Review

Titles: “Vampires in the Temple” & “Genealogy of Werewolves”
Author: Mette Ivie Harrison
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Fiction-Fantasy
Year Published: Vampires, 2018; Werewolves, 2022
Number of Pages: Vampires, 368; Werewolves, 337
Binding: Paper
ISBN: Vampires, 978-1948218047; Werewolves, 978-1948218696
Price: Vampires, 8.95; Werewolves, 9.95

Reviewed by Andrew Hamilton for the Association of Mormon Letters

Mette Ivie Harrison has published approximately two dozen works of fiction, many of them award-winners. Her latest book is the BCC Press publication Genealogy of Werewolves, Book Two in the “Mormons and Vampires” series. I started reading Book 1, Vampires in the Temple, to prepare for Halloween. I immediately became so fascinated that I read in all my spare moments and rocketed through both books within 24 hours.

I don’t want to spoil the mystery or fun, so my comments will be careful and brief. The main character is Jack Hardy, who works as a Salt Lake City police detective as Vampires opens. In his reality, when the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, they encountered a clan of homo vampirus who were already living in the area. The Mormons eventually drove them out and trapped them all on Antelope Island, or did they get them all? It’s not long before Hardy and his partner Andy are embroiled in a murder investigation. This investigation uncovers a conspiracy cover-up that goes all the way back to the time of Brigham Young! Werewolves picks up several months after Vampires ends. In chapter one, Hardy’s younger sister calls him from her home in New York. She frightfully tells him that their father is missing. Werewolves are involved, and they have ties that stretch back to the very beginnings of Mormonism.

Harrison’s prose is engaging. She does an excellent job of weaving real and alternative history to create a Salt Lake City where Mormons, vampires, and werewolves could easily be neighbors and where you want to keep reading to see what they are going to do next. When I picked up Vampires, I was not quite sure what to expect, but I figured it would be something along the lines of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with Mormons. Vampires and Werewolves are far more than a few thrills and some scary moments.  This story is filled with mystery, intrigue, conspiracies, and excitement. Beyond that, as with all good science fiction, Harrison has crafted a story that comments on the human condition and causes her readers to examine their assumptions about life, Mormon culture and ideas, and morality.  These are stories that are fun and entertaining, but they are also stories that will stick with you.

There were a few points in the stories where I could not quite tell if they were mistakes or if they were done on purpose to help set off that these books take place in an alternate universe/future timeline. For example, the Salt Lake City temple has six towers, three on each end. But Vampires in the Temple refers to it as having “five towers” (Vampires p. 13).  In Genealogy of Werewolves, it states that Brigham Young led the pioneers to Utah “nearly three hundred years ago” (Werewolves p. 10) when, as of 2022, it has been about 175 since Brigham young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. But these are minor points that do not detract from the enjoyability or effectiveness of the story.

I only have one MINOR complaint about the series.  At the end of Werewolves, the story did not feel finished; it felt more like it stopped instead of concluding. Maybe that is by design; and the hanging plot threads will lead into the next book. I do not want to give away the ending, but I was a little annoyed that, while I knew how things ended for the main character and his sister, there were several other characters who played important roles in the story for whom you did not really find out what was to become of them. I hope they pick up in the next volume (THAT I HAVE TO WAIT A YEAR FOR!)

I have been informed that there are to be five volumes in the “Mormons and Vampires” series. A few of the bad guys from each volume still seem to be out there at the end of each book. Does this mean that Harrison is building up to an “Avengers Endgame” type climax in Book 5 where all of the surviving good guys and bad guys come together in an apocalyptic-level battle? I am not sure, but one can hope! There were four years between the release of Vampires and Werewolves, but my understanding is that the final three volumes are to be released one a year for the next three years around Halloween each year.  That’s better than more four-year waits, BUT waiting three more years to see the end of the series is going to be hard! Maybe I can convince someone at the BCC Press to let me be a test reader for the upcoming volumes so I can get a sneak peek and cut down on my wait! 😊 Whatever the wait for Books Three through Five may be, don’t wait to start reading this series! You will absolutely enjoy Harrison’s writing. In the “Mormonism and Vampires” series she has crafted very entertaining mystery and suspense. But that is only a small part of her accomplishment.  Harrison has an uncanny ability to provide an enjoyable skewering of some of the foibles of Mormonism and Utah, and she uses her fictional characters and situations to make her readers meditate on the moral and ethical challenges facing those of us with connections to Mormonism.  I highly recommend this series.