The Scribbled Victims

By: Robert Tomoguchi

Narrated by: Laura Bannister

She only feeds on those who deserve it. But what happens when the one person she loves is about to die?

Vampire Yelena Solodnikova has spent years drowning in guilt—guilt for the blood she’s spilled, and for the lover who abandoned her. Then she meets Orly Bialek—a twelve-year-old girl dying of cancer, whose supernatural drawings reveal the evil in others.

Orly draws. Yelena kills.

With Orly’s help, Yelena no longer feeds on the innocent. And in the middle of their quiet, deadly partnership, something unexpected grows.

Love.

But Orly is running out of time. And Yelena is faced with a choice she never wanted: let the girl she loves slip away, or damn her to the loveless eternity of a child vampire.

A haunting and emotionally rich dark fantasy about guilt, connection, and what we become when we’re afraid to lose the ones we love.

©2017 Robert Tomoguchi (P)2019 Robert Tomoguchi

©2017 Robert Tomoguchi (P)2019 Robert Tomoguchi

Critic reviews

"A traditional vampire tale with an emphatic emotional core." (Kirkus Reviews)

Unexpected vampire ( NOT A YA category)

treat, I was surprise at how much I liked this book. I figured it to be ambient mind candy but it was better than that and has room to grow. This is NOT a YA novel it is very much and adult story with a young person at risk, but with special powers. Just when you think it’s going to fall apart it holds together. There is a set up for the next book and I look forward to the next one.

Worth your time cash or credit if the subject interest you.

The characters make this story

Tomoguchi has imagined a world that requires total suspension of disbelief. Although he defines the parameters of this world well enough to suit the story, he does little to build a foundation for it. And there remain some glaring unanswered questions, such as how can so many victims not be missed, raising the suspicion of authorities?

But I really like the characters, especially Orly as performed so amazingly well by Laura Bannister. It's this that makes this story so great.

Note: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Amazing spin on am old vampire idea

Vampire's who desire not to kill? Not a new idea, but Robert Tomoguchi's spin on this idea is thought provoking, and original is its own way. This maybe a Debut full length Novel for Robert, but I've read all his other works and see such tremendous progress as a writer I am falling in love with his work, and Orly's world. I recommend this work if you enjoy such works as Anita Blake, Mercy Thompson, and Discovery of Witches series'.

Enjoyable listen

I enjoyed this book and loved how the characters progressed, am interested in seeing how the next book plays out.

The characters and their interactions, excellent dialog!

I am not really a big fan of vampire fiction as a genre, whether crafted as horror or drama or romance, but this book hooked me and drew me in. I plan to buy the next one when I get my next paycheck, because I can live on ramen noodles and it’ll be WORTH IT! The story is a refreshing take on vampires by focusing not on the vampires exactly, but on how the immortals affect the living when they interact not as predator and prey, or monster and monster hunter, but as family.

There are a few supernatural elements besides the vampires which adds some interest to the plot and is deliciously hinted at, but the nature of the ability to sort of scry into people’s lives by a mortal, is left, I think, deliberately vague, likely either to explore later, or because every work of this type needs to preserve a little bit of the mystery. I heartily recommend this book. There are some adult themes touched upon and a bit of harsh language, but its use never comes off as egregious.

I hope the author writes more of these, because I think there are at present only three, and I can imagine getting hooked into this the same way I did the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O’Brian, a fictionalized collection of stories of English sailors during and after the Napoleonic Wars, which is more my speed.

I’m not going to say here that Robert Tomoguchi is to vampires what O’Brian is to His Majesty’s Royal Navy, but… I liked both, and Tomoguchi’s, being modern and contemporary, is VASTLY easier to read. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.