Ever Your Servant

Ever Your Servant: (Or How Retail Really Sucks) by K. A. Corlett
(Corlata Press / 0-973-28440-4 / 978-0-973-28440-9 / 2004 / $17.99)

Reviewed by Juliet Waldron for PODBRAM

If I may rephrase the cover blurb: "Imagine Anne Rice being trampled by the cast of The Office." If tired formula vampire stories send you to sleep, here comes a genuine page-turner!

Joelle works for a department store in a Canadian city. She runs one of the ossified firms' attempts at a trendy health-food section. The bosses are what you'd imagine, obsessed with inane protocol and office politics. Joelle's best friends are the slacker geeks who run Electronics, although she has a work ethic that they lack. Ms. Corlett has a gift for smart dialogue, and an ear finely tuned toward 9-5, and you will be splitting your sides when a tall dark stranger arrives to cast a pall over the scene. Max owns a franchise, the newly installed cyber café, and with independence from the powers that be, he begins to wreak havoc, not only upon the one remaining good nerve of the pompous managerial staff, but upon Joelle, who has never before met a man she couldn't manage.

Max is (ostensibly) from Quebec, a fluent French speaker. He's handsome, bright and aristocratic, and Joelle's seriously off-balance around him. He's also very pale, and has some unique habits, like hanging upside down from the ceiling in his darkened office. Fellow workers begin to drop dead, and even though Joelle guesses who is to blame, she can't kick a growing passion for the urbane, mysterious Max. Ever Your Servant is by turns funny, witty, terrifying and sexy. What's more, there's a formidable wealth of occult knowledge folded into the humor and gothic romance. If you're looking for a vampire tale with a genuine, not mass-produced, bite, pick this one up. Om Krim Kaliyai Nama!

Editor's Note: This self-published paperback is no longer available from Amazon except through a secondary seller. It is not available at B&N online, either. You can order a copy directly from the author in Canada for the $17.99 posted price plus $8 shipping. You can place your order from the author's website. At least one copy is currently available at a lower price through other sellers. Check the Addall link below for details. If you want to read an excerpt from the book, there is one at the author's site. Thank you.

See Also: K. A. Corlett's website
The Ever Your Servant page at Addall