For a different spin on vampires, check out Sonja Blue, the hip, kick-ass vampire and vampire slayer.

Sonja arrives in Dead Town, a forgotten inner city slum with two warring and drug dealing vampire kindred (clans): the Black Spoons, led by Sinjon, who has ruled Dead Town for over two centuries; and the Pointers, headed by Esher, the young blood seeking power. Sonja befriends an old resident hippy named Cloudy and a boy named Ryan whose mother, Nikola, is Esher’s drug-induced mistress. With their help, Sonja sets out to destroy both kindred while saving Nikola from Esher’s grasp.

Nancy A. Collins takes vampirism to a modernistic level complete with homes, graphic violence, and psychotic gang-bangers. The characters are interesting - Sinjon, the old realm and a homosexual; Esher, the new realm, breaking traditional vampire rules and trying to establish his own vampire order; and Sonja Blue herself, half vampire, half human, with a violent alter ego which she tries to constrain.

The only drawback occurs in part of the ending where the residents of Dead Town rise up against the kindred and are led by some broken-down veteran. Despite that, this book is definitely cool.

A Dozen Black Roses is only one entry in Collins’ Sonja Blue Series: Sunglasses after Dark, In the Blood, Paint it Black, Midnight Blue: The Sonja Blue Collection, Darkest Heart, and Dead Roses for a Blue Lady.