NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 7, Saturday

Love. In my past posts about NEVER CEESE I've touched on love constantly. The reason is because that is the underlying strength of both Christianity and the story itself. Yesterday I wrote about evil because it is in direct contrast with love. I want to clarify something before I continue. All evil is a form of rebellion against Love, and God is Love. (see 1st John 4:8) I mention this to get at the devil, the author of all rebellions against God. It's how he became a devil, when he was initially one of the highest angels in Heaven. Whether by “non-choice” or choice, we rebel against the riches of God and His love, we make ourselves enemies of God. We all were enemies of God, which is why He became a man, the man we call Jesus, in order to die for our sin, our rebellion against Him. Which gets us right back to love, which is where I want to be.

The two initial characters, Merideth and Penelope found refuge in love. Even when Penelope told her husband about that day and what happened to her, his respons was not to abandon her to whatever fate awaited her, but to remove her and his family from that place. Why? Because of love. Love demanded that he care for his wife, his family. This becomes important later in the story, but I'll let you find it. Then we have the love of Penelope and Richard, hundreds of years later, a fact that is explained by Richard being a vampire and Penelope, although now dying, was once under a similar curse. Her love gives him some of his humanity back, and with it a place for hope to reside. There is the love of Penelope and Ceese, which is an incredible love, one that has allowed Ceese to train herself to get through much of the things that would normally cause her pain. More than that, however, it is this love that gets her to listen to Penelope and work with Richard, as much as she despises him. This promise, in time blossoms into a love she feels towards Richard, and he feels towards her. This amazing change is the crux of the story, it's where the story shifts around from one thing to another. Their mutual love for each other gives them strength to go beyond what they would normally go. It gives them the idea of being able to sacrifice themself for the other. Then there is the love of Cassie for an old lady named Penelope that gives her new strength in her own life. There are other examples, but this will do for now. My intent is not to give you the plot, but to whet your taste so you can enjoy it as I have.

Love never comes empty-handed. It offers gifts in one hand, for those who are obedient, and chastisement in the other hand for those who are disobedient. Both arms of love are there to embrace, even after chastisement, the object of love. Here I'm not talking about love as, “I love oranges”, but both brotherly love and divine love (phileo and agape loves respectively). It is the love of one for another. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Jesus called His disciples friends, and in doing so calls all of us who follow Him His friends as well. Romans 5:8 puts it this way, “For God commendeth His love towards us in this, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is love, true love. It doesn't ask for anything other than to be received, and even that is not forced upon us. God loves each and every one of us. This is so clearly seen in NEVER CEESE that you can't help bumping into this on practically every page. While we may not see it as the love of God, we still recognize it as love, and God is the author of Love, as He is Love itself.

NEVER CEESE is more than just a well-told story. It is an urging for each of us to come to that Love. We have joined through some very dark places, been forced to look at the darkness within our own hearts, yet has brought us out into the great light of love. If you like stories about vampires and such you must read this book. If that's not your “cup of tea” I encourage you to read it anyway. It may just change some of your thinking. Whatever the case, don't ever look at a novel about werewolves and vampires without thinking, “I too am cursed” and following that thought up with, “But I have been set free from the curse by the love of God.” In doing so we have traveled from darkness into light, from rebellion into love, from death into life. There is nothing greater than this. We, who have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, have all come out of the darkness into life. We may still struggle with rebellion, but our righteousness is in Jesus Christ. In Him we find we have gone from death unto life by the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead.

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

Christian Mystery Writers

S.M. Kirkland's Blog

The Melody Within

The Time Mistress

Virtual Tour de 'Net

The Guild Review

NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 6, Friday

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

Day 6, Friday

One of the things that you'll find from cover to cover in this novel is mention of evil. NEVER CEESE talks about two men who rape a ministers wife, then moves along to talk about those who have been cursed, specifically Ceese and Richard. Yet, they aren't the only ones who are cursed. They aren't the only ones who have been infected by evil. Take Dr. Clayton Henderson, who's claim to fame is DNA research using stem cells and getting kicked out of a prestigious university. Idiot that he is, Dr. Henderson doesn't take the hint and continues on with his research when he gets a job at a different college. Then there are the collage students. You could say all the college students, because I've been there and know for a fact that while college life is a lot of fun, it's filled with a lot of things that we'd rather not let anyone know about. And it reaches into our lives. Sue Dent deals with several of these students, the first is Cassie Felts, just a college kid doing research on werewolves and vampires, who incidentally has contacted Penelope before she died. She's sincere, kind, gentle, but she's been lured into a net of evil she cannot realize when Dr. Henderson expresses his interest in her research and asks to help her out. You see how evil works? It doesn't just hit you all at once. Most of us walk into it thinking we're doing good.

