Author: Taggart Rhen
Genre: Adventure, Historical Fiction
Personal Rating: ⭐⭐ / ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (2 out of 5 stars)
DISCLAIMER: I received a free copy of this book from the author for an honest review.
Author’s (Edited) Description
My four novels are a saga dealing with vampires, action-adventure, thrillers, mystery, and horror in varying proportions. The saga is called “Vampires and Spies”.
Overall, the saga theme is this: In a world where vampires see humans as a primitive species, barely aware of their presence, this edgy futuristic fantasy saga explores their uneasy coexistence, and their coming together against the forces of darkness. Vampires and other preternatural beings, spies, exorcists, hackers, mercenaries, archaeologists, cabals, and unusual ancient gods, will welcome you into parallel universes, perilous quests, battles and love stories woven into the fabric of this multi-layered ecosystem, blur the lines between reality and fantasy, and hopefully, take you where no human has dwelt before.
Review
When I read the description of this book, it immediately gave me mixes of Van Helsing, the Da Vinci code, Indiana Jones, and Blade vibes which I all loved so I was excited. To top it all off we have ancient gods and love stories. What’s not to look forward to?
Well, sadly, it did not resonate with me as much as I wished.
Tony, an experienced member of a secret, Christian order that deals with the paranormal is on a mission to investigate the death of his close colleague. He will be joined by two men as the mystery leads him down to discussions of religion, the Jewish community, and climate change. They will encounter different creatures – both good and evil – and the solution to their problems will lead them to do something… big and life-changing.
It was a good start. The premise was intriguing and the beginning established the tone of the upcoming adventure. However, the adventures themselves did not particularly jump to me as exciting. There’s so much exposition of the history – and they were wonderfully written – but I found the chapters on the action lacking intensity. There are about five straight chapters full of long history lessons and character expositions and the action sequences pale in comparison.
On the bright side, there are some interesting characters they meet along the way. Aside from the wives and a certain ‘son’, the other side characters felt like they had personality. Sometimes I even feel like the protagonist just felt like a conduit to the adventure. He’s someone to connect them all, provide the supplies and the connection, someone that starts the narrative; but I felt that a certain vampire had done more action-wise.
I will not deny that this seemed really well-researched. The mix of history, religion, and magic was a really interesting read. However, I felt that the research overpowered everything else. If you’re someone who’s particularly fond of reading historical and religious trivia in your fiction reads then I’d suggest giving this a try.
The Stray Reader 
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