Coldest Girl in Coldtown

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

“Every night, in every Coldtown, people die.  People are fragile.  They die of mistakes, of overdoses, of sickness.  But mostly they die of Death.  Death drinks down their warms until their veins are dry.  Death forgets restraint.  The older vampires might grow dusty and careful, but those freshly made want to glut themselves and sometimes, foolishly, they give in to Death and do.”

As the story opens, our heroine, Tana, wakes the morning after a particularly long night of partying…to find everyone dead.  Sucked dry by vampires.  Finally, she finds her friend (and ex boyfriend) Aiden alive, but having been bitten by a vampire, chained to the bed. Another vampire, Gavriel,  is also chained.   

Of course she helps her friend escape, but what about the vampire?  Escape they do, and all head off to the closest “Coldtown,” picking up Midnight and her brother Winter, hitchhiking to Coldtown to become vampires and film the process for their ongoing blog.

This is a dystopia where vampires exist, sometimes admired, sometimes hunted. They are required to stay in “Coldtowns” where vampire parties are televised as the ultimate reality tv:  where vampire “wannabees” place shunts in their arms so they can be used as food.  Killing is often and very bloody.  Humans are attacked; vampires are killed, all in very many violent ways.

The fact that we stay tuned in through all the gore for the end of this mystery says a lot for Holly Black’s gorgeous writing.  That and the romance:  kissing can be so very hot.  Tana is a wonderfully witty and resourceful, if way too  impulsive, heroine.