Time of Demons and Angels, The Woman in Crimson, Human No Longer, Six Spooky Short Stories Collection, Forever and Always Romantic Novella, Night Carnival Short Story, Dinosaur Lake (2014 EPIC EBOOK AWARDS*Finalist* in their Thriller/Adventure category), Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising, Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation and Dinosaur Lake IV: Dinosaur Wars, Dinosaur Lake V: Survivors, Dinosaur Lake VI: The Alien Connection, Dinosaur Lake VII: The Aliens Return, Memories of My Childhood, and Christmas Magic 1959.

Her Websites:
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Reviews

[Laura Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read Human No Longer, I knew I’d be reading more of Kathryn’s books. When she told me there was another book that was a prequel written before it, I had to read it.

They say nothing ever happens in a small town.

Jenny and her brother Joey are going to wish that were true.

A family of vampires are on the run after one of them made a mess of things. The leader, Michelson, decides it’s time to return to Summer Haven, Florida.

Michelson struggles to control the younger vampires, but it’s hopeless. They feed on anything and anyone and the heck with the consequences. The old town theatre seems like a good place to maintain their cover, but with the indiscriminate killings, trouble has followed them.

The poor town is losing citizens at an alarming rate and the murders are vicious and bloody. Soon Jenny and Joey will be drawn into the horrific events, caught between the feuding vampires.

No one is safe and the bodies keep piling up.

The author really had me squirming. I know I shouldn’t have cared about the vampires, but their leader almost had me on his side. I got where he was coming from. He had a family to feed and protect.

Michelson had a good idea when he bought the old theatre and started getting it ready to reopen. He could make a living and the hours would be convenient. Too bad the brat, Irene, couldn’t keep her fangs to herself. A small town probably wasn’t the best choice when you’re trying to survive and stay undiscovered.

Jenny is my favorite character. She’s a horror writer and just moved back home after a bad divorce. She’s having to start over and find herself again. Imagine her surprise when the creatures she wrote in her fiction books turn out to be real.

Joey, her younger brother, owns the local diner. With his personality and his amazing cooking, the diner becomes the town hub and gossip central. In a small town there are no secrets. I live in one and someone is always coming up to me and asking, did you hear about or guess what so and so did.

Together, these two siblings make a lethal combination. They both have people they care about, and the vampires chose the wrong town.

I couldn’t believe I was feeling sorry for some of the vampires. For the most part they’re cruel and toy with us like a cat with a mouse. We being the mice.

I’ve read several of Kathryn’s books and one thing she’s consistent with is her ability to spin an in-depth plot. Another is her abundance of characters, each with their own voice, easy to tell apart.

The beginning is bloody, then there’s the calm before the storm. Once the action starts it’s hang onto your butt until you reach the end.

I received this book for my honest and unviased review.

[Elke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess this kind of story will always remain my favourite kind of fangtale: vampire novels where bloodsuckers still suck. Vampire Blood is one of those straight stories where you are well aware of the vampires' unholy motives, which definitely don't include any romantic inter-human affairs. Instead, the human female has to fight the undead by all means, which makes her far more likeable than any longing damsel-in-distress waiting for her pale hero. Also, she's just your average girl-next-door, not one of those modern vampire hunter amazons either, which seem to mark the opposite facette of modern vampire lit.

That's what I really like about this book: take some normal people you can identify with and let them face sudden unexpected unbelievable evil. No superpowers or -weapons included, no common knowledge about the undead world, just plain fight or die.

[BookLoversLife · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Book Gremlin Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

~May contain slight spoilers.~

The first characters we are introduced to in this novel are the vampires, which I really liked, it made the novel much more interesting having met them instead of our main characters first. By doing so the author gave them . . . well, life I suppose, it made me think of them as people, made me humanize them.

Soon after we are introduced to Jenny, who had been divorced twice and finally came home. At one time a best-selling writer the dream was torn away from her with her first marriage and now she is drifting along working with her father on small home repairs and painting houses.