Then there's Rodney, Kyle and Josh, each with a truckload of their own personal problems and evils. These are your basic college kids, and if you never thought of it before, start thinking about it now. Our kids need our prayers. They may reject what we say, as does this trio, but they need to hear the truth, they need to know that we love them and care for them. Sure it'll mess with their Spring Breaks, Mardi Gras and assortment of other festivities, but in the end our prayers will bring them back to the One who truly loves them, if we will just love them and accept them without judgment. That's a big statement. We can know that they, as we, are caught up in evil, but we must accept them just as Jesus accepts us. I don't know about you, but Jesus accepted me in all my filth, and said, “I love you, follow Me.” Jesus didn't ask me to clean up my act. He didn't ask me to stop doing this or that. He simply asked me to come with Him. Now how cool is that? Why can't we, as His ambassadors, do the same thing? What can't we just love people the way they are? For we are all infected by evil. It's the cure that we have that they seek. But what is evil? Can it really be defined?

Evil isn't just some word in a dictionary that has grown obsolete. It's a word that has real meaning in our lives. All too often we are taught that there aren't any absolutes. This just isn't true. There are absolutes. Love, which we mentioned briefly in an earlier post, is one of those absolutes, although it is the Love of God, not phileo love. Yet here let's talk some about evil. What is it? How does it spread? Where did it come from?

If any of you live near an ocean or have had the wonderful experience of visiting one, you've seen one of nature's greatest wonders. I love the ocean. The pounding of the waves, the sparkling water under the Sun, the incredible power that is hidden beneath such beauty, that is what the ocean is to me. It speaks to me of God, but it also reminds me of evil. Evil tempts you with its beauty, speaks to you with mesmerizing crashing voices, and draws you into a rip-tide of such incredible force that no one can escape. Every one of us has been tempted into some kind of evil, whether it is lying, cheating, stealing, doing drugs, getting drunk, having illicit sex, beating or even killing others. This is just a partial list of the evils we can fall into, and they are all part of the same ocean of evil, an ocean that at first looks so beautiful that we can't help but wade into its deadly currents. When we find ourselves pulled out too far and try to swim back to safety we feel the pull of the rip-tide as sure as if Poseidon himself had his hand gripping our ankles. With a voices that crush us over and over again we are beaten, weakened, and drawn even closer to our death in this sea of evil. For evil is a powerful thing. It looks different to each of us, manifests itself uniquely to our own personalities to the point where we think giving up this would be to lose our own personalities. The fact is the exact opposite is true.

There are all kinds of analogies I could use for evil, but I choose this one. I choose it because of its seeming glamor, its incessant pounding, its unbelievable grip of death on each of us. I choose it because after a while you are so far out in evil that you can't find the land any more. You're totally, hopelessly lost to the evil that tempted you into its deadly clutches. With only decades, or years, or months, or days, or maybe it's only hours, perhaps even just seconds, before you are pulled under for the last time, we need to realize this mighty power evil has over us. Yet I've chosen this analogy for another reason. “The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” (Psalm 93:4) In other words, God is stronger than evil. We can put our trust in Him and be drawn out of its deadly clutches. Like a person drowning, all we need to do is cry out. As it is written, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Act 2:21) Now I don't know about you, but I've heard a lot of people talking about power, whether it's financial power, political power, or spiritual power, like the occult, but none of these can come close to the power of God. Better yet, all that He has is ours if we come to Him. His Holiness, His righteousness, the riches that are beyond measure, they belong to us because we are His children, if we have come to Jesus. If we have called upon the name of the Lord then His sacrificial death stands before God as our mercy, for He carried all our evil with Him to the cross, and there put it to death. Oh, we still have to deal with it, we still have to work out some things in our lives. Being a Christian isn't being perfect, but being COUNTED as perfect. In the meantime we move towards that goal, not because it's written in some doctrine of some religion, but because we love God and want to please Him. You see, it always gets back to love.

