Nancy Haddock majored in Education/Speech and Language Pathology at the University of Tulsa and worked in a both private and public school settings for seven years. She and her husband and children live in St. Augustine, Florida, which is the setting for the 
Always the Vampire by Nancy Haddock
Francesca Marinelli was turned into a vampire over two hundred years ago and then buried beneath her sire’s St. Augustine house as a punishment. The whole nest was then killed, and Cesca languished underground until the 21st century. Now she’s enjoying her second chance — and those handy modern conveniences. Nancy Haddock takes Charlaine Harris’s True Blood idea one step further: Cesca drinks Starbloods, synthetic blood with flavors like caramel macchiato. It’s a good thing she has that option,
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I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.
[…] Stuart (2 December 2015). “Roadside Picnic: Russian SF classic with parallels to Vandermeer’s Area X | Fantasy Lit…. fantasyliterature.com. Retrieved 8 […]
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren't impossible to do, but…