October 30, 2006
Set in the 26th century on Australia's Crescent Moon Bay, Somper's portmanteau of two fiction favorites—pirates and vampires—is a gleefully quick read. When lighthouse keeper Dexter Tempest passes away, heavily laden with debt, his 14-year-old twin children, Connor and Grace, find themselves suddenly homeless. The teens cannot bear the offer of sanctuary from the town's wealthy bank manager ("I'd rather die," says Connor), so they steal their father's boat and cast out to sea. A storm quickly dashes their vessel, and Connor is rescued by a passing pirate ship. Grace has been rescued, too, but by the Vampirate ship, "a dark ship that has been sailing through all eternity," the topic of a beloved shanty the twins' father always sang to them. The narrative alternates between the two ships, painting a vivid picture of life on a pirate ship while simultaneously stretching and teasing out the mystery of the vampirates for much of the book. Grace eventually meets the captain of her ship, an elusive figure who lets slip that he may have known their father—and later learns that she is to be the ship's new "donor." Somper deftly draws parallels to the real world—its hungers, its sicknesses, its gluttony—with his fascinating vampire captain, who imposes a strict regimen of "take only the blood you need" on his crew, ensuring that the donors remain healthy, too. An enigmatic conclusion leaves the galley door wide open for sequels. Ages 8-12.
August 1, 2007
Gr 5-9-This sequel to "Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean" (Little, Brown, 2006) continues after Grace joins her twin brother, Connor, onboard "The Diablo", where they learn additional pirate skills. Visions of the Vampirate ship haunt Grace and she misses Lorcan, her rescuer there. She sees him in her dreams, blind and sick, and knows she must help to save him, but she doesn't know how to reach the ship. After the death of one of his best mates, Connor makes a trip to the Pirate Academy and begins to wonder if he wants to remain under Captain Wrathe or become captain of his own ship. Grace accompanies him to the academy. Connor is betrayed in a swordfight with a fellow classmate and leaves the academy rather than be pushed into the plans of Cheng Li and Commander Kuo. Grace finds her way back to Lorcan, who is wasting away by refusing to take the blood of his human donor. Piratical politics and the threat of a crew of wayward Vampirates headed by Sidorio, who was kicked off the ship in the first book, plague the seas. It is not necessary to read the first book to enjoy the second, but the story arc does move across the planned trilogy, leaving things unresolved in this volume. This easy-to-read novel moves along quickly with plenty of action, fantasy, and adventure."Corinda J. Humphrey, Los Angeles Public Library"
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