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

Christian Mystery Writers

S.M. Kirkland's Blog

The Melody Within

The Time Mistress

Virtual Tour de 'Net

NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 5, Thursday

Light and Dark. I glossed over this in a previous post, but I want to go into greater detail here. NEVER CEESE does something few books in this genre do, and that is to deal with light as well as darkness. In the beginning of the book we find Richard trying to deal with the fact that light can harm, even kill him. He goes around at night, and if he needs to prowl around the castle during the day he makes sure that all the curtains are drawn. He fears the light, as is the case with vampires throughout the vampire genre. Ceese also is a creature of the night, being a werewolf. She has been disciplining herself to adjust to being a human, so she does venture out into the daylight when the need occurs. We see here different reactions of darkness to light. Interestingly both Richard and Ceese are drawn to the light, even though they know it may cause them pain, even death. It is the love of another that draws them. What a beautiful way to depict this.

Darkness, on the other hand, hides from the light. Light exposes it, destroys it. There is a very real correlation between light and good, and darkness and evil. To take things a step further there is a correlation between light and life, and darkness and death. When we meet up with Richard he stays up way past dawn to spend time with Penelope, who is growing weak and dying. He hides in the darkness. Evil hides in the darkness of our hearts in much the same way. Just as Richard seems to be a pleasant person, outside of the fact that he's a vampire, you might be tempted to call him good. Yet he is not good. Like all of us, he is born into this world as though still born, dead, darkness is his only life. For that reason light threatens him, all of us. We don't want to come to the light, because doing so means our hiding places will be gone, our evil discovered. Yet there is a truth that we need to get out to the world about this hiding out from the light.

Light does in fact kill those who come into it, just as all the myths and legends about vampires have said. Yet it does more, so much more. Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24) In order for us to live, we first must die. For that reason we must come into the light. Our deeds must be exposed so that we might come to Him who is Light that He might kill us, that is our evil nature. Yet we also come to Him that He might raise us up into newness of life. For what good is it if we die and are not born again? Of what good is it for a seed to fall to the ground and die, unless it bring forth new life? This is what is not being told many people. So they walk around, the living dead, unwilling to come into the light. They fear this because they don't want to die. You've heard them say so. “Becoming a Christian means I have to give up everything, and I'm not willing to do that.” Or, “I'm an individual, and I'm not about to merge into some cosmic divinity.” Things along these lines we all have heard. The truth of it is that it is God who made us unique, not us. He chose us, knew us, formed us, before the worlds themselves were created. It is in not coming into the light that we blend into the darkness of all that is evil. There we lose the uniqueness that God wishes for us to have. To gain that truly personal individual that you were meant to be you must come into the light and die, that God may raise you up into what He had planned for you all along.

As we read NEVER CEESE we find that this truth is so forcefully portrayed in the lives of Ceese and Richard. Both fear the light, yet in the end...well, you'll have to read it for yourselves.

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

Christian Mystery Writers

S.M. Kirkland's Blog

The Melody Within

The Time Mistress

Virtual Tour de 'Net

NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 4, Wednesday

Friends and Enemies. Love and Hate. Perhaps unintentional, but this is another theme that runs throughout Sue Dent's wonderful novel, NEVER CEESE. Friends love and enemies hate. That's the way I'd like you to view this for a moment.

Friends and Love. In the prologue there is the love of a husband for his wife, and her love for her husband. This is the highest form of phileo (brotherly) love most people can ever attain. When the major part of the book starts we read about two other who love each other in a similar way, Penelope and Richard. Their circumstances are slightly different. Our first couple were your simple loving husband and wife. Richard, however, is a vampire. His relationship with Penelope is the only one who gives him the ability to love. Their love isn't always smooth, however. Penelope knows what Richard needs and is working towards that end. When Richard finds out about it he is prone to outbursts of anger, but he cannot stay angry with her for long simply because of his love for her. He does nearly come close when Ceese enters the picture. Called there by Penelope, Ceese and Richard have only two things in common, they both love Penelope and they both seem to hate each other. But real hate isn't shown the way these two seem to despise each other, and in the end a bond of love draws them together. Love gives way to hope, and hope gives way to faith. Watching them is like watching two high schoolers come together and their very attraction for each other causes pain and anguish, arguments and tears. Yet, in time they begin to care for each other as they care for themselves.

