Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: The Hunger
Author: Susan Squires
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 0-312-99854-6
Release Date: October, 2005
Genre/Sub-genre: Gothic Vampire Romance
Year/Setting: London, 1811
Overall rating: 4.25
Sexual content rating: Sexual (some quite explicit)
Susan's Website: www.susansquires.com
Beatrix Lisse is living in a world which wouldn’t accept her if her deepest secrets were told. In fact, most of the people alive would never believe that she was over 600 years old. Many days, Beatrix can’t believe it either. Her lifetime has seen many changes in society but more importantly in her.
As a younger woman, she tried to live life to its extremes (and I do mean extremes) in order to fill the void within herself. As she matured, however, she found that those extremes only made the void larger and filled her with shame and humiliation that she didn’t know how to overcome. She withdrew from many in life and turned to the arts to satisfy herself. That is, of course, except as she needed the human blood for fulfillment.
In 1811, however, her life would permanently change. John Langley is introduced to her and she finds her heart leaping in ways that it hasn’t in decades. As she finds herself emotionally drawn to him, her inner conflict increases. She is falling in love with him but is afraid that if he finds out she is a vampire, he will be repulsed and push her away. One more rejection is one too many for her.
In spite of those feelings, she discovers that his role as a spy for England has taken him into dangerous territory with his life endangered by a vampiress once called her sister. Beatrix must overcome her fear in order to save his life.
I must admit that I do not generally read novels with a vampire as a main character so this was a step beyond my comfort zone. I found Susan Squires to be a gifted writer, however, and found a lot of emotion involved with this story and these characters. While I am not a vampire, I could find myself relating to Beatrix in the area of fear of rejection. Finding the inner strength to overcome that fear in order to discover more to life is an area that I believe many people today struggle with and will be able to relate to this heroine.
The suspense created by the writer is truly full of danger and intrigue and yet there is a side of the story that also comes to the forefront – the fight between good and evil. In every walk of life, fact or fiction, there are people who strive to be the best they can be and help their fellow man and there are those who seek the darker side. This is quite evident between Beatrix and Asharti (the woman once called her sister). Beatrix discovers that the darker side of life is painful in ways she never imagined and has spent her life attempting to better herself and create a better world around her. Asharti couldn’t be more different. I was drawn to the struggle between them.
The only down side that I could say in regard to this book is some of the scenes get fairly explicit – whether sexually or in the descriptions of the vampire activity. There were just a few times I found the explicitness to be distracting from the storyline. Personally I think that could have been toned back just a bit but that is just me.
The Hunger was very suspenseful and incredibly well written. Susan Squires is a very gifted writer, a master creator, with a real talent for descriptive methods and character development.
Lori
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