Customer Reviews

The Year of Disappearances: An Ethical Vampire Novel (Ethical Vampire Novels)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
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In The Society of S we met a young girl, Ariella Montero, being raised by her brilliant, but most eccentric father. She discovers she is half human, half vampire. What part of her will be the dominant? Time will tell.
These are vampires who get their sustenance from tonics, and blood like flakes they put over their food.
There are also factions of Vampires that differ on this practice.
Ari is now with her mother and she sees a 'harbinger' - a a foreteller of what is to come - one of her father's talents - right after that, a new friend Ari met disappears. Ari is somehow suspected.
And begins Ari's 'coming of age' stage as she starts to experience what it is like to be a vampire in a human world, with feelings and reflects of both species.
Darker and more complex actions are at work in this book, but I will not spoil this - I found it most innovative and a touch of brilliance by Hubbard.
If you enjoyed S you will continue to be fascinated by Disappearances.
What comes for Ari and her family next, I hope Ms. Hubbard is hard at work figuring out.

We first met Ariella in Saratoga Springs NY with her vampire father. In this fast-moving sequel Ariella travels down the east coast and gets to know her mother while living with her in Homosassa Springs FL. Always mature and precocious, Ariella gets out of town and heads off to college when she is linked to a serious crime, but trouble follows her. This is a book of disappearances and reapparances--her missing father and new friends, among others.

I especially enjoyed the outdoor scenes--the sights, sounds, smells and tactile experiences of the southern swamps and rivers. This is a beautifully written and evocative book about place, adolescent friendship, and the relationships between parents and growing-up children. Highly recommended for both adults and high school readers.

"Love a saga all about vampires? The Year of Disappearances is the sequel to Hubbard's successful The Society of S which features Ariella Montero and the sexy vampire Raphael. This time Montero is home schooled in Florida where nothing is simple when mixing teenagers with vampires."

There is a secret society. They live in plain view. They seem very much like you and me. But, if you look very closely, you may notice that the person you're speaking to doesn't have a shadow.

There are vampires living amongst us. They are highly evolved; not at all like the vampires you've grown up with. They work and play in the daylight, they are friendly and educated, and a growing number of them have never tasted human blood and have no need for it.

Ariella Montero lives in the chasm between our two worlds. She is half-human, half-vampire and is struggling to find her place in both societies. She can read minds, hypnotize people, and make herself invisible. But can she establish real relationships in the human world and escape the dangers that threaten her in the vampire world?

Years ago Ari's best friend was murdered. Ari remembers the night. Her father was engaged in a battle with another man. And there was a fire.

Now, Ari is living a new life with her mother in Florida. But strange things are beginning to happen. It started when the honeybees began to die. Then Ari noticed a man in a van following her. A new friend was murdered and another friend disappeared. It is all too coincidental to ignore. Is Ari to blame or is she being preyed upon?

THE YEAR OF DISAPPEARANCES offers a unique concept of what it is like to be a vampire in modern society. It is a cleverly written story line that easily leaves the possibility for future books. Although this title follows THE SOCIETY OF S, it can easily stand alone. And, I can only hope that author Susan Hubbard decides to develop the story of Ari and her "kind" into a long-running series!

Reviewed by: JodiG.

The Year of Disappearances takes off where The Society of S left us. Ariella Montero faces many trials and mysteries in her quest to find out more about her family and where she belongs in this world.

Susan Hubbard has outdone herself in this latest book. Her characters are believable and have depth. The story is riveting, and in parts, quite chilling. She masters the technique of just telling enough and leaving the rest to the imagination so that the book stays with you.

I can't wait for the next book in this series! Pass the raw oysters, please.

This book is sincerely in a league of it's own. It's not a love story, it's not violent and it's not a gore filled blood and bite kind of book! It's the coming of age book for a half mortal half vampire trying to find a place in modern society. VAMPIRES are still secret. There are in fact three different sects of vampires. Where does ARI fit in these societies? Where does she fit in this world?? She is still trying to find out...

She is a freak to mortals... AND a freak to VAMPIRES. She was born to a mortal and has a Vampire father. She was raised by her father, home schooled, told that she had to tell people that she had Lupus so that she can be a hermit in her father's house.

In this book she is forced to find herself because she has a knack for befriending people that either go missing, or are found dead...

The Year of Disappearances is a wonderful followup book to The Society of S. BUT if your looking for action packed story lines, this isn't the book for you. It's for the EDUCATED VAMPIRE LOVER looking for a wonderful novel. It's a great break from the norm! I highly recommend it!!!

Life seems to be getting back to normal for Ariella Montero--or at least as normal as it can be for a fourteen-year-old half human, half vampire. But trouble has a way of following Ari wherever she goes. Living at home with her mother Mãe, Ari relaxes into a routine of helping rebuild their home, going into town, and occasionally hanging out with her new friends. Everything is fine until one of her friends disappears. Suspicion points at Ari, whose friend Kathleen had been murdered. To escape this unwanted attention, precocious Ari enrolls in college, but trouble stirs up again with another of Ari's friend is found dead. Ari has been trying to protect herself, but it isn't enough. One by one, the people around Ari that she cares about are disappearing. Will she be next?

