The World on Blood

Mildly supernatural, erotic tale from the author of West of the Moon (1987), etc., this about a mixed sexual bag of 12 vampires who form Vampires Anonymous in San Francisco, treat blood as an addictive drug, and hew to the Twelve Steps of AA. These vampires are humans, can't change shape, do not have longer lives than other humans, and yet can get stoned on blood - especially baby-blood. Here, novelist manque Nick Santos - a binge-drinking vampire looking for bloodless sobriety after accidentally drowning a visiting English vampire and after the death of a buddy vampire who'd been two years clean and sober - approaches 41-year-old Reverend Betty Ruth Shoemaker of the Church of the Higher Power for permission to hold three AA-type meetings a week in her building. Struck by his beauty, she asks Nick to be her sperm donor so she can conceive before her biological clock ticks out, though Nick insists he's gay. Meanwhile, he returns to writing (excerpts from his book form the best parts of the novel), and his VA group dragoons a new member, young Lourdes Perez. But millionaire blood-drinker James Whistler, a charming hypocrite, takes her under his wing, becomes her lover, and even gets her pregnant. It was Whistler who prompted Nick to found VA, but, now undermined by Whistler, the group falls apart, its members choosing to go along with his blood-drinking and to abandon Nick. Then Whistler seduces a violent girl named January into stealing Nick and Betty's baby for blood at a watches' sabbat; to save his child, Nick must again drink blood to grant himself extrahuman strength in fighting Whistler - and so returns to his habit. From here on in, though, he'll drink on Fridays only. Modified blood consumption, giving up AA's total abstinence? Twelve-Step readers will hardly agree. But vampies must be vampies - and Nick's choice is amusing if not convincing. (Kirkus Reviews)