Back cover blurb:
Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester, is the youngest brother of King Charles II and James, Duke of York. A handsome, good man, his life ends in 1660 with smallpox...or does it? Obsessed with Henry, Contessa Griselda di Cuorenero - one of the Devil's concubines - turns him into a vampire and plunges him into the world of night. Pacts with the Devil, massacres, plague, fire, witch trials, and the love of a lonely outcast from the sleepy village of Coffin's Bishop have an irrevocable impact on the young vampire. Henry must choose between his humanity and his monstrous, insatiable desire for human blood. From the author of "His Last Mistress," The Stuart Vampire is a dark gothic tale incorporating the real horrors of mankind in the Early Modern period, natural disaster, and the supernatural world.
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Francine's Review:
With the restoration of Charles II to the throne of England (1660). there is much rejoicing within the royal court. Nonetheless, the seeming Stuart Curse is once again set to bring more heartache to the royal household, for while the opulence and profligacy of the royal court, (as history dictates) is yet to manifest in full splendour, death is already stalking through the royal apartments. Needless to say, a royal death is the catalyst to The Stuart Vampire. Thus this novel, although well-researched and historically correct, fantasy soon begins to creep centre stage when a wraithlike creature enters the room of a sick prince. The reader is then thrust into the realm of the un-dead, an overall existence that can lead to purgatory and a tortured soul, or to that of love with a tempting beautiful vampire. Beauty, though, is often merely skin deep, and eventually forbidden love brings the tortured soul from the darkness of entrapment, a love that knows no bounds and crosses the great divide.
Cast disbelief aside, go with the flow of this novel, and enjoy the dark side!
Cast disbelief aside, go with the flow of this novel, and enjoy the dark side!
