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Empire of the Damned: The most hotly anticipated fantasy sequel of 2024: Book 2 (Empire of the Vampire)

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Gabriel’s mother, his love interest, his close friend, an authoritative figure at the monastery, every female vampire, women he barely knows who pass through the story. I don’t want to say too much more for fear of spoiling even the smallest detail, so I’ll just leave you with this: If thou art at all obsessed with vampires, A Game of Thrones, The Witcher, The Night King, or The Da Vinci Code (like me), start reading this series immediately. Ensuring us that no matter what happened as the Chevalier recounted his story, his mishaps, and successes we knew he never was in true danger. As a massive Jean-François fan, I was also not let down by his scenes, which are easily my favorite in the series. Since its announcement, especially after hearing it will be an illustrated novel, I was undoubtedly excited to get to reading Empire of the Vampire.

Drawn into an uneasy alliance with the mysterious vampire Liathe, Gabriel must now deliver the Grail to ancients of the Blood Esani, and learn the truth of how Daysdeath might be finally undone. This volume is action-packed all the way until the cliffhanger, which I suspect will be the case when I read the full volume. So tell me why, not 5 chapters later his protagonist, his Gabriel, who up until then has been working himself to the bone, turns out to be from some mystical all-powerful bloodline that was previously thought to be extinct.Gabriel in turn reveals that after being excommunicated, he and Astrid married and had a daughter named Patience. This interview format, perhaps a nod to Anne Rice’s Interview With A Vampire, allows Kristoff to construct the plot perfectly, maintaining tension and anticipation of answers until late in the game. Patience is rewarded in spades, and Kristoff's hyper-approachable and readable writing style makes what could have been a very dry plot into something vibrant and devourable. It didn’t feel accessible, like it was purposely making me aware that I’m a queer woman and I shouldn’t be here.

Daylight has become as scarce as hope as vampires slowly take over the continent, leaving death, destruction, and the zombie-like wretched in their wake. We get perspectives from both the vampire historian Jean-François, as well as from Gabriel’s undead sister Celene and this is where the narrative format of telling a story within a story really shines. I would not recommend nor gush about it, it would just be a thing for me, like all the books I read are. Ebooks fulfilled through Glose cannot be printed, downloaded as PDF, or read in other digital readers (like Kindle or Nook). I am eagerly waiting for the second book in the trilogy, which I think will top Empire of the Vampire in every possible way.Gabriel is a silversaint, a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending the realm and church from the evil creatures of the night. Lingering mysteries set up in book one are wrapped up quite nicely as the vampire apocalypse threat is looming, and our main characters are all fighting to find a way to save the world. It borrows some of these qualities from beloved 80s-90s classics like Wheel of Time but moves significantly faster. I think what I am most impressed with is Kristoff’s ability to capture the modern vampire, who is erotic and sexy at times with the monster inside lurking underneath, just beneath the surface. I decided I didn’t want promote or publicly support Jay Kristoff anymore, but I still planned on reading Empire of the Vampire.

Granted, you were a little interested at first, but now the supermarket is closing and he’s not heard the tannoy announcing they need to close soon. And then, he decided to use three words for every situation and sentence, no matter how random and awkward they’re placed. Empire of the Vampire is a 2021 illustrated horror-fantasy novel by Australian novelist Jay Kristoff.How does Gabriel kill the forever king, and does he kill all of the Princes of Forever before he kills the King? Its witty, it's funny, it's got me rooting for the underdog, and wishing bad things would happen to Gabriels enemies! I am a fan of framing narratives; seeing how the details of the legends explored and achieved often felt satisfying to me.

The only thing holding it back from a full 5 stars for me was that I just really missed Gabe's glory day stories in the time jumps from book 1! In a way, the standard edition of Empire of the Vampire alone already feels like a special edition for many other fantasy books right now. It took me almost 400 pages long of Empire of the Vampire to feel like I’ve gotten to know and like Gabriel more as the main character. This POV also gives us additional insight into the vampire hierarchy, both providing them with much-needed character work and also proving indeed that the lot of them are bastards.

After cutting his fantasy teeth in the worlds of role playing games, since 2012 Jay Kristoff has rapidly risen to become one of fantasy fiction’s preeminent talents.

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