Enemies and hate. We are all enemies to one another because of our sinful natures, our curse. The book begins with a mother who wants to just rest and have some time alone to rest. During this time enemies come in to attack her. Their purpose? To get her husband, a minister, to leave the area. These creatures, a werewolf and a vampire, are the enemy that follows our heroes throughout the story. Their goal is always the same, keep them from returning to that land of light, that place of holiness. You see, it isn't the creature that is evil, but the creature within. Just as Richard talks about the vampire trying to gain control, or Ceese talking about the wolf trying to get out, in the same way these enemies are controlled by what is within them. It's not that they didn't have a choice. We all have a choice, even the worst of us. Some of us do make that choice and choose sides. Some choose to fight on the side of evil. Oh, they can change sides anytime, so long as this life isn't over. Yet, the longer they persist in the wrong camp, the harder it is to change sides. Hate is a strong emotion. It poisons the heart and soul. It eat a man up from the inside and in the end leaves him nothing but a prisoner in his own body, or her body.

Love, on the other hand, has always been stronger than hate. If love is given the slightest chance to thrive it is powerful enough, even in the smallest amount, to drive out hate. Love is purity. Hate is filth. Love is like light. Evil is like darkness. So, is that all I have to prove that love is so powerful? No, not at all. The Bible says that “God is love” (1st John 4:8). It's not just love evil is fleeing from, but God Himself. When Ceese and Richard allow love to enter in and take a control they allowed God to come in and drive out the poison in their love. For you see, the antidote for the curse, their curse and ours, is love, God's pure and perfect love.

One final thing I need to say. In this life be careful about the way you treat people. Some people who seem to antagonize us are really our truest friends. They will run to our defense in our time of need. Conversely, those who smooth-talk us and seem to be our closest confidants, may well be our enemies. They are the ones who desert us when we need them most. Their kind words are hollow. Ceese and Richard went at each other like enemies, but they were more than just friends. Others followed after them and made believed they cared, but they didn't, they just wanted to facilitate the hatred. So be careful. Jesus says to love each other, to love our neighbors, even to love our enemies. That added to our love for God will forever be our best defenses against evil. In love is hope. Hope makes the way for faith. Faith brings deliverance.

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

Christian Mystery Writers

S.M. Kirkland's Blog

The Melody Within

The Time Mistress

Virtual Tour de 'Net

NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 3, Tuesday

The curse! This is what the whole book is about. Ceese has been cursed and wishes to free herself from the curse. Richard has been cursed and has lost hope of ever being free from this curse. Their curses are similar, yet there are differences. For one, Ceese is cursed to be a wolf, a predator, with keen hearing, acute sense of smell and taste. Even in her human form these attributes are largely present. She is strong and powerful, but she also has the ability to give some of her power to another without cursing them. Richard, on the other hand is a creature of the night, a vampire who craves blood. If he does not receive fresh blood at proper intervals the hunger inside him begins to overtake his will. He can change shape and even levitate, but his heart has grown cold. Unlike Ceese, he views his existence as an eternal torment from which he cannot escape.

What is your curse? Do you feed on making others feel foolish or little? Do you crave violence? Do you run after pornography? Drugs? Alcohol? What is your curse? If you think you are not cursed, then you've missed the point of the whole story. Every one of us has been cursed. That's a sad thing to say, but it's true. The Law of God tells us just where we have failed and how the curse has affected us. The good news is there is an escape from our curse. For our curse is really an extension of Adam and Eve's rebellion against God. The good news is Jesus put the penalty for that curse to death on the cross, when He died for us. He came, Scripture says, to set captives free. The antidote for our curse is the mercy and love of God, which any can receive by the faith God gives to all.

