'A Light of Little Radiance', by Beverley Lee & Keith Anthony Baird
Selina Dragavei wanders the northern wastes in fear of persecution from the Holy Roman Church. In Europe's Dark Age, witchfinders scour the lands and traveller folk such as she are put to flame and suffering. On the ruthless steppes, she evades them but something far sinister will lay claim to her soul.
Returning to the world of men, a dark, transformed Selina has a thirst for blood and only the drift down through the centuries will quench it. But she won't make that journey alone, as she determines to bring others to her. As a troupe of entertainers, they attend pageants, festivals, and even royal galas, where a family bound to darkness feed on unsuspecting mortals. Such debauchery, however, does not go unnoticed. Famed witchfinder, Desider von Brandenburg, becomes obsessed with bringing this band of vampire-devils to a righteous cleansing, and so a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.
Will the holy man bring God's wrath down upon them, or will Selina and her nightwalkers battle the might of Heaven and emerge unscathed? Only instinct, cunning, and a little luck under the watch of a wolf moon will tell...
Akin to a European Middle-Age ‘Near Dark’, this book follows vampire Selina and her little family of jongleurs travelling their show across Europe. The authors have clearly done their research and the atmosphere is top-notch, conveying the sense of plague-ridden townships where physical monsters are just another part of life. Everyone’s trying to survive, and some have it down to an art as they draw in their prey.
These vampires are a varied bunch, with every character clearly drawn, be they parents or children - the latter as endearing and fallible as any young animal with poor impulse-control. We’re never allowed to forget that human-looking though they are, these are predators, and the sense of the Hunt is primary throughout the book.
As such, the pace never flags. From Selina’s first creation to the forming of her ‘pack’, then on to their frantic race to find safety against determined hunters… Some chapters are literal cliff-hangers, and I genuinely cared for the well-being of these killers because the agents of God chasing them seemed so much worse.
This book is both a solid adventure in its own right as well as what seems like a slice of a larger tale. The world-building is so solid that I felt as if I’d stepped in at the beginning of just one person’s perspective, and there could be even more going on across this vicious dark landscape.
Moody, engaging and gorgeously written, I enjoyed my time within these pages and hope that the authors continue more in this haunting world.