Customer Reviews

23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a big Laura Caxton fan, she's an unusual reluctant hero that will NOT do anything to win in the end and that you have to admire. She's a good cop and she's saving the world, what's not to love?

I'm also a big David Wellington fan. His stories have detail but never drag and his characters usually manage to make great strides in their development without taking the long road there. Throw in vampires and I'm fully 100% on board.

The last three books in this series (13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, and Vampire Zero) are great, I was itching to know what happened next in Laura's story. However, this fell a little short in my opinion. It's not a throw away book or even filler, I just felt like I was reading a long segueway in a story, like at on any page there would be real meat and yet there never was. In the previous books, the stories advanced and the characters developed and some things wrapped up but not in this one, which is why I have to give it a "Eh?" rating.

Wellington loves a cliffhanger but I'm just not sure how the next book can't just be a rehashing on the same themes from this one, which is the first time I've ever felt that way about one of his stories.

I'll pick up the next one in the Caxton series, this book is a quick read and full of gore, there are interesting characters which is why I give it the 4 stars - I just feel like it's missing something.

Looking for something different than all the usual vampire books booming today? Here's the book for you. The vampires in this book have a mouth full of teeth, burning red eyes, no soul, but they do have personality. This isn't a romance novel, and it's not a teen book.

Meet Laura and her girlfriend Clara. Laura is in prison and Malvern, the vampire is coming to kill her. Laura is a vampire hunter and Malvern has avoided her for many years. This book is action packed and will keep you glued to the pages. The ending left it open for a follow-up book. Malvern's plan becomes obvious in the end and I was pleasantly surprised by the ending.

This is part of a series of books, which I didn't realize when I purchased the book. It's good as a stand alone or in the series. I plan on reading the rest of the series and look forward to these books. Although I'm not sure I'd read it again.

Contrasting the mundane Blood Blade is an enthralling vampire hunter tale and the fourth book in Wellington's series about lesbian vampire hunter Laura Caxton. If you haven't read the first three books, never fear, Wellington makes this an easy jump-on point with a fairly self-contained story and by also providing a synopsis of what has taken place previously. Good thing, too, as our heroine starts out the book in prison for killing a vampire informant.

The world's oldest vampire, the hag Justinia Malvern has her nemesis in the perfect trap. She conspires with the prison warden to get prisoners to feed on to restore her strength while promising to turn the warden into a vampire. Malvern tightens the screws on Laura by kidnapping her lover, Clara, and giving her 23 hours to rescue her. Laura now has to fight through a prison full of inmates and vamps to try an save Clara.

What works so well about the book is the prison setting. Laura goes through the humiliation that new prisoners have to endure at the hands of the other inmates. She's also handicapped as she is without her usual resources for battling the undead. This turns the tables on the hunter as she becomes the hunted with very few allies to help her. While "23 Hours" isn't quite as good as the previous book "Vampire Zero", it's definitely superior to many of its ilk in the vampire hunting genre.

Let me start off by saying that this is a very good vampire series.David really made vampires ultra violebt monsters instead of femine dramatized creatures. this being the 4th in the series (obviouslly not the last) it didnt fault in what it does best.... but did continue the trent of not being as good as the last which in my opion this series has been doing. the book oncebagain pits vanpire hunter caxton againt....vampires. The book is good. full of great violence but it feels like too much been there done that. The prison setting tried to be a fresh turn but it didnt change the fact that we were gona see the same caxton doing the same stuff. as a stanf alone its easy for a new reader to pick up. Wellington makes sure to backtrack ceertain information so no to lose new readers. I guess my dissapointment is that i feel the story should have ended a book ago. i still give it 3/5 because the fact that it still delivers on gritty vampire violence, crisp lead characters, and an author that doesnt have favortism towards characters.

I picked this book up at my local Borders which was closing. The cover was what caught my attention as I hadn't heard of this series before. No knowing that this was the last book in a series it was the first I read. Not having known about the other stories, I was still sucked in and would stay up late to read 'just one more page'. Loved it and will be looking for the others now!