Scars! Inevitably there will be scars left in us, even if we have accepted this cure, this freedom, this antidote from God, just as Richard still bore the scratch marks from Ceese on his back. The curse is gone, but there will still be some consequences. We can, however, rejoice, even in our scars, knowing they serve not as a pain in our lives, but they remind us from where we once were. They remind us that here we are, once cursed, standing in Christ before the Heavenly Father as His children. Those scars become beauty marks, reasons to rejoice. Come to think of it, Sue Dent even mentions a birthmark reappearing on Richard's neck. Do you suppose she was trying to tell us something?

[Special note: My computer went down and I wasn't able to gain access to the Internet. I could do almost everything else, but I couldn't get online. I tried everything I could think of, including calling technical support. They also couldn't help other than put in a work request that was supposed to be filled by 6 PM tonight. Then while laying in bed God spoke to me and asked me why I didn't come to Him. So I asked Him to fix the problem and got right on the first try. Praise the Lord. - David Brollier]

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

Day 2, Monday

Our story begins with Julia, wife of a minister in Wales. As Merideth and their six children leave for church she looks forward to some time alone. Those plans are interrupted when two strangers enter the picture. The end result is that Julia witnesses one of the men transforming from a man to a wolf and back again. The other man rapes her, but the wolf scratches her thigh, then gives her a warning. Basically she's to tell her husband to get out of Dodge. That's basically the prologue and I hope Sue doesn't butcher me for butchering her story so quickly. I just wanted to give you the setting. Of course, chapter one begins much later and there are new names. Julia and Merideth seem to have been forgotten. Our three main characters are Penelope, Richard and Ceese.

It is here that we see how painstakingly Ms. Dent has gone to be true to the traditional vampire, while still portraying them as victim as well as predator. The love Penelope and Richard share is so very real, and realistically portrayed. This relationship is very important as the foundation of the story. Richard, our favorite vampire, truly loves Penelope, and it is that single thing that helps him hold on to some forgotten memories. It's difficult for me to get into the story without spoiling it for you readers. There are a lot of really wonderful things in here. One I'll never forget is that when Penelope is dying, and realises it, she meets with Richard and has him quote John 3:16. This verse is known to almost every Christian. It's usually the first verse they ever learn by heart, “For God so love the world, that He gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The problem is the curse. The curse that Richard has makes it painful to even think about things that are holy. The word holy alone causes anguish. Now to have him mention the name of God, to quote Scripture about God's great act of love, well, you'll have to read it to really feel it.

Isn't it the same in our society? How many people just can't mention the name of Jesus or God without scoffing at the name? Atheists are so incensed with hatred towards a God they claim doesn't exist that they spend a lot of time and effort trying to prove He doesn't exist. Now I don't believe Buddha was a god, or Baal, or Odin, or any of the pantheon of gods paraded before us from various societies and religions. I don't, however, spend time trying to disprove it. The fact that my God exists is enough. What does surprise me is the depth of the love of God. Just when I think I've glimpsed the vastness of it God reveals something new, and I realize just how small my view of God's love is. It is this love that is painful. For Jesus is the Light, and we all know that vampires have a difficult time with light.

So what was Penelope doing bringing Richard face to face with the one thing that caused him so much anguish? She loved him, remember. She had to touch that part of him that was not yet ruined by the curse. She had hopes for him, hopes that he would one day be free of his curse. That's the reason she called for Ceese, a young woman who just so happens to be a werewolf. Young here is a relative term. She's nearly as old as Richard, and she also is seeking to free herself of her curse. She has one thing that Richard doesn't, hope. She has a hope that there is a way, some way, to rid herself of this curse she has. It is that hope that Richard so desperately needs. At the end of 1st Corinthians 13 we are told that there are three things that are greater than everything else. They are faith, hope and love. He needs to be reminded of this love and introduced to the possibility of hope. Without the combination of the two there will never be an avenue for faith to take root in his heart.

You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.

