Thirsty

If you read my reviews regularly, you probably know already that I rarely read the complete description of a book before deciding I want to read it. I started reading the description for Thirsty and saw that it is about a woman battling alcoholism and I knew I wanted to read it. Now, I have this little ritual when I am getting ready to start a new book. I like to read other reviews of the book to get a feel for how other readers feel about it. When I did that for this book, I kept seeing the word "vampire" and I thought `oh no'. I grew out of my vampire phase when I was thirteen. Well, then I read the note to readers at the end, I was touched by the amount of prayer the author put into this book. So, I opened my mind and jumped in. Sometimes a reader needs a gentle shove out his or her comfort zone to be truly inspired by a book in a different way. Thirsty is one of those books. It has a unique premise and an edge to it you don't see a lot in Christian fiction. I was amazed at how fast this story moved and how the author kept me engrossed throughout. Nina is just an average woman who has to face demons from her past and her present. She is involved in a spiritual battle not unlike the battles we all face every day. Being a "vampire" book, there is some graphic violence. I generally do not like books that have that, but in this book, I did not find it overwhelming or overdone. I am pretty sensitive about things like that and it did not bother me at all. Overall, Tracey Bateman has written a fantastic book. I am so glad I read it and did not let the vampire element keep me from reading it. This is more a book about spiritual battles and redemption than anything else. All the prayers Ms. Bateman prayed before writing this book were answered because it was amazing and surprisingly uplifting. So, would I recommend Thirsty? Absolutely!

I want to first start off by saying this is NOT a Christian vampire story. The vampire in this book is NOT a Christian. I have enjoyed Tracey's books in the past so I knew that I was going to enjoy the story. I was a bit worried though at how the vampire story was going to come into play. Would the vampires be real vampires or would they be vampire-like characters with addictive tendencies? Would they be Dracula type vampires or Twilight style vampires? Would this be a fantasy world or a realistic setting? There were many questions running through my head when I picked up the book. After putting down the book, my thought was that Tracey had done an extremely excellent job. The story skillfully blends a story about alcohol addiction and the dependency on the drink and what it does to a person's life. It shows how the yearning for one last drop can ruin a person's life forever and cause great damage to the relationships with people they love. Thus this is the same as what it's like for a vampire and the thirst for blood. Nina's alcohol addiction parallels Markus's vampire tendencies and the two tend to circle around each other like vultures. Markus is a real vampire who is out for blood and there's nothing fake at all about him. The place where the story takes places gives off a creepy feeling. I kept picturing lots of fog everywhere. It's a good place to set the story in. I was happy with the ending of the story, there is no "vampire conversion" scene thankfully. If there's any problems I had with the book, it's the switching in narration without warning. The story goes from Nina's first person past recollections like a diary, then switches to third person telling the current story and then goes to Hunt's first person recollections. The problem lies in that it's never told that it's Hunt's talking in first person, it abruptly changed and it took me a while to figure out who was doing the talking. Plus while, Nina's first person is written in italicized font, there's no change in Hunt's and looks like it's part of the regular story. It was just confusing to read at times. Overall I really enjoyed this book. Vampires have never been a part of Christian fiction before. Mostly likely past authors had no idea how to use them or felt them to be so evil, that they didn't want them in their stories. This book does nothing to make a vampire seem good or Christian like so really it's just a story about good vs. evil. There's just more story in between to make a statement. I feel like both fans of Twilight and other vampire lit would enjoy this book as well as fans of Christian fiction. It is NOT a light read however. It's quite intense so I don't know if I would immediately pass this one right off to teens without reading it first. HIGHLY recommended.

I absolutely loved this book! I think Tracey does a terrific job of drawing the reader into the story. The characters are captivating and the story line keeps you turning the pages. I'm hoping for more books from Tracey like this one!

