Read Time: 2 Minutes
Three short-ish stories in the same world as Blood & Ancient Scrolls where vampires, or am’r as they’re known in this series. Noosh is a recently turned am’r, and these stories don’t focus on her. Instead, they’re fleshing out the history of the am’r and their place in the world.
Out of the three, I think the first I enjoyed the most. Noosh gets talking with a Haitian am’r, Zoraida, who survived the United States occupation of Haiti of around 100 years ago. Zoraida was a revolutionary fighting for her nation against the US.
The second, actually you know what, I’ll amend my previous statement and say I enjoyed this one just as much. I am a fan of the TV show “Vikings” and the thought of some of those maniacs becoming immortal vampires tickled me.
I was less enthused with the narration of the second story though, mostly because it felt a little robotic unlike than the two. The characters though are some I’d love to see in their own book. A bit of an antagonistic odd couple with a deep friendship that stretches back hundreds of years.
While the first two are “interview” style stories where Noosh is talking with other vampires, the third doesn’t involve her at all. Set in the 1930s I thought this one was interesting, but I did enjoy the first two stories more. This was more a slice-of-life love story where Palmina, a young woman of the time is introduced to the world of the am’r. With the help of Abyssinia (the am’r) she helps save many lives from backstreet abortions.
All three of the stories are well researched, with an immense amount of detail in each. Not being someone who was ever good in history class at school, the whole Haitian occupation was new to me.
Overall, a good set of stories set in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls world. It does help I think that I have listened to the first book so I could pick up a lot of the unique words used, but I think had I not known them it wouldn’t have impacted the story as much can be picked up from context.
There’s plenty to enjoy in these tales of love, conflict, and survival across different eras.