I love all CJ Tudor books that I have read. The Gathering is no different. I loved the new take on a vampire story. I think it is funny how vampires are actually trendy. They had a big pop culture moment back in the 1980's with books and movies such as Salem's Lot and The Lost Boys. Then they were out of style for a few years. They made a big comeback in the 2000's with the Twilight books and movies and many copycat themes. Then they were out of style again. The Gathering is the first vampire novel I have read in a while and I am curious to see how it will be received. First of all, I loved the remote Alaskan setting. The theme of "us against them" as well as the vampire race/species being argued about as subhuman can be perceived as parallels to many social ideas that still exist today. The story was exciting and sometimes horrific. I think it will make existing fans of CJ Tudor very happy and it might win over some new fans who are craving new stories about vampires since they are few and far between these last few years.

Someone please tell me why I’m not a vampire anthropologist?? How freaking cool. I’m intrigued by this growth in popularity of vampire books again (resurgence of my teenage years!) and the allegories for racism and isolation. This book is somewhat of a slow burn and felt really atmospheric. Tudor’s writing is not always captivating for me but I thought this worked really welll.

What do you do when one of your favorite authors writes a vampire story? Well, if you’re me, you have an honest-to-goodness meltdown—but, like, in the best possible way. Did you write this book just for me, CJ Tudor? Huh? Did ya? *gasps* I knew it!

Speaking of CJ Tudor, did she meet the devil on a crossroads and make a deal? That has to be the only explanation. How else would it be possible for her books to just keep getting better?! They’re always five-star reads, and well, that’s just not enough. Goodreads is going to have to build a new star category just for her: the Tudor Tier. Her books are just too good to be lumped in with all the others. It’s like, “Sure, Dracula, you’re great, but you aren’t exactly Tudor-Tier, are you?”

In an effort, to contain my happy-reader rambles, I’ll just say that I was expecting to enjoy myself when I started this one, but I was not expecting to be catapulted into a whole new dimension of epicness.

The characters! The plot! The mystery! The eeriness! THE VIBES!!!!!!

You need this book in your life. Why aren’t you reading it yet? Shoo!

Barbara Atkins, Fang Doc

I enjoyed this take on the "vampyr" genre. It was enough different to keep me entertained all the way through.

In this vampyrish world, a Vampyr Protection Act has been passed and small Colonies of vampyrs live around the world, subsisting on alternative sources of nutrition other than human blood. Because if they stray into that forbidden source of protein, their entire Colony could be culled.

Barbara Atkins comes to Deadhart, Alaska investigating the suspicious death of a teenage boy there, one which the locals believe was killed by a vampyr from a nearby Colony. Atkins is a Doctor of Forensic Vampyr Anthropology and is also a homicide detective.

Great detective story and vampyr story. I highly recommend it.

I received this Digital Review Copy from Ballantine Books through Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and leave an unbiased review. This is that review.

I devoured The Drift earlier this year and I instantly added The Gathering to my TBR afterwards! I am definitely a C.J. Tudor fan now. The Gathering was an enthralling and suspenseful read that kept me guessing. I loved the paranormal plot, interesting characters, and vibrant setting.

This is a perfect read for fans of the latest season of True Detective!

Small rural Deadhart, Alaska is having problems. Body problems. The people who live there haven’t seen crime of death in Twenty-Five years, that is till a body is found drained of all its blood. But there’s a colony of vampires who live the forest and Detective Barbara Artkins is about to find out all the history this small town holds.

This is a sit one sitting book. It definitely is unique and just full of so much mystery that you want to know everything. It takes a new take of horror mystery with a likable main character. When you have detective mysteries, if the main detective isn’t good then I can’t stand to read, but CJ made Barbara someone I actually really liked. The towns people don’t really warm to Barbara being there so it makes for solving the murder harder for her. And I really liked the co-existence of people and Vampires. They know their places and yet conflict can happen.

This books was very unique and had some really intense moments and I can’t wait to see what CJ writes next. It took a deep dive into how society plays a big role.

I enjoyed this book by C.J. Tudor. It was a very interesting take on vampires. Great story, great characters, and great pacing. Can't wait to read more from C.J. Tudor. #TheGathering #NetGalley

Whether they are the living or the dead, one thing no community wants to experience is not being able to honor their dead and give them their last rites. Remember how Priam went to Achilles to ask for his boy's body so he could give him a funeral? These vampyrs wanted their clan members' heads back. They were not some stag to be kept on some killer's wall.

