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Summary: Wow! A romp of seductive, sexual horror!
Review: I was first introduced to vampire tales reading Anne Rice in High School. I was really into her vamp tales, her bdsm erotica, and basically anything that she threw out there. Jemiah's work is in a similar vein, except I have no loathing for the characters. The monsters in this story are more human than not. The sensuality and sexuality of the characters is far more tangible than any other book of this genre, and most of all, what grabs me is that the books insight goes far beyond fodder for masturbation, and shows us in an amplified and brutal way, just what's going through the human psyche in the dense webs between love and relationships. It's serious! It's fun! It's positively seductive!
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Summary: FIRST IT STARTS OUT HOT, THEN IT FIZZLES BADLY!
Review: I was looking forward into reading this and the 1st 3 chapters are hot but then it starts to become lukewarm by the 5th chapter, even boring. She's a great writer but she doesn't have her "groove" yet. Hopefully, in future writings her books will be better.
Rating: 
Summary: Better Than I Expected
Review: I've met Jemiah before (friend of a friend of a friend), so I was curious about her book. I'm not sure what I expected to read. I think I was expecting a tedious, Anne Rice style novel, but it wasn't like that at all. The writing was descriptive and interesting without being tedious, which is what I think Anne Rice is guilty of throughout The Vampire Chronicles. The book kept moving and pulled me along with it. The characters were well thought out and I felt like I knew them. It is obvious that Jemiah knows the gothic subculture. She described it perfectly and made the appropriate musical references (no Marilyn Manson, thank God!). With the exception of the Prologue and Epilogue, I enjoyed this book. I found the tone of the writing in the Prologue and Epilogue to be somewhat stiff. It didn't seem to fit with the flowing tone of the rest of the book.
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Summary: Sex, Drugs, and a Couple of Vamps
Review: If you're looking for a good Vampire book, you'll find this one extremely lacking in just about every aspect. The bulk of this book is essentially an unbelievable account of a young woman's adventures in a world filled with drugs of every kind, graphic hardcore sex, brutal killings, and two Vampires. One of the two Vampires does nothing but eat real food, have sex as many times as day as he can, and is somewhat of an artist and has a bunch of groupies around him who treat him as a god. It's beyond me how reviewers can even think to mention this book in the same sentence to Anne Rice's novels. There is absolutely no comparison other than they are both available in a paperback.This book reminds me of shock fiction; if you can't come up with something descent to write, then why not come up with as much sex, violence, drugs as possible. And why not throw in two Vampires, one of which is the quiet, hidden in the shadows, and tired of life kind of guy, and the other who acts as if he's got the energy of someone on steriods, has the testosterone of 10 men, and eats all the junk food he can get his hands on. As far as Vampire books go, this is one to skip at all costs. Spend your time reading something that has some redeeming qualities, rather than something that relies on reaching down in the gutter.
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Summary: I LOVED THIS BOOK
Review: Im a student of Anne Rice, so Im a vampire book fanatic, Ive read many, some good, some bad, some GREAT. This was a great new take on the "vampires among us" story. Just like Ariane, I fell in love with Ricardi and Daniel. Id love to meet these two. And poor tragic Lovely,,,such a great cast of characters. I cant say much more without giving too much away, but READ THIS BOOK! Hey Jemiah, when is part 2 coming out? Let me be first in line. I didnt want it to end, I felt like I knew these people, they were so real. The situations were all so real, you could find them in your own city. Ever wonder why the best books are never long enough and the crappy books are so long? Its not fair! Read & Enjoy!!!
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Summary: Jemiah serves up a nice new spin on the vampire culture...
Review: Jemiah Jefferson is brilliant. That is all that I can say about this author. I picked up this book because I am a vampire guru and also a fan of contemporary goth culture in fiction. I'd heard it compared to LOST SOULS by Poppy Z Brite and that really isn't -too- far off-base as far as writing style. However, Jem isn't as literary as Brite, and tends not to go on flowery self-indulgent tangents with her descriptions. She is gritty, edgy, and every sentence will entice you to find out what's said in the next one.
The story is of Ariane, who could be any of us. She is a brash, outgoing, confident, and sexually-liberated multi-racial biology grad student in San Francisco. One night, after a fight with her fiancé John, she storms off to her labs only to find a hideous creature feeding on her pet rats. Ariane passes out, only to wake up in the hospital. As life slowly begins to return to normal, Ariane begins to remember snatches of what happened, and receives a note from the creature beckoning her to its hotel room.
Upon arriving at the hotel she meets Orfeo Ricari, a gorgeous Italian vampire and the very same creature who drank her blood in the lab. Ricari apologizes and tells her that he intends to make it up to her, if she will do one thing in return for him: kill him. He is Catholic and so suicide is not an option for him, but he is centuries old and wishes to end his existence. Ariane agrees, but over time begins to fall in love with him and puts off the date of his execution. After an explosive fight, the two of them part when Ricari nearly kills Ariane, and he sends her to his estranged ex-lover and prodigy, an unpredictable German goth boy named Daniel who lives in West Hollywood. Ariane is plunged into a world of deceit, darkness, love, and indulged desires.
