Adam, 10, and Victor, 14, are brothers, living with their two moms and college-age nonbinary sibling Sung in Washington State. That’s not so unusual in this day and age. But the family are vampires, trying to stay hidden in a human world that hates and fears them. The boys are only two of the many vampires fostered by the moms over the years to save them from more dangerous vampire covens.
Adam yearns for friends his own age. He’s curious about the wider world, and wonders if a vampire could ever fit in there. Victor, in contrast, wants to revel in learning what he sees as “cool vampire stuff,” like learning to fight and use vampiric charisma on humans. He’s tired of living on the blood from old or sick people that their Mom humanely sources from patients at the hospital where she works on the night shift.
When a series of murders shocks the humans in their town, the boys get caught up in trying to find the killer, who may have not only humans, but also vampires, as a target. There’s plenty of action and adventure (and a little gore, but likely not too much for older middle-grade readers), but this is more than just a murder mystery. Author Deke Moulton has created a tale as thoughtful as it is gripping, exploring questions of identity and belonging as well as what it really means to be a monster.
Yes, there’s a parallel between how vampires are marginalized in this book and how queer people are treated in the real world—but Mouton paints an even bigger picture. Adam was found as an infant by his Mom after a hate-motivated explosion at a synagogue killed his human parents; a human girl whom he meets in the course of investigating the town murders is also Jewish, and uses Jewish ethical beliefs (and the horror of the Holocaust) to guide her thinking about vampires.
In an Author’s Note, he explains that Bram Stoker’s classic book Dracula is actually full of antisemitic tropes. Adolf Hitler called Jews “vampires and bloodsuckers” and “the race which shuns the sunlight.” Moulton says, “I wanted to imagine what it would be like if the ‘Jewish vampire’ resembled the actual Jewish life that I knew…. Basically, I took Bram’s attempt to hurt us and flipped it to show the reality of what it means to be Jewish–one of many ‘demonized’ minorities.”
The diverse cast makes this more than just a “Jewish” story (or even a queer one), however. In addition to the Jewish characters (all White), Mom is Christian and White, Mama is Muslim and Black, and Sung is Asian, of Korean descent; another character is Latino. Moulton deftly draws on each of the characters’ distinct perspectives and experiences to explore broader issues of fear, marginalization, community, and family, while also giving us a gripping murder mystery, with well-thought-out worldbuilding around vampire life and history and some unexpected twists.
Highly recommended, and a 2024 Sydney Taylor Book Award Silver Medalist, for books “that authentically portray the Jewish experience.”
