Loederkoningin

Marketing lessons: when choosing a business name, or an author pseudonym for that matter, make sure it's memorable and fits with what you are trying to achieve. Well, Ms. T. Baggins certainly got 1 out of 2 right, didn't she? :D

If I can give my not so humble opinion though, I think it's a bit unfortunate that an author who writes books that demand to be taken seriously, opted for a name that I associate with penis pranks. That, in combination with the 2 hastily thrown together  'fried chicken' style torsos on the cover, made me anything but eager to give Soulless a shot. Luckily there's always the power of GRamazon and gushing friends... so here I am.

Talk about not judging a book by its cover! Soulless is very much a historical vampire story in the tradition of Anne Rice's work. Not that I've read anything else by Rice than Interview with the Vampire (and I did so a long time ago). But I do recall its gloomy atmosphere, sense of impending doom and thick plot. In Soulless too, these elements are present and preserved throughout the story. AND....its vampires are merciless, thirsty creatures who violently kill innocents and greedily drain them of their blood. The RELIEF, FOLKS! The relief after all those Maybelline lipstick abusing weaklings living on a diet of mice.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. For Soulless had me at..*cough*...'castration'. You see, Nicholas Robinson, the lord of the manor Grantley, was trampled by a horse several years ago. The accident has turned the charismatic man into a bitter, divorced and limping eunuch. He hardly leaves his estate anymore.. so this is where the handsome Bancroft Ulwin visits him to make him an offer: not only does he wants Nicholas to sign over Grantley, he tries to seduce him in the process. Almost succeeds too, until he is being outed as a vampire and chased away.

Alas! To save an innocent girl's life, Nicholas is forced into making a deal with the undead creature after all... and finds that Ban wants all of him.

It meant nothing to Ban that the man was a eunuch. Nicholas was a simmering beauty, all the hotter because of his rage and bitterness. Neither illness nor blade nor mischance could erase masculinity.

As if the fact that we have a MC who is also a eunuch isn’t interesting enough, this book is like one of those epic saga’s. In pleasantly formal British, the author takes you on an occultism filled adventure that – although there’s a whopping 280 pages  – hardly loses steam. Even the flashbacks (often a dreadful affair) were manageable. Something else I really appreciated was that the romance wasn’t the only ingredient or spiraled into sappiness. And yet  love is not only an integral part of Soulless, it’s the sole reason for the wheel of time to keep on turning and for throwing Nicholas and Ban together, life after life. So if Ban will be able to control his violent vampire urges...it will ultimately come down to this question: do these two men have a chance when fighting their enemy or will torture and death rip them apart once again?

I did have a few minor issues that I will mention anyway. I felt that there was a little too much chatter-boxing going on between characters at times.. Instead, I would have preferred more fleshed-out MC’s. Taking the grandness of the overall storyline into account, the love scenes should have gotten more attention too. They weren’t intense and descriptive enough for me. I guess I had expected an erotic cocktail of lust, blood, scents, danger and emotions. But I almost forgot there was a vampire involved in the sexing – not good! Finally, poor Martha: that was such an unfortunate spin to her story.

Like I said though, I’m just nitpicking on an otherwise bloody good story that you definitely want to take a closer look at. These vampires may not have fangs, Soulless definitely has bite!

Blog tour and giveaway at The Blog of Sid Love.