Jem's use of language is beautiful and eloquent. She is not as whimsical or rambling as Anne Rice, nor is she blunt or inconsiderate. She captures the essence of the goth culture, the hopelessness of youth in the beautiful tragic character Lovely, and the war of morals inside humans and vampires alike. She embraces the English language and kisses it with full-on contact; readers will find themselves empathizing with even the most despicable characters, and fall in love by the end of the book. The sequel, WOUNDS, which explores the psyche and life of Daniel, is just as good, and her new one, FIENDS, deals directly with Ricari.
If you like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro or Anne Rice, as in long, eloquent, old-fashioned language and historical scenarios, this is not the book for you. But if you enjoy Poppy Z Brite, Christa Faust, Caitlin R. Kiernan, or just contemporary vampire fiction in general, Jem is the author for you and this book will quickly become a favorite of your collection.
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Summary: Erotic and Ghastly, mmmm mmmm good!
Review: Jemiah Jefferson is quite a writer. I dove into this book and got completely trapped by a spell. It's the story of a woman in search of something greater, and finds it, becoming entangled in a web of desire and wanton abandon, not to mention ample death and gore. She struggles between her emotions and desires. The way this is written tells a much larger story of the intricacies of human relationships by way of amazing imagery and the thoughts of Ariane, the lead character. My first review I wrote up for Amazon must have slipped through, but at any rate, this book far beats anything Anne Rice and is the best book I've read in a long long time.
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Summary: Bloody good read!
Review: Sorry, couldn't help the pun. Perhaps Jefferson's vampire Ricari will appear and punish me. Oops, did it again. Ms. Jefferson recently read from this work to a stunned audience at a local house of cocktails (heh). Silence first, blushing, then begging for more. The only thing better than reading this novel is hearing Ms. Jefferson read it herself. Look for the book tour this summer!
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Summary: Relationships and the Drinking of Blood
Review: The blurb on the back of this book was clearly written by someone who wished to entice the reader, but who lacked time to actually read the book. As a result a very interesting and unusual approach to vampire fiction is hidden underneath some very vapid commentary. So if you have looked at the marketing for this little volume and decided it is yet another piece of dumb vampire fiction take my advice and go back and look again. Graduate student Ariane Dempsey and her boyfriend John Thurbis are living a typical academic intellectual life. The only cloud on the horizon is that John is about to leave for England as a guest lecturer at Cambridge. They are having the usual difficulties of a couple facing a long separation when suddenly Ariane is catapulted into an unexpected nightmare. On returning to her lab one night she surprises a 'creature' in the middle of devouring her lab rats. In a flash it turns on her, and, in the most unusual fashion possible, fulfills its needs with her blood. Ariane awakens in the hospital, recovers, and life goes on. As John readies to leave Ariane receives a letter of apology and an invitation to visit her intruder. When John flies to England Ariane has her first meeting with Ricari, the most ethereal of vampires. Hei is a complete ascetic, drinking only enough blood to survive, celibate, a devout catholic, and, currently, deeply desiring to end his two hundred years of life. Ariane agrees to help him if only he will share his story with her. But Ricari's end winds up being infinitely postponed as Ariane and he gradually come to love each other. But it is a doomed relationship. Ricari refuses to turn Ariane and continues to be driven by his own death wish. Finally, in a fit of anger, he injures her so badly that he sends to another vampire, Daniel, to get her out of his life. Daniel repairs Ariane's injuries and introduces her to a lifestyle that is bizarre, even for Los Angeles. Living in earthquake damaged buildings; Daniel and a crowd of ragamuffin humans who are his followers carry out a lifestyle that is as erotically charged as Ricari's life was ascetic. There, Ariane meets Lovely, Chloe, Mimsy, and many other eccentric characters that have fled their own lives to pursue existence with a vampire. Ariane and Daniel become lovers caught in a dance that will inevitable lead through cycles of lust, death, and rebirth. The novel has several levels, the vampire tale, the quest for transformation, and moments that are poetic in a post-modern sense. But the strongest theme is that of a sexuality which is both raw and rude. This is a modern gothic romance, and the players refer to their parts by name and function, and do some very unusual things with them. If you are easily shocked this may put you off of the story, so be warned. There is still a remarkable femininity to the sexuality, which should come as no surprise, since the story is written and told by a woman. For the most part I found the approach refreshing and imaginative. A far cry, however, from the lush sensuality of Anne Rice and Laurell Hamilton. The book has much to recommend it, apart from the note that it is not for children. I do not know if Jemiah Jefferson will continue to experiment with the horror genre or if she will head off to more experiment zones. But I can recommend this book, and suggest you keep your eye out for her further efforts.
Rating: 
Summary: A flawed novel of vampires in the modern world
Review: The cover looked good. Really. And the first chapter was promising. The initial horrific scene was also nice. It was all downhill from there. The inital premise seemed refreshing - a vampire who was religious, and who was unhappy with himself and his existance. However, the protagonist was so inconsistently written that it made me want to scream. She was a brilliant scientist and researcher....who used drugs on a regular basis? She was strong enough to make a mark for herself in the world of science, enough of her own woman to refuse to leave her university and travel with her fiancee to support his fellowship, but she rolls over and submits to not one, but two total strangers? Add to this the fact that there is not a single likeable character in the bunch (even Ricari, who at first seems concerned about the deaths he has caused is, in fact, only concerned with the disposition of his own soul. Technically, the writing is good. I did, in fact, finish the novel, though the characters left me with a bad taste in my mouth. All in all, a flawed work.
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