Acquainted with the Night

A young woman is thrust into the secret world of vampires in this clichéd supernatural thriller, first in a proposed series. When Caroline “Caro” Clifford’s Uncle Nigel is murdered, she travels to Bulgaria and ends up on the run with biochemist and soi-disant vampire expert Jude Barrett. The vamps chasing them work for Harry Wilkerson, CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, who hopes to learn and capitalize on the secret of vampiric immortality. Wilkerson is also Caro’s long-lost father, and he believes she knows the location of pages Caro’s mother stole from a suppressed Gnostic gospel about vampires. To find the pages, Caro and Jude must decode clues left by Nigel while evading Wilkerson’s forces—but their growing romance is complicated when they learn Caro may be a part-vampire and implicated in an ancient vampire prophecy. The predictable twists add unfortunate drag to this roller-coaster ride. (Dec.)