Sutton blends the most famous tropes of vampire fiction with lesser-known legends, parts of other myths, and variations of their own to create urban fantasy that is fresh without seeming muddled.
David’s sister was taken by vampires. Recruited by the Order shortly after, he has waged a secret war to protect his home town. However, when Leisa, his latest target, gets the upper hand but lets him live, his belief that vampires are pure evil is challenged. Before he can investigate further, the Order ask him to supervise a novice hunter, Anna, who—despite claiming she carried out proper surveillance—managed to mistake a human for a vampire. The lines between monster and human seem blurred, but are the hunters mistaken or are they being manipulated?
While the novel opens with the classic trope of a lone hunter entering the vampire’s lair, Sutton quickly makes it clear that David is a member of a secret organisation with branches that hunt other supernatural threats. This early confirmation that other creatures exist but David is solely a vampire hunter skilfully primes the reader for a plot that is primarily vampire focused but contains other mythical creatures.
David’s hunting methods also includes a balance of famous vampire-hunter symbols, such as the crucifix, and references to less common legends, such as rose petals, creating a fresh take on the concept without denying readers the signature moments that define the vampire in Western culture.
As the narrative continues, Sutton subverts some of the common tropes that both the reader and David believe to be true. While this is sometimes surprising, with both other supernaturals and the patchy sharing of information established from the beginning, even readers who like to guess at solutions are likely to find these revelations a pleasing development rather than an attempt to catch the reader out.
Where the mix of traditional and reframed might grate is in the species of creatures revealed in the later stages of the book: vampires remain fundamentally vampires and werewolves remain fundamentally werewolves, but the other—ostensibly very different—supernaturals all fall into only two other groups; this might leave those readers who like to learn the depths of a world wondering why there is no explanation for why vampires and werewolves are special.
However, as both the first book in a series and a tale of a protagonist facing a world that might not be as he believed, this is unlikely to spoil the enjoyment of most readers and might even seem a positive trait to some.
This is very much a novel set in a world filled with a multiplicity of mythical entities. However, Sutton keeps the majority of focus on vampires and those who oppose their actions, making this still primarily a vampire novel.
David and Anna, along with the other characters who feature as narrators, are both sympathetic and complex. Each of them is keeping secrets from their friends and family, providing an increase in accidental conflicts and flawed schemes, but each also displays a morally comprehensible reason for keeping the secrets. As such—while readers might disagree with their stance at certain moments or experience the mixed joy and despair of knowing someone is about to make a mistake—the characters remain plausibly heroic.
The supporting cast similarly display the imperfections and nuances of real people, albeit occasionally with a tinge of high fantasy handwaving in the case of some of the more unusual entities.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I recommend it to readers seeking fast-paced urban fantasy with a broad spread of different supernatural entities..
I received a free copy from the author with a request for a fair review.
Becka Sutton
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