Book Review: When The Night Falls, by Glenn Rolfe

SYNOPSIS
It’s been ten years since the events of Until Summer Comes Around. Lucky to be alive, Rocky roams his beachside hometown, waiting for life to start again.

November Riley has never been far from the boy that stole her heart. She watches from the shadows, knowing she can never make things right between them, but just hoping they could try one
more time…

A new documentary is bringing Gabriel Riley, the Beach Night Killer, back to national consciousness.

The dead serial killer has a trio of new fans that are ready to make Old Beach their home for the end of the summer season. When the new strangers in town discover Rocky’s relationship to the past of one of their own, he becomes their number one target. Can November protect him, or will these other vampires prove too strong?

When the night falls, blood will spill, and death will reign.

My Review

Thanks to Anne of Random Things Tours for organising this tour and to Flame Tree Press for sending me a copy of this book.

The characters of November and Rocky are haunted by their past, while a trio of vampires are determined to re-enact events of ten years previously once they realise it’s the anniversary. What follows is a massacre in a New England beach town as a hotel and then an entire street are slaughtered over a few days. November and Rocky get an answer to their only question for each other: do you still care? and the events that follow change everyone’s future.

Loved it! I spent an evening thoroughly gripped and entertained by this tale of vampires and 90s beach towns. It was almost nostalgic. Set in 1996, the music, attitudes and cultural artifact referenced really set the tone. Rocky’s reluctant return to vampire hunting and suspicions about November, as well as his depression and then attempt at finding new love, deepen the story, while the parallel stories of people going missing, all tangentially known to Rocky and November, and the trio of vampires who are responsible, builds tension, until it bursts in violence and fire.

I loved the final message from Rocky, hinting at a much more modern setting and a potential future book.

This is definitely one for those of us who watched Buffy and Lost Boys. Yes, I did, and I have Lost Boys on DVD, it was a nineties teenager thing.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Glenn Rolfe is an author from the haunted woods of New England. He has studied Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University and continues his education in the world of horror by devouring the novels of Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, and
many others. He loves his girlfriend and kids, and he is grateful to be loved despite his weirdness.

Rolfe is a Splatterpunk Award nominee and the author of August’s Eyes, Until Summer Comes Around, Blood and Rain, The Window, Becoming, The Haunted Halls, Something in the Groove, It Came from the Lake, Chasing Ghosts, Abram’s Bridge, Things We Fear, Boom Town, and the collections, Slush, Nocturnal Pursuits, and Land of Bones.

Instagram: @grolfehorror

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FLAME TREE PRESS is the imprint of long-standing independent Flame Tree Publishing dedicated to full-length original fiction in the horror and suspense, science fiction & fantasy, and crime / mystery / thriller categories. The list brings together fantastic new authors and the more
established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices. Learn more about Flame Tree Press at http://www.flametreepress.com and connect on social media @FlameTreePress