Carnelian Book Box: Dark Heart

When Jesse Westchurch finds out he’s dying, the last thing he expects is his old college roommate, Lucy Callahan, to climb through the second-story window of his quaint Long Island house and turn him into a vampire.

Millennial vampires are killing the killing industry by refusing to sacrifice humans, so Jesse doesn’t even have to drink blood. The ancient vampire government, Carnelian, offers distilled blood pills. But they come at a price: you work for them, you get your supply of pills. Sure, sometimes the work is dangerous, but they are sparing innocent lives.

The truth comes to light when Jesse figures out that Lucy and his sister, Ciceline, are Carnelian’s most skilled assassins, forced to pay off a century of debt for their blood pills.

When their latest hit on a murderous politician puts Jesse and his doting sister, Stella, in danger, their only refuge is an underground “blood club” run by Lucy’s found family, a group of hardcore Gen X vampires. Jesse has to find a way to expose Carnelian’s darkest secrets and obtain the pills they need to survive, or lose the family (both by blood and by choice) he has just finished putting back together.