A Terrible Beauty

Martha Wilson is Canadian correspondent for the Japan Times (Tokyo) and
a Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

For Canadians who like vampire fiction (an unexpectedly large group,
apparently), Nancy Baker’s novels have been a breath of fresh air. In
A Terrible Beauty she continues to show her aptitude for finding a new
take on the genre.

Matthew Donovan answers a summons to the frigid northern island home of
Sidonie Moreau without knowing at all what he’s getting into. Sidonie,
who turns out to be a dark glamor queen of midnight, wasn’t expecting
Matthew; she was expecting his father, who had cheated her of academic
recognition 20 years earlier. Now Matthew has his father’s misdeed on
his own conscience, and he wants to make things right with Sidonie at
last. It’s a nifty setup, since it gives Baker a reason to keep
Matthew rattling around in the secluded house with his would-be
predator. Fortunately, he stays long enough for love to develop.

This is Beauty and the Beast with a role reversal. Matthew is the
captive who must answer the same question every night: “Will you give
me your blood to drink?” The reader will immediately notice that
Sidonie is torn, that she wants Matthew to say no even more than she
wants him to capitulate. When Matthew is called back home for a visit
with his family, he has to decide whether he will honor the promise he
has made to Sidonie (that he would return to the island, if she would
let him leave for a month), or whether he will stay where he belongs.

The author has all the props and characters needed for this grown-up
fairy tale, which is very much in the tradition of Anne Rice. We
encounter a mysterious woodsman who knows too much; a vampire house
party whose guest list includes a red-haired, fanged beauty who competes
with Sidonie for male attention; a gloomy castle with locked doors and
moldering relics. Baker uses spooky, measured adjectives and clever plot
devices to great effect. And she delicately avoids the goriest details
of Sidonie’s blood-sucking habits, which means that this book can be
safely enjoyed by readers who are prone to squeamishness.