Early in Emily A. Weedon’s Hemo Sapiens, we are introduced to Luke Stockton, a no-nonsense homicide detective trying and failing to balance the impending birth of his first child with an increasingly complicated murder investigation. His wife, Beatrice, has been acting erratically, eschewing a more traditional obstetrician for a mysterious downtown Toronto med-spa that offers prenatal care alongside leech treatments and vampire facials. His wife’s intense cravings include raw meat, suggesting she’s not driven by the standard suggestions for a safe pregnancy.

“Personally, I’m listening to what the baby wants,” she tells him after frying up some kidneys. “I trust the wisdom of that. And I trust my body. More than that idiot doctor.”

At first Luke excuses Beatrice’s bizarre behaviour as the understandable ups and downs of being pregnant, but as his wife becomes more secretive – and he opens their fridge to discover a bowl of live leeches – the signs point to something more sinister. Luke believes there is a connection between his wife’s unconventional health-care practitioners and the blood-drained bodies of runaway boys that keep turning up in his work.

Weedon’s experience as a screenwriter shines in her second novel and first foray into genre fiction. (Her debut novel, Autokrator, was published in 2024.) Hemo Sapiens is fast-paced and cinematic, confident in its homage to long-standing noir and horror tropes. Combining sexuality, violence, and intrigue, the book traverses familiar territory, but also manages to be notably fresh in its approach, using untethered female desire and the essentiality of the matrilineal line to weave a welcome new thread into standard lore. Weedon’s vampires are driven by an otherworldly need that is very much alive on the page, but the complex female hungers rage beyond a simple need for blood.

As Luke gets closer to uncovering the truth about the killer he’s been chasing, he finds himself inexplicably drawn to Cleo, the med-spa’s elegant and alluring owner, feeling “not a little bit of unregistered guilt and shame over the way Cleo’s very presence had made his blood race.” Our hero descends deeper into the mystery of a predator that defies basic human physiology, while Beatrice is pulled further into a shadowy world Luke can’t access.

The various pieces of narrative build to a satisfying, filmic crescendo, with Cleo ultimately giving Luke the answers he’s been looking for. “Humans tell stories about monsters so their children know the monsters get destroyed,” she tells him. “What about your ghoulish stories about the walking dead who suck the blood and the life force out of people? Or vicious sirens who use sex to lure helpless men only to lead them to death. Where do they come from?”

Unspooling with blood-soaked irreverence, Hemo Sapiens is a fun and welcome addition to the vampire genre. Weedon is adept at depicting both visceral sensuality and gruesome gore – often at the same time. With a heady mix of eroticism, measured brutality, and well-rendered mystery, the novel gives readers a modern world of wealth, power, and desire, while maintaining the seductive tradition of the elegant and insatiable vampire.