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Author: Jay Kristoff
Series: Empire of the Vampire
Series #: 1
Genre: fantasy, dark fantasy
Age Group: adult
ARC?: no

From holy cup comes holy light;

The faithful hands 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 couldn’t 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

What does one rate this book? I honestly waffled between three and four stars. I knew what to expect going in based on early reviews, gory, bloody, violent, tons of profanity and vulgarity. None of that particularly bothers me (mostly because I skip if it gets really descriptive gory), but I know people thought it was excessive. Personally, I didn’t find it excessive. I rather think that was the point. Anyways, that isn’t the point of my review in any case. I wanted to talk about the things that I did and didn’t like about this book and whether or not I’m going to continue the series!

the good

-The World building.
I enjoyed the world building in this book. It was a little convoluted at first, but things were explained as we went along through the book.

-The Characters
I liked most of the characters. I found them annoying and intriguing in turns. I like how they all had different personalities, and I didn’t feel like they were replicated over and over, or copy and pasted characters. They were morally grey and treasonous. It’s best not to trust any of them.

-The Plot
The plot was good, and I liked how we went back and forth through time. I was honestly guessing about the status of characters throughout the book. I will say one part really made me sad, but I can’t say that I was surprised about it, because I had guessed it from the beginning on the book.

the not so good

-The Length
This was a monstrosity of a book. It was huge and long, and oh boy, that was not fun to get through. Very, very, long.

-The Pacing
I think it was because of the length, but the pacing wasn’t great. I would get bored at some parts and have to resist a desire to skip through. Not all of it was bad, just some of it was a bit frustrating and extraneous I felt.

Did it really need to be so long?

more thoughts

Really, the length of this book is intimidating, and this book does have a lot that happens, but mostly it feels like it is setting up for the next book in the series. Hopefully it will improve from this one. Will I read the next one?

Yes, yes I will. I might not read it right away however.