Helens-of-Troy [Kindle Edition]

Janine McCaw (Author), Tom McCaw (Illustrator)

Book Description

“The Gilmore Girls meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer”

Fifteen year old Goth-chic Ellie has a lot of explaining to do. She’s just moved to the small town of Troy, fought with her uptight mother Helen, met the boy of her dreams and found a dead body on her sexy “new-age” grandmother Helena’s porch. All on the first night!

But Ellie’s not alone. Helen is hiding something. Helen knows all about the kind of eerie dreams her daughter is having — the dreams that show the whereabouts of the missing children of Troy — because she’s had them herself. But she’ll never admit it. Not while Ellie’s sex-crazed friend Ryan is safely behind bars for the murders. Helen knows what it’s like to be attracted to dangerous men.

Then there’s the little matter between Helena and Gaspar Bonvillaine, the teenaged vampire who is learning to feed on young prey. Now that he’s caught Ellie, he doesn’t know whether he wants to kill her or turn her to the dark side and keep her forever. Helena should have finished him off when she had the chance.

To survive the vampire feeding frenzy surrounding them, mom Helen needs to come to terms with her own insecurities and deal with the gifts she has. Helena must learn to ground herself for the good of mankind and more importantly her own family. And Ellie has the toughest choice of all. Ellie must decide whether its time to let her own childhood go and become the woman she is destined to be, one of the ageless and timeless “Helens of Troy”.

Product Details

• File Size: 555 KB
• Print Length: 312 pages
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006RV8576
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #952,488 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A spectacular read. February 25, 2012

By Wolfbrother

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

How do I explain to you The Helens of Troy by Janine McCaw? I could say its Twilight without all the crap bits but then there'd be no Twilight so that's not exactly a very good comparison. One website I found did describe it as Gilmore Girls meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I have to say this is much more on the money, although unlike the Gilmore Girls it doesn't make you want to scream in frustration through various points of high shrieking, poorly written plot lines.

Like the programme this book focuses upon the often turbulent relationships between three women, a grandmother, the mother and the teenaged daughter. As with Rory the teenager, Ellie, is a sometimes sullen young girl struggling to push against the barriers imposed upon her by her mother. She too appears to be older and wiser beyond the 15 years she has lived.

Unlike the Gilmore Girls however, it is the mother, Helen, who is the uptight woman who seems stuck in an age that has long since expired. Opposing her is the Grandmother, Helena, a rather eccentric `old' woman prone to wearing revealing clothing in full view of the neighbours and entertaining a certain Police Officer in her bedroom.

The novel begins with Helen and Ellie moving in with Helena (that's a mouthful) in a small town called Troy. Things quickly escalate with a dead body being found on the Grandmother's porch swing instead of the stuffed pieces of cloth being used to scare the trick-or-treaters.

Ellie doesn't seem at all fazed by the dead body (a little strange but hey she's probably grown up mowing things down on the Playstation), she is however ,slightly more scared the next morning after finding out her dream of a kidnapped young girl was actually a vision of the real event. A young girl has been taken from the town and no-one knows where she might be.

Clear panic ensues. But what Ellie isn't telling people is that she knows who took the child. She knows the culprit is not within the realms of mortal understanding. It is a Vampire.

Now stop groaning right now otherwise I'll put you in the naughty corner. Yes Vampires have recently been battered to death with the pen and paper of numerous writers (cough cough Meyer and Harris) and of course the money hungry corporate suits who wont be happy until they have bleed the Vampire species for all their non-existent blood. But this Vampire is different.

The Vampire inhabiting the pages of The Helen's of Troy is very much a Dracula, Barlow esq type character who embraces his Vampire roots and has given in to the evil that inhabits his veins.

This is not some brooding `feel sorry for me I'm a vampire' type ponce that has originated in recent years. This is a pure blooded daemon feasting upon children and seeking his revenge through whatever means necessary. And you know what? He's damn funny for a dead guy.

But not all is lost. You see the Helens have a secret of their own, it is a secret the grandmother has embraced, that the mother has denied and that the daughter has yet to discover. They are special the Helens. Very special indeed. And they are the only hope against the encroaching darkness.

