Author: Aisling Wilder
First Published: 2020
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Ancient vampire Rue keeps to herself. It makes it easier to fight the constant hunger that plagues her. That is, until the night she catches Grace-a not very good vampire hunter-stalking her through the streets of Dublin. Something about Grace is achingly familiar. And strangely irresistible.
Rue soon learns that Grace is herself being hunted, and is thrown into a battle she never wanted, to save a woman who wants her dead. As Rue unravels the horrifying and treacherous plot, she also uncovers a secret about Grace that could change everything. Along the way, Rue finds herself drawn to the girl, and is forced to choose: Continue her solitary life of safety, or risk it all for love?
Through it all, Rue recalls her creation and formative nights in an ancient world far from the rainy streets of Dublin, a world where she learned to live, love, hunt and kill.
The review: This book by Aisling Wilder is a book of two halves, intertwined together, with one chapter set in modern Dublin followed by one in ancient Ur and then Babylon. Rue, the vampire, was Asharru, a temple priestess in Ur who is chosen by Lilitu (whose name, of course, is thought to have been linked to the later Lilith figure) and turned when the city is sacked. The book then follows her development as a vampire in ancient times and, through this thread, we discover the source of vampirism in this mythology, which is similar to that employed by Anne Rice in the Vampire Chronicles, though the story is unique to this volume and the vampires quite different to that older series.
In the modern day we follow Rue as she becomes entwined with Grace. Though primarily a story of vampires, demons and Nephilim in this volume, we do get an interaction with the fae and, through them, another form of vampirism in the shape of the drinking of dreams. We discover that whilst the more advanced fae can control their feeding, more primitive fae, like sprites, will go too far, drinking a person’s dreams dry and leaving them an “aimless shell”.
The setting of modern Dublin is well realised and gives an evocative setting – we also travel into the dimension the fae inhabit, with realities layered on top of each other. The modern story thread is urban fantasy in style and works nicely, contrasting well with the ancient thread. The characters are nicely drawn, with Rue shown as a vampire trying to eschew feeding on people and struggling with the bagged diet (when we meet her in modern days she has awakened after a black out period that saw her pouring her blood stock literally down the drain). Vampire blood is addictive and will make the mortal drinker slavishly devoted to the vampire, turning is much more involved than simply blood exchange and I liked the idea that damage to the individual whilst mortal will impact the turn – for instance a wound may spend eternity opening, healing and opening again, and mental health damage might cause the turned vampire to lose their mind. We also get information on Nephilim blood, that will allow a vampire to daywalk temporarily, causes much quicker healing but is addictive for the vampire. Blood generally will heal the vampire though more slowly than angelic blood, and the vampire can be damaged quite badly (a substantial fall is going to break bones, for instance), but the vampire cannot heal during daylight hours no matter the amount of blood they imbibe. So, despite her great age, Rue can be vulnerable to danger.
I enjoyed this – it was a well envisioned story, the past and present mapping well together not only in tone and plot reveal but in story impact, but mostly because Rue was a great character, not perfect, she had issues but was rounded well and came across all the better for that. 7.5 out of 10.
In Paperback @ Amazon US
In Paperback @ Amazon UK
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