Rating: 
Summary: Down And Dirty Vampire
Review: Amanda is a Toronto waitress who has just been pushed a little too far. Without thinking things through, she leaves her mobile home and boyfriend and takes to hitchhiking. She soon realizes that she has no idea what she is doing and starts to hitch back. That is when she gets picked up by the wrong driver.Sharpe is a policeman who is looking for a serial killer. This killer drains his victims of their blood and dumps them by the highway. For some reason the bodies seem to get savaged by wolves. Now Amanda finds herself captive of a short, fat, balding truck driver who claims to be a vampire. He uses medical equipment to drink blood from her arm. Amanda must think quickly to try and outwit the vampire. Sharpe must get lucky to stop the body count from going up. This is a wonderful story that starts fast and keeps going. You find yourself rooting for Amanda and Sharpe and even for Amanda's downbeat boyfriend who was slapped by reality when Amanda disappeared. I will not give away the ending but it did follow the ideas in the book and was quite satisfying. If you like horror and/or vampires that don't fit previous stereotypes, this is one for you.
Rating:
Summary: Down And Dirty Vampire
Review: Amanda is a Toronto waitress who has just been pushed a little too far. Without thinking things through, she leaves her mobile home and boyfriend and takes to hitchhiking. She soon realizes that she has no idea what she is doing and starts to hitch back. That is when she gets picked up by the wrong driver. Sharpe is a policeman who is looking for a serial killer. This killer drains his victims of their blood and dumps them by the highway. For some reason the bodies seem to get savaged by wolves. Now Amanda finds herself captive of a short, fat, balding truck driver who claims to be a vampire. He uses medical equipment to drink blood from her arm. Amanda must think quickly to try and outwit the vampire. Sharpe must get lucky to stop the body count from going up. This is a wonderful story that starts fast and keeps going. You find yourself rooting for Amanda and Sharpe and even for Amanda's downbeat boyfriend who was slapped by reality when Amanda disappeared. I will not give away the ending but it did follow the ideas in the book and was quite satisfying. If you like horror and/or vampires that don't fit previous stereotypes, this is one for you.
Rating: 
Summary: BLOOD SPORT
Review: Amanda Peck has decided to leave her deadend job and abusive boyfriend. She packs a few belongings and heads out on the interstate to hitchhike. Her third ride turns out to be a killer with a literal taste for blood. Author VanBelkom has written a page turning vampire novel for those who like their vamps mean and scary instead of romantic. I would recommend this novel to fans of Richard Laymon and Simon Clark.
Rating:
Summary: BLOOD SPORT
Review: Amanda Peck has decided to leave her deadend job and abusive boyfriend. She packs a few belongings and heads out on the interstate to hitchhike. Her third ride turns out to be a killer with a literal taste for blood. Author VanBelkom has written a page turning vampire novel for those who like their vamps mean and scary instead of romantic. I would recommend this novel to fans of Richard Laymon and Simon Clark.
Rating:
Summary: Fast-paced, vivid, compelling
Review: Edo van Belkom turns in another of his signature fast-paced, vivid, and compelling modern horror novels. He's a past Bram Stoker Award winner and Aurora Award winner, and you can see why in this taut tale. The pages just fly by in this loving homage to all the vampire stories van Belkom clearly grew up enjoying. Sink your teeth into this one -- you won't be sorry!
Rating: 
Summary: van Belkom is improving... slowly.
Review: Edo van Belkom, Blood Road (Pinnacle, 2004)
Edo van Belkom's Scream Queen is the epitome of the empty calorie novel; you can read it in one gulp, it's momentarily satisfying, and an hour later, you've forgotten it existed and are hungry for something else. His newest offering, Blood Road, is a bit more nutritious, but still qualifies as beachwear.
There's a serial killer preying on the highways of Canada. He just dumped his fifth body in a farmyard outside Parry Sound, a small village in Toronto. Coincidentally, a waitress in Parry Sound has had it with her alcoholic, abusive boyfriend (because, after all, all abusers are alcoholics-- cf. The Butterfly Effect) and wants to get out of town. So despite the murders, she heads for the highway and sticks out her thumb.
You can see the collision course a mile away.
That's the problem with emotional-shortcut writing (e.g., "all abusers are alcoholics, and all alcoholics are abusers"); it tends to lead to predictability. When you're used to using emotional shortcuts to get your point across, when you have to actually work with foreshadowing, it comes off as clumsy and amateur. That Amanda and the serial killer are going to meet is one example (the nature of the serial killer, which is obvious from reading the back jacket, but not revealed until about a hundred pages into the book, is another-- but there is an amusing twist to it); the book abounds with others.
In other words, van Belkom still has some (okay, a whole lot of) cliché and predictability problems. But one major improvement over Scream Queen is that his characters are less two-dimensional. The minor players are paper-thin, but the majors have gone from cardboard to masonite.
It's simple, it's readable, it's relatively silly. It'll take more than an afternoon to get through this one, but you'll still be left with a sweet aftertaste and a rumble in the belly. It'll take about two hours this time. But it's getting better. ***
Rating: 
Summary: lifeless vampire story
Review: Hitchhiking waitress meets vampire trucker, reader meets Sandman. And that about sums it up. This novel is too generic. This novel has about zero originality, from the stereotyped characters to the paint-by-numbers plot. If this were a movie, it would be one of those low-budget, late-night time-fillers that air in the wee hours hours on USA or SCI-FI.
Rating:
Summary: lifeless vampire story
Review: Hitchhiking waitress meets vampire trucker, reader meets Sandman. And that about sums it up. This novel is too generic. This novel has about zero originality, from the stereotyped characters to the paint-by-numbers plot. If this were a movie, it would be one of those low-budget, late-night time-fillers that air in the wee hours hours on USA or SCI-FI.
Rating:
Summary: Bloodless Road is more like it
Review: I loved this book - no Lestat here, just brutal bloodletting. The vamp in question is fat, balding, mean, stinky...and lethal. Think Max Schreck meets the Fat White Vampire. Not for the faint of heart, but for fans of nosferatu-type vamps, a must!
Rating:
Summary: Non-romantic vampire
Review: I loved this book - no Lestat here, just brutal bloodletting. The vamp in question is fat, balding, mean, stinky...and lethal. Think Max Schreck meets the Fat White Vampire. Not for the faint of heart, but for fans of nosferatu-type vamps, a must!
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