This book was a pleasure to read. Not only is it a nice chance from the rest of the modern Vampire drivel I've read but its witty and almost every chapter has one sexual innuendo or another, I laughed so often when reading this book that I started getting embarrassed with all the other people on the bus staring at me. But you know what? I don't care. Every now and then you get a book that is so witty you can laugh at the same joke numerous times throughout the day. The jokes, the scenarios, the imagined looks on the characters faces keep screaming back into your mind throughout the day bringing a soft chuckle and a wide smile to your face. This is exactly what The Helens of Troy is. Yes there are a few grammatical and spelling mistakes that were missed during an edit but who bloody cares. I know what it's supposed to say and 9 times out of ten its something that will rock my world.

The speech is fluid and dynamic, the description vivid and engaging, the characters funny and lovable.

I already miss Ellie's ups and downs in making friends and falling for the local charmer. I loved old Helena and her inappropriate clothing and the mild mannered way in which she used her bosom to enthral the neighbour. And I even fell in love with Helen, she may be uptight, she may need a slap once in a while but she loves Ellie more than anything in the world and if there is one thing she can do to protect her daughter it is come to terms with the truth of who she is, and embrace it. To stop fighting the truth about what she and her family are and just go with the flow.

I loved this book and you can guarantee I will be reading it again before long. For a few days I can escape the boring monotony of the real world and once more fight alongside the Helens and get a few good laughs into the mix.

Go and grab your own copy of this book. You won't regret it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Gilmore Girls with bite! May 27, 2012

By Coffee Ramblings TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Kindle Edition

Helen Bocelli, along with her Goth daughter Ellie, packs up their stuff and heads back home to live with her mother, Helena, in a small town called Troy after leaving her husband. In addition, there is a great welcoming gift for the two - a dead body on the porch on Halloween Night. The site of the dead man does not spook Ellie, but she is more interested in the local boys who live nearby.

Ellie has a strange dream of a young girl and is shocked to learn the next day that a local girl is missing. Ellie is not like other teenage girls as she knows what goes bump in the night, and in this case, it is a bloodsucking vampire.

When I read that this book was Gilmore Girls meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I had to review it as I have been watching the Gilmore reruns and I grew up watching Buffy. The three female characters are completely different from the Gilmores, but the quirky fast-paced dialogue is similar. The grandmother Helena is like no grandma I have every seen. She dresses and acts like a woman thirty years younger than her. I thought it was funny how the teenager Ryan was after her. The mother Helen has almost given up on her life and finding love. Now Ellie does remind of Rory Gilmore, except she dresses in Goth and has some supernatural elements to her. Ellie is smart, speaks her mind, and is more mature than most teenagers are.

There is a killer lose in the town of Troy, and Ellie can sense that it is a vampire, but who would believe her. With the overuse of vampires in the media, I was somewhat put back by this idea, but as I further read, I learned that this vampire does not sparkle. The vampire, who I will not name here, is an old-fashioned, scary walker of the night. This vampire is serious, and is more inline with the Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi type of vamps.

Straightforward dialogue, some humor, and a supernatural theme, makes Helens of Troy a bit of fresh air in a world where vampires are drying up fast.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Troy is a very complex small city, enthralling ! March 6, 2012

By Adrien Sebbane

Format:Kindle Edition

"Helens-of-Troy" is a book that is easy to read but it is not a "cheap" story !
Among things that you will find in Troy there is great engaging characters and brilliant dialogs and of course some action.
There are more things going on in Troy that you may expect in the first place. A lot more ! And you will find it delightful, except for the drama part of course. Because Troy is not an all-happy place and some sad things happen there too.
I tried this book out of curiosity and I was not disappointed at all. I heard somewhere that there would be some more stories about the Helens ? Is that true ? I wish...

More About the Author

I live in Vancouver BC with my husband Paul and some fish. I'm not a zombie, but I play one on t.v. My first novel was "Olivia's Mine" a fictional account of the disasters that happened at Britannia Beach BC circa 1920. "Helens-of-Troy" is my second novel. I am currently working on others, including the sequel to Helens, "Nightmare on Jacey Street." I am guest blogger for Zombie Acres.