The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Holly Black
Vampires go mainstream
The main innovation in Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is that there is nothing secret about the vampires in it. Everyone knows about them -- they have Internet streams and TV contracts. A couple centuries ago, perhaps around when Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, vampires were largely unknown. There were only a small number of them, and they kept themselves secret so as not to be hunted down. That's the social contract familiar from a hundred vampire novels.
But then, about ten years ago, one of them decided to go public. He decided that, instead of killing his victims, he would let them live. Inevitably, most of them became vampires and began making more vampires. Pretty soon there were thousands. This problem demanded a public response, and the response was to isolate the vampires and the infected (that is, pre-vampires) in walled towns. These were called Coldtowns, they were kept under guard, and once you went in, it was almost impossible to get out. (Legally, that is.) The Coldtowns were pretty much left to fester without medical support or a food supply.
Some of them did develop an economy of sorts. They set up electronic connections to the outside world and produced shows and blogs. (Vampires becoming entertainers struck me as entirely plausible.)
The story kicks off when our hero, Tana Bach, wakes up alone in a bathtub after a party. most of the party-goers are dead, having been drained by an attack of vampires. Aside from Tana, there are two survivors, her ex-boyfriend Aidan and a mysterious vampire. They flee for the Springfield Massachusetts Coldtown. (Black's stories are often set in Western Massachusetts, where she lives.) Tana has plans for surviving and getting out, but they fall apart at the first contact with reality. She ends up improvising and fighting (literally) to survive and not become a vampire.
Coldtown is not a gentle place. These are not sparkle-bright vampires that you can sigh over. Almost everyone is treacherous and horrible in the most selfish, violent, and sick ways. In fact, Coldtown is something that I haven't seen in a long time -- a vampire novel that is truly horror.
I liked it. It's an action-packed plot with a hero, Tana, who you can admire. She's not just tough, but also generous, when she can get away with it.