Jenny learns from her brother Joey that the old movie theater that closed down, The Rebel, has recently been bought and that the new owner is going to reopen. Jenny, soon gets herself and her father hired to clean, paint and do repairs to help get it ready for opening night after a chance meeting of the new, somewhat eccentric seeming owners.

Animals are being found dead by what police believe to be cults but soon people are disappearing then suddenly Jenny's father goes missing and Jeff, her first husband shows up at her door...

I really enjoyed this novel; it kind of reminded me a horror movie, because I could easily picture the events that happened in Vampire Blood happening and me just sitting back and watching.

The beginning of the book was slightly slow but once you get to know the characters a little you get into the novel and it is pretty fast paced and progresses nicely.

I think I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good late night paranormal horror book.

*I received an Ebook copy of this book for free to review from the author in exchange for an honest review.

[Jodie Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent book! It played into many of the typical vampire myths but the author added her own little twists. She started the book off slow but it gave you a lot of background. This enabled me to really feel for the characters in the book. There were no fluff characters. Each character had their reason for being there and you really related to them. The chapters were fairly short which quickly pulled me through the 236 pages and before I knew it I was done. There was an Epilogue which was great as it tied up the story nicely for the reader.

Poor Jenny Lacey has come home from two failed marriages to a drunk mother and aging stubborn father. She and her father tackle the job of rennovating The Grand Rebel theater which had been bought by some 'eccentric' people that gave Jenny weird feelings and dreams. When animals are found dead, butchered and completely drained of blood, the local, state and FBI are called in to help with the newly developing missing people as the numbers mount up. What is the deal with the new owners of the theater? Will Jenny have to pay with her life when her father disappears? Will Jeff, her first husband who has returned leave her again? It's a great read so check it out!

[Enid Cavallaro · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a fan of the vampire genre and for the most part this was an ok take on that subject. My only problem was that I found it difficult to engage with the characters. They were to me one dimensional. Even though back stories were given for the main characters I never got a sense of them as fully fledged people.
Some of the elements of the plot were a little far fetched as well, even though the story was set in a small town, surely more people should have started waving a red flag at some point when the body count started piling up, but no people kept disappearing and the town just seemed to go "oh dear" and really .... no one noticed giant wolves dragging people out of a movie theatre? and never once did the book explain why the evil vampire took such a dislike to our heroine, to the point that she felt it necessary to wipe out anyone close to her.
For me, the book wasn't bad, but it left me with feeling that I had somehow missed something

[Deedra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book.It was full of interesting things and people.Vampires come to a town and people start to disappear and animals are slaughtered.When someone comes to town and re opens the long closed theater,Jenny and her dad are hired to help fix it up.Worst decision ever! K.Orion Fray is ok reading this book.I found her narration to be a bit stodgy and unemotional.I was provided this book by the author, narrator or publisher.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. I often wondered why Jenny was so slow to realize the family was vampires but Jeff knew right away something was not normal about this family. I had sympathy for Annie and Michelson, theirs was true love.

[Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted at: http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.c...

Creepy. Chilling. Both words that could be used to describe this book. Triumph, love and hope could also be used. This is a classic vampire novel of good versus evil. It almost feels like a throwback to a past era, to a time when it was more clear who the bad guys were.

We immediately get to know the character of Jenny and her family. I felt like they could have been one of several families that I know. Just down to earth, good people struggling to get by and dealing with the realistic daily life that so many people struggle with. Jenny worries about her dad getting older and still needing to work. She loves her brother and is proud of his accomplishments of realizing his dreams. She misses her daughter, who lives far away. She regrets relationships of the past and decisions that she has made. In short, she is just like you, me or any number of people that you may know.

The characters that we get to know through this story are realistic and dynamic. I loved how real they all were and the relationship between Jenny and her parents is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking. The vampire characters are more in the fashion of the old, scary vampires of past generations rather than the sexy, enticing vampires of today's romance novels. The exceptions to that statement would be the two “parent” vampires, Terry and Annie. We do get to know a little of their history, but really just enough to tease. We don't get to know any of the vampire Irene's history at all, other than one brief statement, and given her role in the book it would have been nice to learn more of her background. The stars of this novel are not the vampires though, despite what it would seem from the title, and as a result we don't get to know them nearly as well as the rest of the people in the book.

