TITLE: Thrall
AUTHOR: Rebecca Mahoney
PUBLISHER: Hyperion Avenue
PUBLISHING DATE: April 14, 2026
PAGES: 400
SOURCE: ARC
FROM GOODREADS: Lucy Easting has at last broken free from her grim home life and is ready to truly live. But her long-awaited new beginning at Rollins University isn’t what she expected. After attending the first campus party of the year, Lucy awakens the next day with a memory block…and two puncture marks on her neck.
She tries to piece together what happened that night, but every lead brings her to another dead end. Until she receives a handwritten note from the campus radio station, inviting her to call. When she does, the host’s soothing voice over the line confirms her worst fear, and the simplest explanation of what’s happening to her: she’s turning into a vampire.
Lucy teams up with the show’s host, who narrowly escaped an attack her sophomore year, and a beautiful archery champion who, while exactly Lucy’s type, is as likely to shoot her as kiss her. They believe their “friend with the cold hands” is responsible for the disappearance of several women in town, and they’ve been tracking him via the airwaves since long before Lucy arrived.
As the vampire’s sway over Lucy grows and his plans become clear, she realizes she must fight for a future of her own, or she may not have any future at all.
Lucy has been surrounded by death her entire life. Both her father and grandmother have passed and after her grandfather, who she helped care for, finally succumbs to his illness, she finally decides to do something for herself and goes to college, which she had previously put off. Her mother things Lucy is running away from her and her helicopter parenting, but really Lucy just wants to live. Too bad that on her first week there, she goes to a college and passes out, just to wake up with puncture marks in her neck the next morning and a sudden aversion to sunlight.
Lucy starts piecing together the puzzle and ends up making some new friends on the way. Pallas Radio is a nighttime talk show on the campus college radio. However, it's creator, Athena, actually uses it to uncover what is behind the student disappearances, the multiple dead rabbits on campus, and who "the man with the cold hands" might be. She, Mila, an RA/vampire hunter, and Natalie,a bubbly student team up to help Lucy and hopefully reverse the effects of the attack before the vamp can claim her for the final time.
This book was really fun, and I enjoyed the female dynamics and the college Appalachian college atmosphere. The author even managed to show growth and development between Lucy and her estranged mother despite the mother not really being much of a player in the book at all. All four of the main women have their own strength and each brings something to the table as they work to track down "cold hands." Along the way, they also discover and old vampire couple, Hiro and Laurentius, who work in the library they were never of aware of who helps them in the end, despite them wanting to move away from all the drama. These two ended up being in some of my favorite parts of the book. The ending was satisfying and while there are a few romantic elements, this is mainly a book about vampires, how nasty they can be and trying to escape a future of being undead.
My only small issue with the book is I felt the pacing was off a bit. Coming in around 400 pages, there are about 50 pages after Lucy gets bit that I feel drug just a tad. However, if you are looking for a vampire read, consider picking this one up. I think the cover is great and accurately addresses the story within. I am pretty sure this is a standalone but since finishing, find myself wondering what happens with the characters next.
MY RATING: 4 PAWS
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