You could easily create a Venn diagram from the core beliefs of Christianity and vampirism. Think about it: The longevity of life, the countless followers willing to die for their worship, rising from the dead after crucifixion—all these things are shared and glorified by God and vampires. 

For vampires, all that’s missing are the proselytizers and the apostles. In the novel Vampire Missionaries by Kathleen Rhodes, a nest of vampyri in Portland start recruiting Mormon kids as disciples. After all, who’s better at missionary work than malleable LDS youth, ready to serve and spread the message of the undead? 

The novel begins when Gabe Fitzpatrick looks into the bathroom mirror one morning and doesn’t see his reflection. It takes seven pages for Gabe and his partner, Luke, to figure out their predicament. The two Mormon missionaries are now vampires. What a drag. “All the praying, crouching, tithing, caffeine abstinence. No alcohol. No sex! All for nothing!” they howled. 

In short order, the two teenagers became ensnarled in the evil machinations of a guy named Bishop, Portland’s number one hellspawn. As his name suggests, Bishop actively promotes a vampire religious cult, and he needs compliant missionaries to spread his message.

As vampires, Gabe and Luke are conflicted about their new disposition. They’re both undead fiends hungry for blood, but they’ve somehow retained their souls. They are 100 percent aware that every step they take takes them further from Heaven.

Bishop is resolute, however. There is no difference between his flock and the divine, he said. “We are here to increase our congregation. Isn’t that what you want too?”  

“How can you explain our existence?” he continued. “We live between life and death. I’ll never leave this earth to meet God, and neither will you. We have all the powers of Jesus, and we prove it every day that we open our eyes.”

The bulk of Vampire Missionaries follows Gabe and Luke as they try to reconcile their LDS upbringing with their new monstrous reality. At the same time, the boys find themselves in a swirl of sexual guilt shaped by good religion and bad religion. It must be horrible to be a horny LDS vampire. A good subtitle for this novel would be A Portrait of the Vampire as a Young Man. 

There’s also a lot of vampire-on-vampire violence throughout the book. But unfortunately, author Kathleen Rhodes isn’t very good at sequential storytelling. At times it’s hard to follow her narrative from moment to moment. She could learn a thing or two by studying storyboards, comic books and other narraglyphic picto-assemblages. 

One final comment: Rhodes ends her novel with a newspaper article recapping the recent vampire activity in Portland. I have one question for her: “What’s a newspaper??”

[ Vampire Missionaries / By Kathleen Rhodes / First Printing: April 2026 / ISBN: 9781639512300 ]