Carole Gill has had her four book series of the Blackstone Vampires released in Omnibus form. Carole has previously sent me complimentary copies of the individual books in exchange for honest reviews and, as a favour, I have agreed to recap the reviews and scores (links go to the full review):
Book 1: The House on Blackstone Moor: The House on Blackstone Moor is very much a book of two halves… the first half of the book is a gothic joy… the story morphs into something akin to Clive Barker in a period costume…. I for one found this gloriously gothic, refreshingly brutal, honestly horrific and a great read…. 7.5 out of 10.
Book 2: Unholy Testament - The Beginnings: …The book itself works well. It perhaps is neither as gothic or horrific as the previous – the former does not take away from the rich prose… Occasionally there are phrase structures that seem incongruous with the time period of the portmanteau but they are only occasional and are mentioned here for balance sake… 7 out of 10
Book 3: Unholy Testament – Full Circle: …However something within the book didn’t gel for me… there is another agenda and this comes to a head at the end of the book but that ending just seemed rushed to me. We had spent so long immersed in Eco’s past that the events in the book’s present seemed to be resolved very quickly and I feel that the final section of the book needs expanding… 6 out of 10
Book 4: The Fourth Bride: …the book itself concentrates on a new character, Dia, a young woman cursed from birth to be the fourth bride of Dracula… The author writes a fantastic victim and this worked so very well in the first book – when the primary character was human. With the primary character being a vampire I was less comfortable with the “female victim”…I would like to see the author write a strong female lead, one who isn’t the victim and doesn’t need rescuing by a man… That criticism aside… this was more rounded as a book than the third volume… 7 out of 10
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