The Society of S by Susan Hubbard
Walker
Books, 2009. ISBN
9781406314977.
(Ages:
Secondary) Ari
lives alone with her widowed father in a Victorian house set away from
the
town. There she is home schooled in the morning, and left to her
studies in the
afternoon when her father retreats to the basement to continue his work
with
blood samples. When their housekeeper suggest that Ari is too isolated,
she is
given permission to take the girl into her home, where she meets her
two
children, Kathleen, a girl of Ari's age, and Michael, several years
older.
Through these two Ari learns more of the outside world. Both teens are
stretching the boundaries imposed by their family, and when Kathleen
takes Ari
to her meetings with her friends, where they play at being vampires,
Ari feels
odd. One night, after Ari goes home because she feels ill, she is
shocked to
find that Kathleen has been murdered, and when the police interview Ari
and her
father, she realises that suspicion is falling on them.
Eventually
Ari's father explains that yes, he is a vampire, and suggests that she
too, may
be headed that way. The Green Cross van that comes to the house every
week,
brings blood for him, as he and his group, do not kill for blood,
taking
vitamin supplements and blood from the mortuary. She wants her mother,
and goes
off to search for her, pursuing the vague clues left by others in the
household.
Her quest leads her to Florida, where she finds that things are not as
they
have been described.
Full
of Gothic romance and horror, The
Society of S will have wide appeal to those lower secondary girls
taken up
with the idea of vampires and lonely teenage girls growing up without a
mother.
Odd house servants, strange happenings, a father with heroic looks, a
mother no
one mentions, suspicions about a dead cat and then a murder along with
blood
samples brought to the door, all have an airing in this scary tale. But
it is
not the vampire tale of old. When Ari's father finally tells her who
and what
she is, the stress all the time is about controlling the urges and
taking
precautions against killing. The vampires in this story must choose.
Fran Knight