An enjoyable, laudable addition to an increasingly complicated vampire saga with no end in sight.
A woman and her vampire boyfriend face rogue vamps and a looming evil darkness in this third installment of an erotic thriller series.
New Orleans emergency room nurse Erin Hamilton has come to terms with the fact that her lover, Dante Gabriel, is a vampire. But that’s just one of a handful of surprises: Erin learns that her best friend, Lucy, is a wolf shifter while Dante’s father, Julian, who’d been missing, has returned as a ghost. Dante searches for his father’s body so he can file a death certificate and claim Julian’s estate, using the money to fund a translation of the Vampyre Texts. He believes the ancient tome will have answers to his and Erin’s enigmatic blood bond as well as the inexplicable disappearances of patients (with the same blood type) at the hospital where she works. Unfortunately, his grandfather Bill is reluctant to let Dante have the book, certain that it will lead his grandson to “darkness.” As for Erin, her worries start to mount: Lucy mysteriously vanishes and a gang of rogue vampires pursues the nurse, whose scent is evidently “irresistible.” She’s also been experiencing vivid dreams, including the vampire gang cornering her for an obvious assault. Dante, meanwhile, who spent a decade in still-unexplained captivity, hones his unrefined vampiric glamouring skill but may be more powerful than he thinks. The voice of his former captor, the unknown “queen,” occasionally forces its way into Dante’s head, and it’s clear she has a sinister plan brewing. Hardt’s (Unhinged, 2018, etc.) ongoing saga shows no signs of slowing down. Series-long questions, like the queen’s identity, persistently linger, and the story adds a few mysteries to the mix. Erin discovers a doctor who’d disappeared along with the missing patients, but he remembers very little about the person who beat him and held him hostage. This volume, however, does allot time for supporting characters to take the spotlight. Voodoo priestess and medium Bea, who first appeared in the preceding installment, proves a formidable ally for Erin and Dante. Her spells offer some protection, such as masking Erin’s scent from the rogue vampires. Other characters are forming couples, precipitating engaging subplots (Dante’s sister, Emilia, is pregnant, and childbirth is difficult, sometimes fatal, for female vampires). But the continuing romance between Erin and Dante is the most appealing relationship while the copious sex scenes are erotic and healthy. For example, though Dante becomes gradually more aggressive in bed and Erin is typically submissive, it’s apparent that both partners are willing and content. Many of the mysteries, whether new or carry-overs, are unresolved by this novel’s end, which may frustrate some readers. Nevertheless, suspense remains high throughout, as characters are in all sorts of peril, including the indistinct but unnerving darkness. The author defines this abstract evil simply and persuasively: “An electric bolt jarred me back to normal. The darkness. It was here.”
An enjoyable, laudable addition to an increasingly complicated vampire saga with no end in sight.Pub Date: Dec. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64263-048-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Waterhouse Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.
Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in this frightful medieval epic about an orphan girl with visionary powers in plague-devastated France.
The year is 1348. The conflict between France and England is nothing compared to the all-out war building between good angels and fallen ones for control of heaven (though a scene in which soldiers are massacred by a rainbow of arrows is pretty horrific). Among mortals, only the girl, Delphine, knows of the cataclysm to come. Angels speak to her, issuing warnings—and a command to run. A pack of thieves is about to carry her off and rape her when she is saved by a disgraced knight, Thomas, with whom she teams on a march across the parched landscape. Survivors desperate for food have made donkey a delicacy and don't mind eating human flesh. The few healthy people left lock themselves in, not wanting to risk contact with strangers, no matter how dire the strangers' needs. To venture out at night is suicidal: Horrific forces swirl about, ravaging living forms. Lethal black clouds, tentacled water creatures and assorted monsters are comfortable in the daylight hours as well. The knight and a third fellow journeyer, a priest, have difficulty believing Delphine's visions are real, but with oblivion lurking in every shadow, they don't have any choice but to trust her. The question becomes, can she trust herself? Buehlman, who drew upon his love of Fitzgerald and Hemingway in his acclaimed Southern horror novel, Those Across the River (2011), slips effortlessly into a different kind of literary sensibility, one that doesn't scrimp on earthy humor and lyrical writing in the face of unspeakable horrors. The power of suggestion is the author's strong suit, along with first-rate storytelling talent.
An author to watch, Buehlman is now two for two in delivering eerie, offbeat novels with admirable literary skill.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-937007-86-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Ace/Berkley
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
At Buckkeep in the Six Duchies, young Fitz, the bastard son of Prince Chivalry, is raised as a stablehand by old warrior Burrich. But when Chivalry dies without legitimate issue—murdered, it's rumored—Fitz, at the orders of King Shrewd, is brought into the palace and trained in the knightly and courtly arts. Meanwhile, secretly at night, he receives instruction from another bastard, Chade, in the assassin's craft. Now, King Shrewd's subjects are imperiled by the visits of the Red-Ship Raiders—formidable warriors who pillage the seacoasts and turn their human victims into vicious, destructive zombies. Since rehabilitating the zombies proves impossible, it's Fitz's task to go abroad covertly and kill them as quickly and humanely as possible. Shrewd orders that Fitz be taught the Skill—mental powers of telepathy and coercion possessed by all those of the royal line; his teacher is Galen, a sadistic ally of the popinjay Prince Regal, who hates Fitz all the more for his loyalty to Shrewd's other son, the stalwart soldier Verity. Galen brutalizes Fitz and, unknown to anyone, implants a mental block that prevents Fitz from using the Skill. Later, Shrewd decrees that, to cement an alliance, Verity shall wed the Princess Kettricken, heir to a remote yet rich mountain kingdom. Verity, occupied with Skillfully keeping the Red-Ship Raiders at bay, can't go to collect his bride, so Regal and Fitz are sent. Finally, Fitz must discover the depths of Regal's perfidy, recapture his true Skill, win Kettricken's heart for Verity, and help Verity defeat the Raiders. An intriguing, controlled, and remarkably assured debut, at once satisfyingly self-contained yet leaving plenty of scope for future extensions and embellishments.
Pub Date: April 17, 1995
ISBN: 0-553-37445-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Spectra/Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
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