"Every second of their relationship played in her mind. A heartbeat, a lifetime. Christmas mornings around the tree, peals of excitement, loving. Each wonderful second of joy. The heart-ripping torture of a home torn apart with her own hands." In a drunken stupor, Nina Parker staggers to the doorstep of her former home with some brilliant notion swimming in her mind of surprising them on Christmas Eve. She has missed their party, and the children have been in bed for hours. At two in the morning, Nina knocks on the door, knowing deep down that it won't go over well but not able to let it go. Hunt had endured a lot until he finally threw her out, but now as he opens the door, Nina makes an appeal once again to see her kids: "Pretty please? Just this once. For me?" "No," he said, his voice ice, even colder than the god-awful air. "You can come in and wait for the cab if you want." While Hunt calls the cab, Nina waits on the porch, heartbroken. In her inebriated state, she feels a sudden compulsion to shred the wreath hanging on the front door, the bitterness of the gift now seeming too much to bear. Hunt catches her doing it, and Nina makes a scene that her family will never forget. She falls off the porch and twists her ankle, ranting and raving all the while. As the cab arrives, Hunt offers to carry her, but Nina stubbornly refuses and throws her shoe at the window of the front room. The crash of breaking glass awakens both her family and the policeman next door, and her children come downstairs. As Adam runs to see his mother, the child is just on the verge of stepping across broken glass when his dad steps forward --- barefoot --- saving him. The scene is enough to make Nina feel remorseful and for Hunt to, once again, become fed up. He carries his son back in the house and leaves Nina to the police. After hitting rock bottom, Nina's sister, Jill, takes the broken woman in. Jill lives in Nina's hometown of Abbey Hills, Missouri, and has arranged for a job for Nina as a waitress until she can get back on her feet. Nina was a vet before alcoholism took over and is hoping to save enough to return to Houston one day and open up her own practice. Returning to Abbey Hills is a difficult idea for Nina as it's a place she hasn't seen in 16 years. She left one terrible night when she was only 18 years old, not yet realizing that she had become pregnant. She hadn't faced her parents in all that time, and they had never met her children. They are overjoyed to get the opportunity now, but it's a hard situation for Nina to face. Nina's daughter, Meagan, accompanies her for a week-long trip, the stay being arranged by her dad in an attempt to repair an extraordinarily strained mother-daughter relationship. Though Meagan is furious about the forced trip, Nina still holds on to the hope that she can begin to make up for years of hurt. The only catch is that Meagan's real father also lives in Abbey Hills and Nina doesn't want him to know about her. And th

Review by Jill Williamson Alcoholic Nina Parker has lost everything. But she's just completed her ninety days of rehab and is ready to try and put her life back together. She doesn't know if her ex-husband will ever forgive her or consider mending their relationship. So she takes her teenage daughter to her childhood home to try and rebuild that relationship as well as the one with her parents. But there are horrors in her past she isn't ready to face and a murderer loose in town. Can she deal with all this and stay sober? I've heard a lot of people talking about this book as a Christian Twilight. It is not that at all. Thirsty is a combination women's fiction and Brandilyn Collins-like suspense. That said, this was a powerful story, vampire subplot aside. Whereas the vampire subplot fit well with the story and had some intriguing parallels, the book would have been just as good without the vampire subplot. Nina's story--her life--was so real it gripped me entirely. It got me thinking about my own addictions to busyness and work, my husband's side of partnering with me in life, my father and grandfather's alcohol addictions. I was overcome with intense emotions after finishing this book. Maybe that's because it was two am... I started it at nine and had to stay up until I finished. Always a good sign of a powerful story. But through Nina's husband's points of view especially, I was able to relate to my husband a bit more. I was able to thank God for sparing me from my family's generational addiction of alcohol and was able to consider the effect my addiction to busyness might have on my family. For that, I am grateful. Perspective is a hard thing to get in life, and here Tracey Bateman has done it with fiction by writing characters you become. As to whether this book is a good one for teens, it depends on the teen. It is an intense book. But the characters are so real that any teen dealing with addiction--be it their addiction or a loved one's--could benefit from the perspective this novel offers. A very highly recommended book.