The Greyfriar (Vampire Empire, #1)
by Clay & Susan Griffith
Genre:
Paranormal/Vampires/Steampunk
Reading Grade: Adult
Publishing Type:
traditional
Publication Date:
November 18, 2010
Source: Kindle store
Age Rating: 13+
In 1870, monsters
rise up and conquer the northern lands, As great cities are swallowed
up by carnage and disease, landowners and other elite flee south to
escape their blood-thirsty wrath. One hundred fifty years later, the
great divide still exists; fangs on one side of the border, worried
defenders on the other. This fragile equilibrium is threatened, then
crumbles after a single young princess becomes almost hopelessly lost
in the hostile territory. At first, she has only one defender: a
mysterious Greyfriar who roams freely in dangerous vampire regions.
My Review
This was a story in
which I was able to really come to love the characters. Despite all
the political matters whirling around that made up the central plot,
it still managed to be a character-driven story. Princess Adele and
the Greyfriar were both given plenty of room to grow and develop into
very realistic and charming characters.
I found myself being
reminded of one of my favorite novel series, Trinity Blood, a
Japanese light novel series in which the vampires have their own
empire that goes up against the human nations. I love the set-up of
that series and, although it was very different, The Greyfriar's
premise was also fascinating. I won't write much about its
steampunk elements, but they gave the story an old-fashioned
atmosphere that was easy to envision, which was interesting given
that the story was set in the year 2020.
Still, I couldn't help
but have a problem with how the shifting 3rd-person POVs were
handled. We'd be inside Adele's head one paragraph, and then, without
warning, we'd be inside of Greyfriar's, or someone else's, in the
next—all during the same scene. It was very confusing and this was
a constant problem from beginning to end. Also, I didn't much care
for the overuse of passive voice. I found myself rewording sentences
in my head as I read them to get rid of the “to be” verb.
Despite these errors,
I truly loved this story and its evolving characters, Adele and
Greyfriar, as well as their relationship. Adele had to grow so much
to overcome her extreme prejudices against vampires, even though they
were warranted. But, her time spent with them taught her things she
never knew about them, and therein, she grew in leaps and bounds.
Prejudice is an ugly thing, and she was truly awful while displaying
her bigotry, but when it started to crack and fade, it became a
beautiful thing to witness.
The story was not
particularly sensuously romantic, but the feelings were all there and
I loved how it was handled. No need for groping and whispers of
sweet-nothings. Adele and Greyfriar seemed to have something more
substantial between the two of them, and I anxiously look forward to
reading more about how they could possibly continue their sweet
romance in the next volume. More, please!
P.S. The vampires in this series RULE! They can lower the density of their bodies to float in the air? How cool is that!?
My score: 4.5 out
of 5 stars.
I had this one on mhy TBR, but I might rethink that...head-hopping makes me crazy. Like you, I spend half the time re-writing the story in my mind, and it makes it hard to enjoy the story.
ReplyDeleteStill, if you liked it in spite of that, and it's steampunk...maybe I'll see if I can find it in audiobook format. That might get me through.
Good review!
@BJ: Despite all the head-hopping, I still loved this book. The characters are just so amazing and grow so much in ways I rarely see in genre fiction. Still, I highly recommend reading it!
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