I would like to thank Lydia rom Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan Books

Published – Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback £4.68 Kindle eBook

One night in 2012, executive Zhang Guo Xing takes a group of European clients to a fashionable nightclub in Shanghai. While there, he meets a strikingly beautiful young Western woman called Naemi Vieno Kuusela. The physical attraction between them proves irresistible and they embark on an intoxicating affair. But Naemi is not what she appears to be…

To Zhang’s surprise, she veers between passion and wariness, conducting the relationship entirely on her own terms. He feels driven to find out more about her, and is swiftly drawn into a web of intrigue, mystery, and horror. Is she a ghost? A demon? Do the living dead walk the streets of twenty-first century Shanghai

As I suspect many of us are now feeling our sense of time can be very variable. The best moments in life can run at high speed – at other times…. well wasn’t March a year in itself! As we age, we increasingly aware of our mortality and fiction has long played with the concept of cheating death though immortality or a life after death in some way. In Temple Drake’s dark fantasy tale NVK we get a tale of two people trapped in their lives who meet and tempt each other with a possible escape but their separate natures may get in the way of happiness.

The story starts in modern Shanghai at a nightclub where powerful middle-aged executive Zhang is watching the dancing with casual interest and then notices the attractive blonde woman who he eventually finds out is called Naemi. The chemistry from them both begins as they seem to immediately understand each other within their first conversation. The married businessman and art dealer then commence an affair as Zhang finds someone to share his love of music, art and life which he usually cannot do in his rarefied world of business and family loyalty. But we soon see why Naemi is holding back with her aversion to sunlight; black contact lenses and a desire never to sleep…nor reveal that she has no reflection. Zhang’s desire to understand his lover may end up hurting not only the people he cares about but himself.

What really is striking about this is the atmosphere that Drake creates. This is a tale set in darkness, shadow and is incredibly polished. This is the high society of China with brand names and designer bars, galleries and hotels the characters tend to meet. If this was a type of gothic, then this is designer streamlined and sleek gothic. Drake has a very visual style with two characters who both prefer to speak few words but make them count.

The central pairing of Zhang and Naemi is also compelling. Zhang is a highflyer with excellent family Party connections, but he likes to hang out in a blues band and one of his friends certainly enjoys the high life which Zhang himself loves to indulge in. Yet he’s quite restless but not sure as to for what. Naemi is deliberately an enigma we slowly get to know. Drake plays with the vampire myth and merges the European tradition with an exploration the various ghosts that exist in Chinese mythology. Its to the story’s credit that by merging the myths we get in Naemi a character we as western readers will immediately suspect we know and yet get surprised by. Both though are people unable to commit to their future they want something else but not sure what and, in their encounters, they are allowed a little more freedom to be themselves than they usually get to be. I would though have loved a bit more from Naemi’s point of view.

The horror dimension of the tale is subtle with some building tension especially as one of Zhang’s friends start to immediately suspect that Zhang’s lover is not what she claims to be. But in this case, it never really escalates to chilling. Its an unsettling atmosphere where you start feel something dark is coming but it is not a tale where you feel the goosepimples on your skin. Those who like horror to have a little more bite may be disappointed as Drake opts for more a character study of two linked unusual characters.

It’s a well told dark urban fantasy with a smart twist on the idea of the immortal vampire. Two intense characters and a mystery that will surprise you make this an unusual twist on a familiar walk into the dark.