Bottle of Red
by Stuart Clarke
represented by agent Jeanie Pantelakis
published by Solstice Publishing
Stregoni has invented a way to make being a Prince of Darkness socially “acceptable”…
Three guys, on the eve of one’s bachelor party, end up “innocently” working for a vampire who bottles blood as wine to make it more socialable. They are hired by Stregoni Wineries to transport a truck load of “wine” to New Orleans during the Marti Gra for his favorite client.
To say the least this book doesn’t dry out.
Bottle of Red gives a new twist on how vampires feed in the 21st century. Stregoni Wineries is bottling cow’s blood instead of wine, allowing its connoisseurs’ thirst to be quenched in a far more civilized manner. The careless desire for human blood by the arch enemy of Stregoni, Lampir, views this as a sign of weakness and takes it upon himself to bring in a bus load of tourists to snack on…. and bottle. This changes the game plan just a bit.
Bottle of Red takes you from Napa Valley to New Orleans during Marti Gra, blending elements of horror and humor with a dash of romance. If you have ever wondered how vampires would survive in this day and age, now you will know. You will never think of a glass of red wine the same way again. You better look, swirl, and sniff first…
Characters in this novel are not hap-hazardly named:
Stregoni and Muroni are Italian breeds of vampire; Vukodlak is a Serbian legend; Eretik translates roughly to Heretic; Lampir is a Bosnian breed; Moroii is Hungarian; Blutsauger (Jakob) means Bloodsucker; Nabeshima is a vampire cat from Japan; Aswang is a vampire from the Phillipines, and there are more.
Clarke is currently writing a sequel to Bottle of Red entitled Blue Bloods as well as a dark, dark thriller called Harvest of Lost Souls which involves an abortion doctor who harvests the fetuses, incubating them until they are viable, and then sells them to adoption agencies. The only problem is all the children are violent, psychotic sociopaths; some of whom try to “find” their birth mothers.