You can also visit the following links of participating CFRB sites:

Back to the Mountains

Queen of Convolusion

A Frank Review

Between Sundays

Bibliophile's Retreat

Cathi's Chatter

NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent

Day 1, Sunday

Some time ago another writer asked for some advice about writing a story about vampires. I was taken back. A Christian book about vampires? What was she thinking? Instead of writing her off as a kook, or telling her that there was no place for her at CFRB, I asked her about this. As it turned out the book was not going to be a Christian one, but a secular one, but a strange thing began to take place. God began showing me how powerful He could explain His love, mercy and forgiveness, in a vampire story. So I began to encourage people who wrote dark horror Christian stories to look into writing a series on vampires. It seems no one took me up on that. Yet during that time a little book was out that I gave no attention to. The name of that book was NEVER CEESE, by Sue Dent. It wasn't until well over a year that I realized, well actually someone told me, that NEVER CEESE was about vampires. This time, however, in stead of being taken back, I was looking forward to just such a story.

I give you this background because many of you are going to visit here and think that we've gone off the deep end. How dare we tour a book about werewolves and vampires on a Christian site. I maintain that every Christian story is just such a story, even if these creatures aren't mentioned. Even your best Christian romance is a vampire story. How can I say that? I want you to think about all you've heard or read about vampires, and even werewolves. Sue Dent mentions them as being cursed, and this is a universal description. Finer details, such as the fear of light, love of darkness, the need for blood to survive, and even the fear of a crucifix are all Christian teachings. Since Adam, all of us have been born not only under a curse, but cursed ourselves. We are, as it were, still born, the living dead, a description that may well describe zombies. Let us consider these points from a Christian world view. Each of us is born into a world of evil and become partakers of that evil ourselves. As such the Light is the one thing that we cannot bear. It would show us who we really are and destroy us. So we prefer the darkness. Jesus even mentions this, “...men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19) Right we are to fear the light, because we were once vampires, werewolves and zombies. Light finally killed us, yet in killing us brought to us a newness of life. Again as Jesus said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” (John 12:24) Only the curse didn't let us see this at first. We believed a lie and walked in darkness for a long time. Even now darkness calls to us, trying to pull us back into the curse from which we have been set free. When we were cursed we may not have thrived on blood in the literal sense, but didn't each of us thrive on making others feel bad, even if we felt they deserved to feel bad. You've seen, known or have been picked on by bullies. Rather than become different than them we became them wishing them harm instead of goodness. We feasted on their every failure. Such is the way of the vampire. Such is the case of each of us before we are set free from the curse by the blood of Christ. And have you noticed that it really isn't the crucifix, but the empty cross that people fear. They fear it because if what Christians teach is true then it means only one of two things, they must die to be set free, or that they must face everlasting torment...torment that begins here on earth.

No, I no longer see the stories about vampires and werewolves as anti-Christian in nature, but as a means of exposing the anti-Christian tendencies within each of us and then showing us the way to freedom and life and light. This is the story of NEVER CEESE, and it is the story of every Christian story in its essence. Take the parable of the Prodigal Son that Jesus taught (see Luke 15:11-32). The younger son sucks his inheritance from his father to gratify himself. He spends his money giving in to every deed of darkness his flesh desires. Then the curse is made known to him when a famine hits the land and his “friends” all leave him. He finds himself a job feeding the pigs, and fighting over their food. This is the life of the vampire, the werewolf, the zombie. Then Scripture says, the young man came to himself. There was hope for him, even if he had to lose his name, and it was in his father's house. He could be a servant, be well-clothed, fed and sheltered. Light fell upon him and the chains of darkness fell from his feet. Yet this prodigal was not taken back as a servant, but restored by the father as his son. Did Jesus mean to make this a vampire story? I rather doubt it, but all the elements of vampirism exist nonetheless. I think that Jesus knew that the Gospel could be described and understood in terms of vampire literature and welcomed the opportunity to show how great His love for us really is. This is why I have been so thrilled to read this story. It's not some created character who stumbles upon Christianity through their own goodness, but a story about how their very evil points them to Christ.



You can buy NEVER CEESE at Amazon

As well as Barnes and Noble

Be sure to check out the link at The Writer's Cafe Press TWCP

And don't forget to visit Sue Dent's page at Never Ceese

And for those interested in what Sue Dent has to say for herself check out this list of interviews with her.