REVIEW

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black Indigo  (UK)  September 2013 ISBN 978 1-78062129 6 The moment I saw that this was by Holly Black, author of the wonderful White Cat, I wanted to read Coldest Girl and Holly Black doesn’t disappoint, she smacks you in the eye from the very first page.             Waking up from a raucous party and finding everyone you know has been sucked dry by vampires is bad enough – finding your ex tied to a bed and on the turn with a real life vampire chained up and watching him, whilst getting hungrier for his blood by the hour, is just weird.             What Tana does next says everything about this super cool seventeen-year-old girl who makes Katniss Evergreen look like Cinderella.  Tana rescues the ex and the vampire (covering him in garbage bags to keep out of the sun) and drives out of there towards Coldtown.             The USA is in thrall to vampires.  Some vampire went crazy and infected so many people, it seems like half the population are infected. In Europe it’s worse.             Coldtowns are very secure walled cities given over to vampires and the infected. The vampires feed off the infected and somehow, because of Reality TV, it’s really cool to watch the endless parties and bloodlettings night after night.  Teenagers all over America aspire to go to Coldtown and join the party, even though it’s a one-way ticket.             Tana is scared, as she was rescuing Aidan, her ex and Gavriel, the vampire, she was set upon by a vampire who grazed her leg with his vampire teeth that have hollow tubes in them to suck up the blood more efficiently.  Is she infected?  She has two choices – lock herself away for eight-eight days until she is cured or dies – or go to Coldtown with Aidan and Gavriel.  Along the way they pick up some mad twin teen bloggers called Midnight and Winter, desperate for a scoop in Coldtown.             Tana is tough.  She has to be.  Her own mother was infected and attacked her when she was younger and her father had to hack her crazed mother’s head off (the only sure way to kill a vampire).  She has a little sister obsessed by the vampire culture in Coldtown.  But Tana is not so impressed.  She has no desire to be a vampire, or live forever sucking other peoples blood – but she is strangely drawn to lucid talking Gavriel – can one fall in love with a vampire?  And survive? Exciting, violent, sexy, Tana is a wonderful creation, sarcastic, intensely loyal and yet very sensitive.  This is the fastest paced vampire thriller you’ll ever read.  The Coldest Girl in Coldtown should be a sensational bestseller. © Sam Hawksmoor July 2013 The Repossession - Winner of The Wirral ‘Paperback of the Year’