Love in Ruins – review

Author: S L Thorne

First Published: 2004

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: “When the main character dies in the first ten pages, where can a story go from there? Primarily: to Hell and back again. But there is a price for returning from The Road, for coming back from the dead. Olivia Claria Severus is a patrician woman in Ancient Italy. She is a senator’s daughter, a senator’s wife, and now, at nineteen, a mother at last. Her troubles begin with her son’s birth and her death mere moments later. She finds herself on The Road to the River Styx to await the Ferryman, but before she even has her fare or sees the ripples in the water heralding the approaching boat, she is ripped back to the world of the living and into her weakened body. It is then that she learns the truth about Aeschylus, her aged playwright: He is a vampire, and now, so is she. Unfortunately, something at the river with power saw her, and covets her for its own, and will do ANYTHING to get her.

”What follows is an unlife in constant flux. Vesuvius erupts, burying her beneath its hot, stony blanket. When Olivia wakes again she is in a museum less than a year from the turning of the second millennium. Surrounded by strange people in a strange time and pursued relentlessly by an unknown presence, she finds herself caught in the midst of a four hundred year old Scottish clan feud, the current epicenter of a bloody triangle. She finds love and comfort in James Alexander MacLeod while being hunted by his rival, Bruce ‘The Butcher’ MacDonald, but is it enough to save her from a creature older than Fair Rome herself who has pursued her for nearly two thousand years?”

The Review: I am always delighted to look at vampiric material and so when Sandra Leigh asked me if I would like to review her book I was more than happy to do so. However, that in itself can be difficult, I am want to be honest in a review and yet would not wish to offend the author should I feel that the book be inconsistent in quality. Balance would mean that I would need to be honest with the blog readers, though I would try to give constructive criticism, of course…

I do not have such worries, however, with Love in Ruins as it proved to be an excellent and worthwhile read. From the title and the cover one would be forgiven for thinking this was one of the innumerate vampire romances that plague vampire literature at the moment. Whilst it has a romantic element this is a well thought out adventure that is steeped in classical mythology, mainly Roman and Celtic, as well as vampiric lore.

As for the cover, to be fair Leigh warned me about it and is less than pleased with it herself!

The book begins at Pompeii and follows the bleeding to death, during childbirth, of Olivia and her subsequent turning into a vampire. What I thought was marvellous was the fact that we followed Olivia on the road to the Styx and back and became subsumed within Roman life and mythology. When Vesuvius erupts, and Olivia is buried for two millennia in a dowry chest she had hid in to escape the volcano’s fury, I felt a little sad as I thought I would miss the rich Roman setting that Leigh drew around the reader.

My fears were misplaced, firstly because Olivia holds true to her Roman self in the modern America she finds herself in and also because the subsequent story is as rich and even more varied.

The vampire lore moves from standard to original. Sunlight destroys vampires, as does beheading. Stakes through the heart, however, do not destroy but paralyse the vampire – a device used in the Masquerade role-playing material and subsequently used in other sources as well. At sunrise most vampires die, though for reasons unknown Olivia simply sleeps. She also unconsciously breathes (most vampires do not) and is active during a large proportion of the daylight hours.

The vampires also have a range of powers, depending on the vampire; Olivia’s tending to be empathic in nature. Turning relies on draining the individual and feeding them vampiric blood. Digesting vampire blood gives the donating vampire some level of control and dominance over the individual - be they mortal or undead themselves.

We get a full range of mythology, as I mentioned, and some truly interesting characters. Critically, some of the accented dialogue was a little heavy to get through – but that is being hyper-critical. Another criticism might come in that, to a degree, the main story arc perhaps meanders - seeming to climax and then continuing. However, one must also recognise that the characters are a joy and these story climaxes are red herrings, almost, until Leigh finally reveals the conspiracy and duplicity that has manipulated Olivia's story and the main arc is neatly drawn together and concluded.

The main criticism, however, has to be one laid at the industry’s door rather than the author's. This is not a short book and suffers, therefore, for being in e-book format – many readers will balk at 589 pages via the screen and it is a lot to print in A4 format. I am aware that Leigh is looking to find a publisher willing to carry the book in paper format and that is the format the book truly deserves to be in.

Be that as it may, we are looking at the book in terms of content and not format. Content wise I can do little else but recommend this to you. 7 out of 10 for a book that uses a mythological base beautifully and builds a world around us we would love to know more about.



In Paperback @ Amazon US

In Paperback @ Amazon UK