"When Verga Bless shows up in Balona, CA, she draws the attention of bats, mice, and the town's truly unusual inhabitants. In particular, Patella Sackworth, aspiring poet and journalism and criminal-justice student at the local community college, hopes that Verga can find her some "new career vectors." When the mysterious woman promises Patella wealth and fame from writing poetry, the hapless Patella falls under her spell-as does the rest of the town. But the residents start complaining of weakness, inexplicable cravings for red meat, liver, and spinach, and neck pimples-or are they bites? Patella puts her criminal-justice skills to use and realizes that Verga may be taking more from the town than its inhabitants are receiving, and in most unusual ways. Will the malapropism-prone Patella figure out the real story, and actually find enough news to make a newspaper column of it? Pearce... has written a vampire story that plays out like a 'Far Side' cartoon. It should appeal to [those] who have a taste for vampires, comedy, and mangled vocabulary."—Sallie Barringer in School Library Journal (August 2006)

"...I could believe this was happening to Mrs. Pezmyer, a real pain, but not to Patella, a heroic sort of young woman who likes the same food (cake and pie and donutes) that I do.
—Chrissie Lavoisier, 21 (MO)

"...really a fantasy, since what happens does so only in the minds of the characters. And even they are not sure that what happened happened. But it's all weirdly real while you're reading the story...." —Fran Babington, High School Librarian (AZ)

"...mix of real and crazy and awfully funny. At first, I didn't know whether to laugh or just chuckle. Did both. Verga had people believing crazy stuff because they wanted to believe. Fiction? Not all that different than real life...." —Edgar Brace (Senior Guy Reader and now Balona Convert)(CA)

"...world-class weird....I am wearing a neckerchief full time now...." —Angus French (ME)

"... This maybe-vampire, Verga, and the other quirky characters staying at the hotel are definitely worth the price of admission. It always appears to me that all the people who inhabit Balona and its environs are also timeless. The resourceful and intrepid teens remind me of real life in the forties and movies of the thirties and TV of later years. I have been reading the Balona stories and keeping up with the lives of the locals intermittently for several years. And I have become hooked on their idiosyncratic ways...." —Laurabelle McCaffery (IN)