BOOK REVIEW | MILKTEETH | CAITLIN STARLING

 

BOOK REVIEW | MILKTEETH | CAITLIN STARLING

ABOUT THE BOOK

The only thing more terrifying than a brood's hunger . . . is its mothers.

Beatrice is a broodmother.

A vampire of blood and nurture, charged with guiding the newly undead through their first, transformational years.

Beneath her patron’s skyscraper, in a buried warren of abandoned offices, she raises her fledglings―two difficult, hungry children of the night.

But when she takes on another, the balance ruptures.

Her hunger swells beyond control.
Her body alters, betraying its purpose.
And the careful boundaries of her existence begin to dissolve.

Seeking understanding, Beatrice turns to a mortal who might help her name what she is becoming. Yet their growing intimacy is its own danger, threatening to uncover all that's long been kept hidden from humanity.

And in a world governed by secrecy, even the smallest revelation could prove fatal.

To Beatrice.
To her brood.
To the entire coven.

REVIEW

Vampire fiction has been around nearly as long as the fictional beasts that are the subject of the stories, so it is hard to imagine that anything original can be done with the subject. But as Caitlin Starling proves, there’s life in the old bat yet. 

Enter Beatrice, a woman turned to the life of the undead in some unspecified time in the last century, she spends her life underground as a ‘brood mother’ - a kind of wet nurse for other vampire’s offspring. As young vampires cannot drink human blood yet, she effectively has to distil the human claret into something the fledgling vampires can stomach. When a new little vampire is introduced into Beatrice’s brood. Things change. Beatrice changes and she needs to find out why. 

Vampire stories have changed in recent years to reflect the current anxieties, so finding the comparison between motherhood and vampirism is a natural progression that Starling exploits with frightening results. 

However, not only does Starling manage to add something new to the lore of the vampire with her vision of new vampires being akin to human infants, but she manages to make the vampire frightening again. Throughout literature, vampires have been turned into objects of sexual desire, but with Milkteeth, Starling juxtaposes the overwhelming allure with an almost feral viciousness. 

Throughout the book, Starling examines the horrors of childbirth. The metamorphosis of women’s bodies after the birth of a child and the anxieties that women feel after giving birth.

At times the pacing fluctuates but Starling spatters the book with enough blood and gore to remedy that, which sometimes comes as a welcome relief to the slowing of the narrative. 

Beatrice herself is an intriguing character, but the supporting cast feel a little thin and it is hard to get any emotional attachment to the rest of the characters.

Ultimately, this was an intriguing and bold novel that did something new with the old vampire legends, but misses its mark a little due to the pacing.