When another boy was found dead, living of this Alaskan town would feel more strongly about keeping those vampyr heads on their walls. Actually they wanted more than that. They wanted a cull. However in this version of America, living and dead live side by side and living could not go after whole dead community unless there was a valid reason. This town thought they had the reason, but also innocent until proven guilty still held true.

I loved the storytelling and complex connections formed in this book. I had some ideas about who the killer was and the way it was unearthed and weaved into the story blew my mind away. This was a great fantasy and mystery mash up. If you are into either genre, you will love this one.

The small Alaskan town of Deadhart hadn't seen a death where the body was completely drained of blood for twenty-five years. The Colony is a group of vampyrs living in a mine in the woods, and people are convinced it's them. Detective Barbara Atkins calls on the former Deadhart sheriff Jenson Tucker to help her investigate. The pair look into the town’s history, uncovering secrets neither knew about. Another body is found, and winter is deepening. There is more snow and longer nights, giving more opportunities for the killer. Time is running out for everyone involved.

A Gathering is meant to be the final showdown between humans and vampyrs in a world where they always existed. They age more slowly than humans and have the speed, strength, and blood-drinking abilities of myth. They have legal protection as minorities, but small towns near settlement areas are often full of religious fervor and guns. This small town in Alaska is left from an old copper mine, and it boasts a God-fearing preacher who has a penchant for calling vampyrs demons and all but calling for their obliteration. Into this town comes a detective with a vampyr anthropologist background, which automatically makes the local population unhappy as they call for a cull of the Colony.

The novel is well written, with questions along the way of not just who the killer is, but what happened twenty-five years ago, and the origins of the town when the copper mine was in full swing and abusive, hypocritical men were in charge. The different threads of the story are also interwoven with a captive; whatever you think her identity is, I promise you that you're wrong and it's a complete surprise. The town population falls as the mystery unravels and Barbara comes closer to the truth; there are multiple surprises along the way, and the finale is a bloody and fun mess as the truth is finally revealed and justice is served. The epilogue is a teaser, and I hope to see Barbara Atkins again.

Vampires are back and I’m not mad about it! What a fun and original take on this vampire thriller. Lots of fresh twists and scenes that make you shiver. I hope theirs more of Tudor’s vampires in the future. I’d be around for some more colony thrills.

This was a tense read - so many people lying and suspicious of each other! An interesting take on vampires and their living in society. You can see the parallels to the racism that is rampant in our current society. C.J. Tudor never disappoints! I can't wait to see what he writes next!

#TheGathering
#NetGalley

I enjoyed this read. It was a different perspective on vampires and had quite a few parallels to real life. I really appreciated that aspect of the books. Racism and bigotry run rampant in this country and it's nice to see those ideas presented in a fictional way. I also loved the main character. She's not your usual hero but that's why I liked her, very down to earth, normal person vibe. I wish we had more character development with her.. Maybe in book 2?

The overall pace of the book was medium. The story was a lot of backstory and there were parts I felt moved a tad slow. I loved the Alaskan setting, very dark and creepy. I also would have liked more depth in to the setting.

I liked this story and will definitely read more by this author.

Detective Barbara Atkins is called into help
Investigate a killing in remote Deadheart. Blink and you would miss it, Deaheart is a true small town with secrets and alliances that run deep. No one wants her there, and she just wants the truth. Is it the Vampyres destroying the community, or is it one of their own?!

This book really drug on for me… it lacked a level of suspense or thrill that I would typically expect. I had to put it down and come back to it days later so many times. I’m still a fan of the author but maybe not the biggest fan of the book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC !!

The hype over this book right now is real, and it’s deserved! I’m a long time Tudor fan (back to The Chalk Man days!) and have found her books to get better and better as she writes.

This one is making waves because it’s bringing back the vampire genre. (I know other books are doing this too, but I haven’t read them yet!) Tudor writes about Deadhart, Alaska, a small town that has a colony of vampyrs living there. Barbara comes to Deadhart to investigate a murder that looks vampyric. Her job is to determine the individual vampyr responsible and try to arrest them; if the colony tries to protect the individual, she can order a cull, which is essentially an extinguishing of the entire colony.

Points for atmosphere and pacing, as usual. Tudor writes plot driven thrillers that keep pushing the story along, and this one is no exception. The cold, isolated Alaskan town that hates her because of her job adds tension to the story. There are also snippets included that are telling someone’s story, but the reader doesn’t know who until the end of the book. (These are italicized so it’s clear when you’re at this part of the chapters.)

