You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
jenny_king 's review for:
Empire of the Vampire
by Jay Kristoff
I will say that for starters, I bought this book for the hype. I wanted something to read for the spooky season and my shelves are not exactly brimming with scary books, so I thought I would give this a go. As with many other teenagers I grew up in the fanatical vampire surge spawned by Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood. And whatever regard I might have had for the vampire was overrun by brooding and overly romanticised characters. So I decided to go into this completely blind and see how I got on. And luckily for me, this book contained all of my favourite fantasy tropes.
- High/epic fantasy with incredible world building including history, culture, folklore etc
- Slow paced character development
- Comic moments and sassy characters
- Good balance of action/non-action scenes
- Incredibly dark and gritty – not for the faint hearted
- Plenty of twists and turns
This might be a bit of a spoiler but my pitch for this book would be ‘Shadow of the Wind + Da Vinci Code + Vampires’ – the book is told from a central character who is telling his story to a chronicler while in prison. The story that he tells moves back and forth between his younger years and training, and then the events of a specific quest. What perhaps differentiated this book from other vampire novels is the fact that it is based in a completely new vampire world, whereas almost all of the vampire novels that I have read in the past have been set alongside our own world. The creature does share some of the same characteristics as its contemporaries, but the book is far darker and grittier than most that I have read, which I loved.
In terms of ratings, this is probable closer to a 4.5 rounded, up,, as there were some predictable ‘fantasy plot points/tropes’ that came into place which were a bit too obvious at times, but overall the story was told very very well, and had me gripped from start to finish. Now I just need to wait for the next one to be released.
- High/epic fantasy with incredible world building including history, culture, folklore etc
- Slow paced character development
- Comic moments and sassy characters
- Good balance of action/non-action scenes
- Incredibly dark and gritty – not for the faint hearted
- Plenty of twists and turns
This might be a bit of a spoiler but my pitch for this book would be ‘Shadow of the Wind + Da Vinci Code + Vampires’ – the book is told from a central character who is telling his story to a chronicler while in prison. The story that he tells moves back and forth between his younger years and training, and then the events of a specific quest. What perhaps differentiated this book from other vampire novels is the fact that it is based in a completely new vampire world, whereas almost all of the vampire novels that I have read in the past have been set alongside our own world. The creature does share some of the same characteristics as its contemporaries, but the book is far darker and grittier than most that I have read, which I loved.
In terms of ratings, this is probable closer to a 4.5 rounded, up,, as there were some predictable ‘fantasy plot points/tropes’ that came into place which were a bit too obvious at times, but overall the story was told very very well, and had me gripped from start to finish. Now I just need to wait for the next one to be released.