Epeolatry Book Review: First Light by Liz Kerin
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Title: First Light
Author: Liz Kerin
Genre: vampire, paranormal, coming-of-age, thriller, queer fiction
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Date: 23rd April, 2024
Synopsis: It’s been nine months since the catastrophe in Tucson sent Mia fleeing from her home. But she’s not running away from the darkness–she’s running toward it, obsessively pursuing the man who gave her mother a thirst for blood and destroyed their lives.
But when Mia finds the monsters she’s been hunting and infiltrates a secret network of fugitives, she discovers she might have been their prey all along.
To escape their clutches, she’ll have to reckon with her mother’s harrowing past and confront a painful truth: that they might be more alike than she ever imagined.
When I put my hand up to read this for Horror Tree, I didn’t realise it was a sequel to a book I hadn’t read. Schoolgirl error. That said, it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the story. Liz Kerin so skillfully weaves the backstory in that I never felt lost, never wondered where we were going – I was in her hands, and I totally trusted her driving as we followed Mia on her journey.
I’m told it picks right up where Night’s Edge, the original story, left off, and we are with Mia as she goes on a quest to get answers about her mother’s death in quite a character-driven story. She’s driven by vengeance and trauma, but all is not as it seems. We have some heavy themes here, handled with care, empathy and poignancy. Kerin’s style is simple and accessible yet incredibly readable, and you really feel part of the world she’s built. Dual timelines weave together as the story unfolds; we jump back a few months to follow Mia’s departure from Tucson and her arrival in New York City and slowly, slowly that history catches up with the present-day narrative that has her and Cora, someone of a love interest, escape a containment centre and go in search of Devon, the leader of infected rebels and her mother’s former lover.
Kerin’s take on vampires is a novel one – the blood-drinkers here have a condition known as Saratov’s syndrome which makes them vulnerable to light, among other things – but at the end of the day we have a fairly typical cult leader manipulating followers and undertaking monstrous acts in the name of the rebellion. We see both the acceptable public face of vampirism as the wider world makes a show of welcoming the “Saras” and “helping” them (i.e. rounding them up into dedicated Sara Centers), and we see the seedy underbelly of a dark world of Saras hiding and trying to get by. There’s body horror, particularly as it relates to reproductive health, as well as grooming, addiction, self-harm, and more – all handled with care as part of deep character development. We even get a clear resolution for Mia, in case you were worried about more sequels coming out!
This is a vampire tale at the end of the day, so you’re going to have a fair bit of blood and gore, violence, and sex. That sounds like a bloody good time to me, and it’s definitely worth diving in. I’ve even been tempted towards the origin story…
/5
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Lauren McMenemy wears many hats: Editor-in-Chief at Trembling With Fear for horrortree.com; PR and marketing for the British Fantasy Society; founder of the Society of Ink Slingers; curator of the Writing the Occult virtual events. With 25+ years as a professional writer across journalism, marketing, and communications, Lauren also works as a coach and mentor to writers looking to achieve goals, get accountability, or get support with their marketing efforts. She writes gothic and folk horror stories for her own amusement, and is currently working on a novel set in the world of the Victorian occult. You’ll find Lauren haunting south London, where she lives with her Doctor Who-obsessed husband, the ghost of their aged black house rabbit, and the entity that lives in the walls.