This second installment in the Ethical Vampire series shows all the intellect, adventure, and skilled writing that was introduced in The Society of S. It continues Ari's story where it left off and takes the reader away on a winding, complicated, but addicting tale of everything from growing pains to vampire politics. And it works marvelously well. Hubbard really is a fantastic writer for being able to combine all these elements with her thoughtful style and still make the story interesting. I continue to love Hubbard's superb characterization, particularly with protagonist Ari. Unfortunately, though, I was slightly irritated with the plot itself. Ari does experience a series of dangerous and intriguing ordeals, but for some reason, I was always waiting for something even bigger and more terrible to happen, which never did. This may be attributed to Hubbard's style of writing, which is more sensible than emotional. Nonetheless, I enjoyed The Year of Disappearances very much and look forward to more of Ari's story.

Readers who enjoyed The Society of S will want to pick this book up, as will fans of Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer.

I initially had mixed feelings about The Year of Disappearances after finishing the story until I discovered that this is a sequel novel to The Society of S. Having never read the original, I was still able to follow the "meandering" plot through to its conclusion without an understanding of preexisting events, but my curiosity about Ari's unusual family dynamics was never fully satisfied. The ending was somewhat of a disappointment with key issues resolved in an Epilogue rather than by narrative, which made for a slapdash conclusion to what was otherwise a uniquely engaging story.

Ari's perspective is that of a highly intelligent teenager whose primary education was taught by her father Raphael, presumably a brilliant scientist. Often, her voice sounds more like an adult than a young teen, and her viewpoints are much more mature, if a bit naïve due to a lack of socialization with popular culture.

The troublesome logic of the premise that a secret society of vampires lives in plain sight and interacts with humans breaks down upon closer examination: vampires cast no shadow and don't sweat; they are highly evolved beings who can read minds, hypnotize people, possess accelerated healing capabilities, and the ability to make themselves invisible. However, within the context of the Young Adult novel, the unlikely existence of the vampire society is a credible suspension of disbelief and well-written with likeable characters that draw the reader into Ari's mysterious world.

The novel begins with a Prologue detailing a dream sequence about a fire that nearly killed Ari and her father that I later realized was a memory from an event that occurred in the first novel. Having no experience with the first story, I assumed the dream had some significance to the plot, but read as a whole, the Prologue serves no purpose other than to reacquaint readers with the original story.

Arianna Montero is a 14-year-old vampire living in Homosassa Springs, Florida, with her mother (aka Mãe, the Jamaican word for "mother" which Ari calls her) and her mother's friend Dashay, a lively Jamaican woman with a talent for removing "sasas" or demons from people's souls. Her father Raphael is absent for most of the story, apparently on a research trip in Ireland, and communicates sporadically through letters to his wife and daughter until a troubling letter from Ari brings him home near the last quarter of the story.

The phenomenon of honeybees disappearing around the world due to human interference with nature is a paradigm for the plot with its subtext of vampire-human relations. When Ari's friend Mysti turns up missing, her mother decides Ari should enroll in college to escape police scrutiny. Quickly cleared of suspicion, Ari begins dating and meeting new friends at college, learning more about the difference between human and vampire culture through her experiences. When her friend Autumn visits her on campus and winds up murdered, Ari is once again the victim of unwelcome public spotlight. While no serious threat of exposure to the vampire society is ever suggested, Ari feels alienated by fellow classmates as her American Politics class prepared for a field trip in Savannah, GA. On the trip she meets Nicholas Cameron, a senator and key-note speaker for a fringe political party at a convention her class is attending. There is some indication of a future romance between Ari and this thirtysomething senator, which is somewhat creepy considering Ari is 14 years old! Mainly, this is where the plot finally begins to sew up as Ari runs into her father's nemesis who "confesses" the dastardly world-domination plot dreamt up by a sect of vampires responsible for the missing and murdered teens.

The ending felt rushed, and did not predispose me to read the next novel in this series, though I found Ari's voice engaging and enjoyed the unique take on vampire "logic" in this world. The "Disneyland" innocence of this novel may be less appealing to older readers after Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" sensation, which shares similar themes.

I really liked this book. It almost made me believe that their really could be vampires among us. It was very interesting to read how it could REALLY be like if vampires were living in our world.

After reading the "Society of S" I was left with some very important questions unanswered and "The Year of Disappearances" answered most of them. This was an EXCELLENT sequel and well worth reading. I finished it almost as quickly as the first book (48 -vs- 24 hours), but to be fair I was on vacation when I read the first book and working when I got this one. I'd like to see more books with these characters. I felt as if I knew them and they were good friends. Well worth the cost of the book. All in all a very good read.