I think I just wanted this to be scarier. The mystery and suspense were top notch, and I’d revisit this world anytime. I think I just had higher expectations of the gore and fear than what was delivered. I’d still say The Drift (her previous novel) is my favorite of hers, but I enjoyed this one too.

On the surface, THE GATHERING is an intriguing concept: a world in which vampires (or "vampyrs") are commonly known, to the point of being part of society—if not a broadly accepted part. As detective Barbara Atkins digs into a case of vampyr-on-human violence in the small town of Deadhart, Alaska, it seems she's the only one willing to give the local vampyrs the benefit of the doubt. With this in mind, the procedural aspects of the book are fascinating. From faked video footage to long-standing grudges to a previous crime that eerily mirrors this one, there's a lot of great crime drama to dig into.

Where the story starts to fall apart, though, is in its attempt to couch vampyrs as a marginalized group in the same breath as Black, Jewish, and queer people. It runs into the same problem as the film ZOOTOPIA: the marginalized group in question have a genetic predisposition to violence, and tolerance of them balances on the knife-edge of them suppressing their natural urges. Considering our society's long history of ethnocentrism and very literal blood libel, not to mention modern anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, drawing direct parallels between our real-world marginalized groups and a bloodsucking hive mind of predators feels tone deaf. The world-building could have avoided this; but despite some long-held beliefs (being invisible in mirrors and so on) being debunked, the vampyrs of THE GATHERING fit the traditional vampire narrative in all the ways that double down on this unfortunate comparison. All of this is juxtaposed with an eleventh-hour twist that doesn't pay off nearly as much as one would hope.

While the prose of THE GATHERING is solid, and the procedural elements are strong, the social message is deeply flawed in ways that could either have been easily avoided—or, alternatively, interrogated to produce a text that's truly challenging rather than weirdly misguided.

Another captivating and thrilling story by Ms. Tudor.
I love a good vampire story and this one was quite different. It's not your run of the mill vampire story. Yes, they drink blood and some kill but these vampyr's are protected with the rights afforded to any human. When a young man is found, an obvious victim of a vampyr, the townsfolk want an all out slaughter of the vampyr colony. Forensic detective, Barbara Atkins is called on to investigate. But what she finds is as confusing to her as any case she's seen. Will Barbara be able to solve the case in time to prevent what the town desires? Or will they get their way and kill the colony...
The ending will surprise you

When this book started off I was very quickly very invested in it. I thought C.J. Tudor just did an incredible job completely transporting you to this small town. The atmosphere was impecable. I also thought the inclusion of vampyres in a premise like this one, was incredibly interesting and really well executed. I was super intrigued to see how this mystery was going to unravel itself, especially because we relatively quickly made a big breakthrough in the case.
However, that being said this book also got stagnant very quickly. After that first breakthrough it takes until the very end for anything else to happen in this book. I did still think the tension with the vampyres was interesting, but ultimately I can only read about how the townspeople really fucking hate the vampyres and want to kill them no matter what a certain amount of times before it gets really repetetive and boring. So even though I was gripped from the start, I did find myself quite bored throughout most of this book.
Then the ending also felt a bit like a bit of letdown. The reveals were really well done, and honestly I didn't even see them all coming. I just feel like they all happened a bit too close to one another as they were packed in like the last 5% of the book. Some resolutions we didn't even get to see happen on page, we're just told about them afterwards. It felt a bit like a let down. And then we also get a little something that could potentially be a teaser for a sequel. I do have interest in that though ... So maybe that will be something to check out. Yeah, in conclusion I thought this book did some things really well but it left me just a bit too bored for me to fully root for it.

Detective sent to Alaska to investigate the death of a local teen that appears to be the victim of a vampire. A coven has located outside of town and the town residents are looking for any reason to cull the herd. A solid thriller with gothic themes.

This book moved a little slow for me. I wish I could've gotten into it more. I generally love vampire/fantasy novels, but I struggled to connect with any of the characters. I was really frustrated by the frequent comments about the MFC's weight. Given the bigotry and discrimination against the vampyrs, it's hard to believe that a black man was ever sheriff of the town. I also felt that the twists and surprises were predictable. The writing style was good, but I just don't think this was the story for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC of The Gathering by C.J. Tudor. I am a big fan of C.J. Tudor and I always look forward to a new book by this author. This one did not disappoint! In a small dark and cold Alaska town, a young boy is killed. Barbara, a detective, in vampyr anthropology is sent to the town to determine who killed the boy and to prevent a vampyr uprising and conflict with the town. Chilling, fast paced and creepy, you won’t want to put this one down!