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A review by bookandcoffeeaddict
High Stakes by Brandy Schillace
5.0
Narrated by sixteen-year-old Jacob Maresbeth, High Stakes reads like the most interesting “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essay I’ve ever read.
Jake is not a vampire, not really. Except he kind of is. He drinks blood and his internal clock definitely has a nocturnal preference. But besides that, he’s pretty much your average healthy, growing teenage boy. And being an average teenage boy, he’s pretty disgruntled that he has to leave the sunny beaches of his home town of Newport News, Virginia to spend two weeks of his summer vacation with his younger sister in Cleveland, Ohio with their Aunt Sylvia, an eccentric English professor. Aunt Sylvia’s been kept in the dark about Jake’s more, shall we say, vampiric symptoms, so Jake will have to spend the whole time living up to his father’s cover story of being frail, allergic to pretty much everything, and having an all-around delicate constitution. Jake figures the whole thing is a bust and just plans to wait the days out until he can go home– until he meets Zsofia, his aunt’s gold-haired, gorgeous Hungarian graduate student.
I love different takes on established genres and so a book about a living teenager with a mysterious blood disorder that mimics vampirism sounded great – and it was! The story flowed brilliantly and Jake had this fantastic dry, self-deprecating sense of humor that I really liked. Aunt Sylvia was quite a character with her clinking bangles, flowing skirts, and obsession with health foods and remedies (like the medicated soap she tries to thrust upon Jake in misplaced, but well-intentioned, helpfulness). Lizzy was a bit bratty and terribly dramatic, but loyal all the same – like any good little sister.
High Stakes was a great start to a fantastically original and readable series peppered with well-rounded, well-written, and well-detailed characters. I would absolutely read this author again and look forward to the next book of the Jacob Maresbeth Chronicles.
*I received an ARC of this book to review. You can find this review and others like it at BookAndCoffeeAddict.com, along with recommendations for a fantastic cup of coffee.
Jake is not a vampire, not really. Except he kind of is. He drinks blood and his internal clock definitely has a nocturnal preference. But besides that, he’s pretty much your average healthy, growing teenage boy. And being an average teenage boy, he’s pretty disgruntled that he has to leave the sunny beaches of his home town of Newport News, Virginia to spend two weeks of his summer vacation with his younger sister in Cleveland, Ohio with their Aunt Sylvia, an eccentric English professor. Aunt Sylvia’s been kept in the dark about Jake’s more, shall we say, vampiric symptoms, so Jake will have to spend the whole time living up to his father’s cover story of being frail, allergic to pretty much everything, and having an all-around delicate constitution. Jake figures the whole thing is a bust and just plans to wait the days out until he can go home– until he meets Zsofia, his aunt’s gold-haired, gorgeous Hungarian graduate student.
I love different takes on established genres and so a book about a living teenager with a mysterious blood disorder that mimics vampirism sounded great – and it was! The story flowed brilliantly and Jake had this fantastic dry, self-deprecating sense of humor that I really liked. Aunt Sylvia was quite a character with her clinking bangles, flowing skirts, and obsession with health foods and remedies (like the medicated soap she tries to thrust upon Jake in misplaced, but well-intentioned, helpfulness). Lizzy was a bit bratty and terribly dramatic, but loyal all the same – like any good little sister.
High Stakes was a great start to a fantastically original and readable series peppered with well-rounded, well-written, and well-detailed characters. I would absolutely read this author again and look forward to the next book of the Jacob Maresbeth Chronicles.
*I received an ARC of this book to review. You can find this review and others like it at BookAndCoffeeAddict.com, along with recommendations for a fantastic cup of coffee.