The Promise Keeper

L. Marie Wood

They call it the Death House. For the women awaiting execution at Raskin Correctional, it’s the last place they’ll ever know. This is where Lucky meets Angie, and the two forge a friendship through the walls of their cells. But Angie is no regular inmate. She is an asiman, a vampire-like creature from African folklore, and she’s lived many lives before coming to the Death House. Before she’s executed, Angie begs Lucky to become an asiman herself, return to the world, and protect Angie’s son from the creature that turned her — the Promise Keeper.

 

This is a lush horror story that crosses continents and spans decades, with all the sex and bloodletting of the best vampire tales. But Wood goes deeper, using vampire lore to paint a moving portrait of two women forced to make impossible choices in an unforgiving world where the evil lies in both monster and man. Vampire fans will get their fill here, as will horror readers thirsty for a fresh, unexpected take on one of the genre’s oldest mythologies.

– Library Journal