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A review by hlizmarie
The Geomancer: Vampire Empire: A Gareth and Adele Novel by Susan Griffith, Clay Griffith
3.0
The Geomancer is a continuation of the authors' Vampire Empire series featuring the Gareth, a vampire who acts like no other vampire, and Adele, Empress of Equatoria. It's an alternate history, steampunk adventure set in the late 1870s that's unlike anything I've read before. Although it's possible to read this book without reading the prior three, I wouldn't recommend it. There's a ton of history to all of the relationships, particularly to understanding Gareth and Adele, and action that led up to the start of this book. It's been a year since Adele used her geomancy to burn the vampires out of Britain and scorched the earth in the process. She and Gareth are trying to have a more normal life but they end up on the trail of a human who has the power to kill other humans via geomancy and of course he's working for the vampires. They chase all over the world in a quest to beat this man to a powerful geomancy tool and are outwitted at every turn. In the end, it's Adele, Gareth and some new allies against a massive vampire force led by a few familiar and nasty foes.
I read over my review for the last book in the Vampire Empire series and ended it with the thought that I wanted to see where Adele and Gareth went from there. It's strange to get my wish and not be as excited as I expected. The book was a solid read but I didn't find myself as engaged as I was with the previous three. Gareth drove me nuts. A large part of the plot here revolves around Adele and Gareth finding other groups of vampires that are more like him than he's ever encountered. One group reveres him and his way of life as if they're disciples and the other essentially consists of vampire monks who have a different life philosophy. Both are capable of some of Gareth's more "human" behaviors and his reaction is pretty harsh. In particular, I really enjoyed the time they spent with the vampires in the Himalayas and how it forced Gareth to reassess his view of other vampires. I'd love to see them resurface in a future book since I think they have a lot to offer Gareth. I continue to enjoy Adele and Gareth together as well as seeing the supporting characters from the prior three books. The action was rough and dirty at times which is fine by me. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what I didn't enjoy except it's possible I had mentally closed the door on this series and had trouble opening it back up. I didn't think I'd read another book in this world and I might have been okay with that.
I read over my review for the last book in the Vampire Empire series and ended it with the thought that I wanted to see where Adele and Gareth went from there. It's strange to get my wish and not be as excited as I expected. The book was a solid read but I didn't find myself as engaged as I was with the previous three. Gareth drove me nuts. A large part of the plot here revolves around Adele and Gareth finding other groups of vampires that are more like him than he's ever encountered. One group reveres him and his way of life as if they're disciples and the other essentially consists of vampire monks who have a different life philosophy. Both are capable of some of Gareth's more "human" behaviors and his reaction is pretty harsh. In particular, I really enjoyed the time they spent with the vampires in the Himalayas and how it forced Gareth to reassess his view of other vampires. I'd love to see them resurface in a future book since I think they have a lot to offer Gareth. I continue to enjoy Adele and Gareth together as well as seeing the supporting characters from the prior three books. The action was rough and dirty at times which is fine by me. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what I didn't enjoy except it's possible I had mentally closed the door on this series and had trouble opening it back up. I didn't think I'd read another book in this world and I might have been okay with that.