The love story between Jenny, and her ex-husband Jeff, is somewhat bittersweet. Jeff is a likable guy and, I realize that there are extreme circumstances at work, but I don't know that I would have forgiven him quite so easily. There is romance in the book in the form of other relationships that we get glimpses of, but relationship between Jenny and Jeff is the main romantic storyline – and it is minimal. One thing still holds true to the romance genre though: we do get our happy ending.

It is well written, with a realistic feel to it. If vampires did exist in our world, it is easy to see something like the story portrayed in this novel taking place.

If you like dark tales with classic “monsters” and a story of determination to overcome then you should check out this book. If you are anything like me, it will keep you turning the pages long into the night. I do love a good horror novel once in a while and with some romance thrown and paranormal aspects, this is like the best of all worlds. Reading it around Halloween would be fun!

[Sherry Fundin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michelson thought he had found a home.

But Irene had been a bad vampire, leaving six mutilated victims to be found.

Now they were running again.

They were going back to Summer Haven.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vampire Blood starts with mutilated bodies and ends with a………..Bite.

I had read Human No Longer and loved the book and Jenny. Kathryn Meyer Griffith told me she had written a prequel to Human No Longer and I was curious to see how and why Jenny came to be Jenny.

Vampire Blood tells the story of the theater and how it changed Jenny and Joey’s lives forever.

Rumors and mystery had surrounded the theater. The townspeople always thought it was haunted. Oh no, it was much worse than that.

Jenny is the main character and I loved her. She had courage, with a capital C. Courage means that you face your fears, you do what must be done no matter how terrified you are.

This was the first time Jenny had ever lived alone. She felt it was time to find herself. She was afraid of the dark. Sounds funny, because she wrote horror novels, Vampire novels to be specific. Just because she wrote about Vampires, didn’t mean she believed they were real. It was fiction.

Until the mutilated bodies were found.

Who would have thought it was all true?

I felt so sad for Joey and that surprised me. I did not feel that way when I read Human No Longer, but when I found out about his story, it may me want to wrap my arms around him and tell him it will be okay.

Vampires and shapeshifters. Some are so cruel and blood thirsty. They like playing with their food. Made me think of Orcas playing with seals. How terrifying can that be?

Others, like Michelson, just wanted to live and let live. Can a vampire have a heart?

A small town with lots of dead and mutilated bodies? My thought was – why weren’t they doing something sooner? I would have called in “Criminal Minds”.

Kathryn Meyer Griffith’s character and world building are not to be topped. Her writing flows smoothly and draws you deep into her stories.

I received this book from the author in return for an honest and unbiased review.


Kathryn Meyer Griffith

[Tony-Paul Vissage · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat leisurely novel of a vampire-takeover in a small town, Salem’s Lot-wise, but there, the resemblance ends. Jenny is no Ben Mears, and Terry is no Kurt Barlow, for this story isn’t black and white; there’s a lot of gray in the portrayal of the vampires, as well as the mortals pursuing them. The author takes her time in setting up the story, letting us get to know each and every character, why they’re like they are and think like they do. It’s an entertaining and thought-provoking story, and it carries the reader along with it as it winds its way to a confrontation and an ending that’s as dramatic as it is hoped for.

[CoffeeTimeRomance andMore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kathryn Meyer Griffith writes a story straight out of a nightmare. Her characters are authentic and scary for the evilness she creates in them. I was scared to read the next chapter but knew I would never rest until I found out how it all comes out. Vampire Blood is well worth the read, and Ms. Griffith is an author I will keep an eye on.

Delane
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More

http://coffeetimeromance.com/BookRevi...

[Crymsyn Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, but it just seemed to move too quickly. Something seemed to be missing that I couldn't quite put my finger on. So 3.5 stars.