Infinite Days

I was lucky enough to win an ARC of Rebecca Maizel’s debut novel Infinite Days, the first in her Vampire Queen series, from St. Martin’s Press and once I started reading it was difficult to put down.  It tells the story of Lenah Beaudonte, a 500-year-old vampire with an insatiable appetite for death and destruction.  She’s ruthless, uncontrollably violent, and lacking any sense of compassion or humanity.  She’s the queen of the coven she’s created to provide her with eternal protection and companionship and her rules are followed without question. 

But even though she’s surrounded by opulence and every luxury that money can buy, her only desire is to become human again, to escape the constant pain and misery from which only blood can provide temporary relief.  Her maker, Rhode, learns of a ritual that will give Lenah her wish but only at the cost of his life.  When it’s done, Lenah has awoken to a new life where she can truly live as she’d been meant to in the 15th century before Rhode set his sights on her and turned her into a monster.

Her new life is that of a sixteen year old student attending a prestigious boarding school on the East coast of the United States.  Though at first she has some trouble adjusting to her new, mortal state, she soon gains the friendship of an art student named Tony who helps her adjust to life in the 21st century.  With her soul back, she no longer finds comfort in violent thoughts and begins to at last find peace and happiness in her new home.  Things start to get complicated when Lenah catches the eye of the popular and gorgeous Justin Enos, whose girlfriend Tracy won’t give up without a fight.  Still mourning the loss of Rhode, Lenah is hesitant at first but finds that she is inexplicably drawn to Justin despite the problems their relationship could cause. 

But her social life is the least of her problems and Lenah knows that soon her coven, expecting her to rise from her one hundred year hibernation on Halloween night, will begin to search for her.  The magic that binds them together will ensure that they will stop at nothing to find her and bring her back to their home in England.  But unbeknownst to them, their queen is human again and Lenah fears for her mortal life and the lives of those she’s come to love at her school.  She knows what her beloved coven will do to them once they’re found, because only a short while ago she would have done the same things herself and taken great pleasure in it.

Infinite Days is a thrilling, touching, and enthralling book, and quite unique in its take on vampires (just when you thought the subject had been exhausted, right?).  Maizel’s vampires are animated by the oldest of black magics.  Immortality and great power are small and insignificant benefits compared to the endless suffering and pain they experience night after night.  Bringing death and destruction to others is the only short relief they can find.  And though their senses are heightened, they cannot truly feel anything they touch except for the smallest hint of texture or temperature.  All they can smell is blood, heat, and fear.  They are numb to everything else and can’t even experience the release of weeping.  Small wonder they’re evil by nature. 

Another unique component to the story that I was fascinated by was Lenah’s love of herbs and flowers and their various magical properties and uses.  There’s a scene that I loved that takes place in the greenhouse on campus where she’s explaining some of these properties to Justin.  When she comes to a particular edible flower he leans in and opens his mouth so she can place it on his tongue for him to swallow.  Fabulous.

For someone who’s relatively new to the YA genre (and can’t take too much of it at once), I was relieved to find a welcome respite from all the teenage schoolyard drama during all the chapters from Lenah’s vampire past that are woven into the story.  We get to learn a little about the men that she chose to join her in the ranks of the undead and serve her in the coven, and it leads nicely into her search for redemption after centuries of causing pain and bringing death to countless innocents.  Plus it was nice to have a main character who’s a vampire for a change (are there really no more Lestats out there?  Say it isn’t so…).

I was very excited to read this book and I loved each and every page.  I was very attached to the characters and actually a little torn about how I wanted everything to turn out in the end.  I highly recommend it to fans of vampire fiction (especially of the YA variety) and I’ll be waiting impatiently for the next Vampire Queen book.