Good Girls

Set in the immediate aftermath of the justly lauded Motherless Child, this intense novel weaves its themes of love, loss, family obligation, and personal sacrifice into another richly textured tale of supernatural horror. The Whistler, the monster who turned previous heroines Natalie and Sophie into vampires, is still on the prowl and determined to revenge himself on Natalie’s mother, Jess, who killed her own daughter and thus deprived him of his “Destiny” with her. The Whistler’s pursuit of Jess eventually enmeshes Rebecca, a college student in East Dunham, N.H., who babysits Natalie’s orphaned son and is beginning to feel a daughterly bond with Jess that she never knew during her own childhood. The novel’s suspenseful finale is a bravura display of storytelling finesse; its visceral horrors are intensified by the care that Hirshberg has taken to develop the emotional lives of the characters on whom the horrors are inflicted. A subplot involving the Whistler’s extended monster family suggests that Hirshberg is expanding his vampire mythos for future stories. (Feb.)