Laura Caxton is the thinking lesbian's crumpet. Courageous under fire and in the face of impossible odds, a have a go heroine with a cute girlfriend and a kick ass job, a cop who kills vampires. Then it all goes horribly wrong when she goes too far interrogating a suspect and her U S Marshall's boss arrests her and she ends up in a maximum security prison. And that's when the fun starts. The vampire she didn't stake starts a deadly game of cat and mouse with Caxton and the inmates, where she has just 23 Hours to save the day - and her girlfriend - before a plague of vamps (think 40 Days of Night not Twilight) sweep through Pennsylvania and then the world.

This could have been a clichéd women in chains, dykes in prison book, but Wellington has made the fourth book in his vampire saga so much more. Filled with unforgettable moments, this edge of the seat ride is the true meaning of fast paced. An un-put-down able romp through the horror/police procedural genre that gives a shot in the arm to vampire tales made too palatable by the likes of the young adult fiction. It makes vamps evil once more. Highly recommended. I'm looking forward to book five.

Another great book from the new master of horror, David Wellington. I just want his books to make it onto the movie screen!

This was my first read of David Wellington, we all have to start somewhere. I really enjoyed the story and the way you have the main character chasing a vampire inside the prison, she doesn't let up because she knows the next second could be her last. Armed with nothing but her vampire hunting smarts and saddled with a caffeine addicted celly, Laura is bound and determined to save her girlfriend and herself. Add a prison crowd that wants her dead and you've got an explosive battle on your hands.

I read 23 Hours--the fourth Laura Caxton novel--with zero exposure to previous novels in this series, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover the story measured up to expectations despite not having read the earlier books. This novel was recommended to me based on similar purchases, and the fact that I read Wellington's Frostbite: A Werewolf Tale, which I enjoyed.

The loose plot summary: cop-turned-con fights her way through vampire-infested prison, immediately perked my interest. Since I am not familiar with Laura Caxton's history, I have no basis for comparison, but as a vampire aficionado, I thought this stand-alone story was a tightly-written, fast-paced, and unique departure from the glamorous, seductive vampire stereotype that has recently flooded the market.

The plot is straightforward with no tangential side-plots to distract from the main focus. Laura Caxton is imprisoned in Pennsylvania's Marcy State Correctional Institution on a bad rap for torturing someone (apparently a bad guy) in order to catch a vampire. When a riot erupts during mealtime, Laura is immediately targeted by Guilty Jen, fellow convict and marital arts expert, who intends to make a name for herself by beating the famous Laura Caxton to a pulp, but this action-packed first sequence is only the beginning to a serious bad day that sees Laura transferred to solitary confinement by the warden before Justinia Malvern, the oldest living vampire and Laura's former foe, takes over the prison from the inside. Malvern's intricate revenge plot forces Laura into a diabolical game of hide-and-seek on a 23-hour timeline. Stuck in close quarters with her speed-talking new "celly," Laura seems to be the only person who understands what's going on when the prison goes into sudden lockdown and Half-deads (zombies) infect the COs and gain control.

I was amazed at the level of research that must have gone into chronicling Laura's incarceration. The technical minutiae of prison procedures definitely enhanced the story and was skillfully written into the action without the annoying "let me stop and explain how this works" style of narration that is always a risk in police procedurals. Combined with Wellington's characterization of Caxton as a tough-but-flawed gay heroine--a distinctive and welcome departure from Female Badass characters that seem to proliferate this genre--I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

In short, if you're looking for new vampire fiction featuring scary, evil, bad-guy vampires, then definitely give this series a try. I now have to go back and read the earlier books to catch up.

23 Hours, the 4th in the Laura Caxton vampire series, delivers again....just as every Wellington novel has. Quickly becoming one of the most consistent and prolific young horror writers out there, Wellington doesn't ease up one bit with 23 Hours. Super fast pace, page gripping action....and plenty of gore (of course),
And it appears there is more to come....