Dearly vampiric, we are gathered here today to reap the souls of our enemies, avenge the souls of those we’ve lost, and protect the souls of our not at all undead, scientifically speaking, brethren. Because this is a Gathering, an all out, bloody battle between vampyrs and their human oppressors, and we’d never make empty promises with the title of the book, right?

That I won’t spoil. What I will say is maybe I broke out my excited shoulder shimmy a bit too soon when the law enforcement officer protagonist vs mysterious death in a small, minimal sunlight hours Alaskan town storyline had me immediately hyped for some 30 Days of Night comparisons. But instead of the mysterious death(s — RIP that sled dog team) being the only precursor to the population sign getting knocked down to zero by a horde of fruit-punch-mouthed vampires, the dead body in The Gathering is simply the newest excuse for this largely white Christian Nationalist community to demand the extermination of the recently returned vampyr community (more akin to long abused indigenous cultures in their mythology than the all powerful apex predator variety of vampire). A town population so vile in its xenophobia that I was praying for the vampyr leader — whose two distinguishing features are being a centuries old vampyr trapped in a child’s body and being the only person that loves to say “fuck” (because that juxtaposition is soooooooo funny) — to proclaim “enough is enough” about 20 pages in.

Which is probably why, as much as I was intrigued by Detective Barbara Atkin’s investigation into the whodunnit, as engrossed as I was in each new reveal of a myriad of dirty little secrets hidden by the town members, and as much fun as I was having accusing far too many characters of secretly being vampires (cuz you know there’s gotta be at least one, right?), the answers stopped mattering to me in the grand scheme of the story because they never really mattered to the town. All that matters, all the “something wicked this way comes” reminders littered throughout the book are building to, is the promise of everything coming to a head no matter what the investigation uncovered. 

Which means that a mass comeuppance for the utter human trash is the only satisfactory ending to a book that filled me with such “fuck these racists” zeal. I’m not saying I needed a Blade-style, blood shower dance party, but there needs to be something, and it needs to be grand. There’s no room for “not all humans” and “but also some vampyrs” elements that dilute the zero tolerance of hate stance, because when a story isn’t subtle with what it’s saying then you want it to say it loudly with full conviction. Go all in. Drain the town dry, take advantage of that Alaskan winter weather and make bloody snow cones in the street, [emphatically whispers] throw that Blade-style, blood shower dance party in that goddamn church. 

In other words, I don’t care how they gather, just Gather.