The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

 

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix was my first read for the month of October 2024, but is the third novel I've read by Grady Hendrix. I selected this novel as a Halloween themed read. I listened to the unabridged audio version of The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was well narrated by Bahni Turpin.

I think The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires may be the last Grady Hendrix novel I read. I really enjoyed his novel, Horrorstör, so I chose to read more of his novels. However, both The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires and My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, simply weren't as engaging/captivating for me as Horrorstör was.

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires was definitely suspenseful in parts and definitely had a lot of horror elements to it. The characters and storyline were intriguing, but the plot took a different direction than I anticipated it would based on the book blurb. 

I didn't like how derogatory the male characters were in their views and behavior towards their wives and women in general throughout The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, which was a HUGE turn off for me. 

I know Grady Hendrix seems to be popular among many readers, but his novels don't resonate with me very well for the most part. I think he's a good writer, but the characters and storylines aren't entertaining enough for me to invest time reading anymore of them in the future.

Below is the publisher's summary for The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix I found on Goodreads:

Fried Green Tomatoes and "Steel Magnolias" meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

I am giving The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix a rating of 3 stars out of 5 stars.

Until my next post, happy reading!