Zoe Sutcliff

Zoe Sutcliff is a sixteen-year-old girl living in the suburb of Oakwood in a Northern American city in the present day. Throughout the course of the book, we discover that she is currently undergoing a quiet tragedy as her mother is in hospital with terminal cancer. Her story takes her on a dangerous journey as she faces the loss of her best friend Lorraine and is becoming increasingly isolated from her father who is himself dealing with the probable loss of his wife and her meeting with the strange Simon the vampire youth. Her character development is in part a classic coming of age tale as she is forced to grow up and confront her problems as well as encounters love (in the form of her attraction to Simon) and loss (in many guises throughout the book).

Zoe is one of the two main protagonists in the...