Empire of the Vampire - Review
Link to the author's (J. Kristoff) personal website
Book 1: Empire of the Vampire
Book 2: Empire of the Damned
Blurb: (From Book 1) From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hand sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.
It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness.
Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order could not stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains.
Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope:
The Holy Grail.
Review: By the Almighty is this series a wild ride. It tells a story so riveting that you'll dream of little else, a story so sometimes horrific that you'll question an imaginary faith, revenge so deeply entrenched that your heart feels like it's blackening, a story and world so engaging that stopping is unthinkable, and it will somehow mix in some obscenely arousing smut. I have become an addict.
I really think this series has it all. The dialogue, the world-building, the story-telling, and the characters are all sublime. I am a big fan of books that thread the "current" story-line into older ones via characters recounting their experiences, and think this is a prime example of it being done perfectly. I'm pretty certain I've felt the full spectrum of emotions with regards to Gabriel. All that being said, this cannot be a blanket recommend for everyone. There is a fairly large amount of pretty horrific scenes and sexual scenes, some of which even overlap. I could not stop myself reading and am now desperately waiting for the third installment. It is a huge recommend for anyone remotely interested after this review.