Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Review by Melissa B. (dragoneyes)
I waited patiently for this one to come out. I watched as the publishing date changed a couple of times, pushing it out further, and still I waited. Finally, it released and soon after, I bought it. Then… I put it on my shelf. Oh, how I wanted to read it. The premise sounded so promising. Yet at 700+ pages, I couldn’t bring myself to read this one book when I could read 2-3 smaller ones in its place. Finally, more than a year later, I pulled it down, opened the cover, and fell in fully immersed. The journey was even better as there was beautifully done artwork scattered throughout.
The world in this book has been drowned in darkness. The days are dim with the sun barely showing, the nights are blacker than black. Vampires roam this world in search of humans for food and as slaves. They can come out in the day with its feeble light but are stronger in the nighttime. The vampires have also mated with the humans to create a hybrid. These hybrids have banded together to use the powers given to them by the bloodsuckers to destroy them. They call themselves silversaints and they are mankind’s last chance to take back this dark world.
Gabriel de Leon lives a simple life with a mother he loves, sisters he adores and a father that can’t stand him. Then one day, his sister is attacked by a vampire and his world starts to change forever. Finding out that his father is not his true father and the lies that he has been told, he is taken to the holy order train to be a silversaint. He finds that he does not have the special powers that his other brethren do so he trains twice as hard. Yet, the rules are too much for Gabriel and he finds that he does not agree with everything they teach. He is torn between being the warrior that he has trained for and the truth he feels in his heart. When he crosses the line, the order gives him no choice and banishes him.
The story unfolds as Gabriel, who at present time has been taken prisoner by the enemy, relives his tale to his captor. He tells of battles, of love, of betrayal. He talks of the Holy Grail and his quest to protect it. This tome is his tale and, boy, is it quite a tale. Not once did I get bored or feel the need to skim the pages. It held my attention from the first page to the last.
Now, a bit of a warning. There is a lot of violence in this book. It can be quite brutal with all of the slaying and such. It also has a ton of profanity. While cuss words do not really bother me in the least, I would have to say that this is the one and only problem I had with the book. The profanity was kind of funny in the beginning but then it started to wear on you. It was done so much that it ended up not being funny and caused massive eye rolling on my part. I think if it was toned down, at the moments when it could’ve really used them, it would’ve been more enjoyable. Instead it was just a constant in the book after you delved in a bit. Then, the last warning is that there is some sex scenes. Nothing overly graphic but they are there.
The vampire genre had gotten stale for me but this book renewed my faith that there are still good bloodsucking books out there. Excited to see that the second book should be coming out in 2024. Looking forward to getting my hands on it.
