Fiction Review

Unholy Penance
by Roberta Ideus
ISBN-10: 142417029X
Review by Heather Froeschl

What if vampires were real? How many unsolved deaths and missing person’s cases would be revealed as blood thirst? Roberta Ideus offers an interesting twist in her novel “Unholy Penance.” Nothing is ever as it seems, even to a detective and her Sheriff boss.

Kaci Robinson is starting her life over, back in a town she knew well, with family and friends around her. Having been betrayed by her husband, she realizes it was a necessary life lesson. When she is offered an investigative position by her former police academy classmate, synchronicity seems at play. She dives right into the work of trying to solve a series of mysterious murders around the lake. The victims are drained of blood, yet not a drop can be found at the crime scenes. There is no sign of struggle, or even approach. Kaci and David are at a loss, until a well known author of vampire books arrives, Evan Cain. He suggests that the killings are the work of a vampire.

Scoffing at first, there seems no other logical explanation, if vampires can be seen as logical. There is something about Cain that draws Kaci to him. She becomes rather involved in a way that can only be attributed to fate. There is a bigger story here. Cain is not revealing all that there is to know. Will the killing stop? Will penance be done for five hundred years of murder? Is it punishment to kill a vampire, or a blessing?

Ideus suggests things about vampires that you may not have thought of before. This interesting twist will keep readers guessing. The work is nicely plotted, with fantasy, romance, and crime, all rolled up into one. You just might leave this book believing in the unknown…or at least thinking about it. Well done!