Cancer Eats the Heart

Welcome to Dark Rivers, a rustic northern town forgotten by most and beloved by few.

At its heart is Cannibal House, a crumbling Victorian mansion lorded over by Old Wick, a mysterious wanderer whose arrival in Dark Rivers signals a change-a strangeness that seeps into the bloodstream of the town.

For Nix, waging her own private war with multiple sclerosis, a haunted house and a cryptic drifter aren't the strangest things she's ever encountered. No, what unnerves Nix is the adolescent girl who has come into her house.

Her name is Daphne, and she is a vampire.

Daphne talks of Mister Brightbones, the one who gave her the vampire's kiss-that touch of immortality. A gift that could free Nix from from her chronic illness, giving her a second life, written in blood.

But every gift has a price. Every choice changes the world. And as Dark Rivers teeters on the edge of annihilation, Nix must decide whether eternity is worth damning herself, and possibly the entire world . . .