Carmilla The first vampire

Living through the winter of 1996, lifelong New York City resident and queer Chinese American Athena Lo is a social worker trying to find answers to a string of disappearances; all of the people are young women, many are down on their luck, and all are Athena's clients. Her investigation leads her to Carmilla's, an underground club in a seedy part of Chinatown, where she meets Violet. Violet is homeless, and Athena offers her a place to spend the night, despite her partner's disapproval; Violet, however, is much more than she appears to be, and soon Athena becomes too involved in Violet's plight to back out. This graphic novel is strongly centered around the New York City of the '90s and its ongoing recovery from the decline of the '80s; illustrations are fittingly dark and gritty, with many panels reflecting the Chinese culture Athena shares with her yeh yeh. This is a modern retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu's nineteenth-century novella, and readers familiar with it will easily recognize it in this atmospheric vampire story.