Thirsty by Tracey Bateman
From the back cover:
There’s no place like home, they say.
“Hello, I’m Nina Parker…and I’m an alcoholic.”
For Nina, it’s not the weighty admission but the first steps toward recovery that prove most difficult. She must face her ex-husband, Hunt, with little hope of making amends, and try to rebuild a relationship with her angry teenage daughter, Meagan. Hardest of all, she is forced to return to Abbey Hills, Missouri, the hometown she abruptly abandoned nearly two decades earlier–and her unexpected arrival in the sleepy Ozark town catches the attention of someone–or something–igniting a two-hundred-fifty-year-old desire that rages like a wildfire.
Unaware of the darkness stalking her, Nina is confronted with a series of events that threaten to unhinge her sobriety. Her daughter wants to spend time with the parents Nina left behind. A terrifying event that has haunted Nina for almost twenty years begins to surface. And an alluring neighbor initiates an unusual friendship with Nina, but is Markus truly a kindred spirit or a man guarding dangerous secrets?
As everything she loves hangs in the balance, will Nina’s feeble grasp on her demons be broken, leaving her powerless against the thirst? The battle between redemption and obsession unfold to its startling, unforgettable end.
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I purchased this novel because it was about two subjects that garner my interest: alcoholism and vampires. I’ve blogged about vampires a few times because of the Twilight series, and I’ve also included the subject of alcoholism in my own novels.
I thought Bateman did an excellent job of describing the difficult road to sobriety for an alcoholic. Nina has struggled with this addiction off and on for most of her adult life, and the addiction is in her blood – her father has suffered from alcoholism, too.
Thirsty also talks about familial disharmony: Nina’s relationship with her daughter is strained because of Nina’s abuse of alcohol. Nina’s relationships with her parents are strained because of her troubled childhood. When she returns home, she’s been gone for several years, and this is the first she’s seen of her parents in a long while. Plus, she’s recently divorced, although she still loves her husband.
Although two of the characters are vampires, I thought the story could have easily been re-written by portraying the two bloodsuckers as satanists or occultists or something?
Overall I thought the book was a good, suspenseful, intriguing read and it was a page turner.