More Trade Reviews of Drink, Slay, Love

Over the weekend, two lovely new trade reviews of Drink, Slay, Love appeared!!!

School Library Journal
Gr 9 Up -- How refreshing to find a stand-alone vampire book with a real twist. Pearl is a typical teen vampire-typical in her world, that is. She is heartless and mostly evil, thinking of humans only as snacks and toys. Then she meets a unicorn, who stakes her with his sparkly horn. When she awakes, she finds that things have changed a bit - for starters, she can now be in sunlight without bursting into flames, and she has started to develop something unthinkable -- a conscience. Timing is bad for Pearl -- her family has just been chosen to host the fealty ceremony for the king of the New England vampires, and she has been nominated to provide the feast in the form of local high school students. The story has plenty of great setups, and Durst does not disappoint in her follow-through. There's catty and dark humor, romance, blood, danger, and, of course, there's the unicorn, whose secrets are revealed. The story transitions easily between the vampire and human world, creating characters, settings, and situations that are quite believable and often funny while still maintaining a respectable level of darkness. Fans of vampire fiction will be pleased to find this one on the shelf. -- Angela J. Reynolds, Annapolis Valley Regional Library, Bridgetown, NS, Canada

VOYA
Pearl is a typical teen vampire, avoiding sunlight and preparing to become a full-fledged vampire following a ceremonial feast with the vampire king. One night, after enjoying her regular snack of an ice cream shop clerk's blood, something downright...magical occurs. A unicorn appears from behind a Dumpster, piercing her with his horn. Pearl recovers from her injuries, but oddly, she can now endure the effects of sunlight. Her family seizes this opportunity to enroll her in the local high school to lure her new classmates to the vampire king's feast as snacks. As Pearl acclimates to high school life, she becomes less bloodthirsty and more concerned about her new human friends. She joins forces with several erstwhile vampire hunters and a were-unicorn, and finds herself at a defining crossroads as the feast of the vampire king approaches. Offering a nicely skewed twist on the teen vampire genre, this book features a young bloodsucker enduring a crisis of conscience that causes her to be torn between the traditional vampire way of life and that of a normal high schooler. Pearl is an engagingly written, deeply flawed character, and readers will enjoy her sarcasm-fueled search for the unicorn that altered her life. There is a bit of romance and the requisite love triangle of supernatural beasts, but Pearl is a strong female character who does not lose herself to her suitors. This book will likely appeal to young horror fans who enjoy a snarkier, smarter, distinctly less sparkly brand of vampires. Reviewer: Sherrie Williams

Yay!!!!!

300th Post and School Library Journal Review

This is my 300th blog post!

*blows horn and throws confetti*

Please have a slice of cake.

I started this blog in September 2006 with these words: "Have you ever had a dream come true? Welcome to mine. I'm Sarah Beth Durst, and I'm about to be published."

Now it's 3 books and 300 posts later, and I want to thank all of you for continuing to join me on this journey!

It seems that the universe knew this would be my 300-blogiversary because this week I got a wonderful present: a lovely review of ICE from School Library Journal. This makes me very, very, very happy. Here's the review, from the December 2009 issue of School Library Journal:

"Novels with a fairy tale at their center are ubiquitous, but even in this crowded market, Ice, based on "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," is a standout. Cassie is the daughter of an Arctic scientist and lives in a research station on the ice. Her mother is dead, according to her father, but Cassie remembers a story her grandmother used to tell her about how her mother was the daughter of the North Wind and was stolen away by the trolls. As the story opens, the teen is pursuing a polar bear when it steps into the ice and disappears. Drawn by her feeling that there is something special about the animal, Cassie ventures out after it. The bear is a munaqsri, a keeper of souls for the polar bears. Cassie agrees to be his wife if he will rescue her mother. Although initially fearful, she develops a relationship with Bear based on real love and companionship. All is well until she ignores the prohibition against looking at his face while he is in human form at night. Bear becomes a prisoner of the trolls, and Cassie, now pregnant, begins her quest to travel east of the sun and west of the moon to rescue her beloved. This is a unique and cleverly spun romance for an older readership than Edith Pattou's East (Harcourt, 2003), with a splendidly courageous and smart heroine. Durst flawlessly weaves together romance, adventure, and a modern sensibility to create a highly inventive and suspenseful story of a girl on the cusp of adulthood. Readers will take Cassie and Bear to their hearts." -- Sue Giffard, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, New York City

As I started saying 300 blog posts ago... Snoopy Dance of Joy!