Daughter of Darkness

After Rulers of Darkness, Kirkus Reviews proclaimed, “Spruill has a grip on the medical suspense/horror novel far firmer than Robin Cook’s,” while Library Journal stated, “Both mystery and horror fans will enjoy this intelligent and suspenseful thriller.” Now Spruill is back with Daughter of Darkness, blurring the borders between myth and reality to spin a novel of unearthly thirst.

Dr. Jenn Hrluska is young, beautiful, and everyone’s choice for best intern at Washington, D.C.’s Adams Memorial hospital. When she finds the freshly killed body of a stranger on her doorstep, her initial shock turns to an irresistible thirst for the blood surrounding the body, for Jenn is a hemophage: her life depends on feeding on the blood of “normals.” Until now, Jenn has survived by transfusing blood from sleeping victims, harmlessly. With bone-chilling certainty, she recognizes that this body has been left as an invitation to reclaim her destiny of taking blood by deadly force. And only one person would have left the body for her—her father, Zane.

Jenn’s grandfather, Merrick, sealed Zane in a tomb ten years ago to end his murderous rampages. Since then Jenn has pursued her life, ignoring her true nature. But now Zane has escaped and begun to insinuate himself into Jenn’s world. Beginning with cruel pranks to remind her of his powers, Zane soon commits a murder that brings Jenn to the brink of exposure—or death. Unjustly imprisoned for murder, and facing the possibility of dying without a supply of fresh blood, Jenn decides she must escape and use her unearthly powers to defeat Zane once and for all.

As father and daughter confront each other, however, Jenn realizes that the love that links them might just be as imperishable as the deadly curse they share.