Review

Please be aware that Empire of the Damned is Book #2 in Empire of the Vampire series, so this review contains a few *spoilers* for Book #1 Empire of the Vampire.

Stop now if that’s a problem!

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Captured by vampires, former silversaint Gabriel de León continues to tell vampire historian Jean-François how he found the grail — 17 year old Dior Lachance, whose blood can heal the mortally wounded and kill immortal vampires — but then lost her. The grail is broken, and with it, the chance to end daysdeath, the mysterious veiling of the sun that has allowed vampires to dominate humanity.

This time, Jean-François also has another source: Celene, Gabriel’s baby sister, now a powerful vampire who, like Gabriel, is determined to protect Dior and find a way to end daysdeath.

Between them, Gabriel and Celene, in between fighting and viciously insulting one another, tell the story of Dior’s perilous journey into the dread vampire court of the Untamed, and their desperate efforts to rescue her.

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I enjoyed the first instalment so much that I embarked on the second one (31 hour audiobook! 672 page book!). Book 2 is also excellent with enjoyable humorous moments, well written action, an intricate world and a really great ending that sets up Book 3. This really is a terrific fantasy series.

A couple of fun quotes that show the humour in the novel:

‘You said after you fell in the battle of Cairnh —’

‘After Celene DROPPED me.’

‘After you and gravity … had your little chat…’

‘… What the f— are you doing?’

‘Oh, quick round of ales and whore afore church. What d’ye think I’m doin’?’

‘The White Rabbit,’ Phoebe murmured, looking over the taverne’s sign.

‘The ragout’s excellent. Whatever you do, do NOT order the Potato Surprise.’

‘Any particular reason?’

‘The surprise is dysentery.’

(The capitalised words are italicised in the original. And yes, tavern is spelt “taverne” with an e, French-style.)

I would also say, though, that the sequel is noticeably darker than the first instalment, mainly due to the dark violence and human cattle of the vampire court, which is full of nasty characters. You also have to get through a sort of third person prologue-ish section called ‘Dawn’, which was less interesting to me: having just finished the first book, I just wanted to hear the rest of the main story. In retrospect, however, that section does set up some characters that are important later on.

I part-read, part-listened to this book. I enjoyed Gabiel’s audiobook narrator — same guy as Book 1 — but did not enjoy Celene’s, so I ended up just reading her sections.

Year 10 & up – definitely not one for the juniors. Not YA.

> Click here for content info — spoilers, enter at own risk!

Lots of dark fantasy violence, including battle violence, injury and death, as well as casual loss of life due to vampiric blood drinking; enslavement; lots of swears (f-words, s-words, some c-words, other vulgarities), mostly used in a humorous manner; some sexual content, sometimes dark: some detail, a picture is created, but terms used are mostly euphemistic; vaguely implied sexual assault (back story – not shown); threatening sexual situations (mostly resolve safely, but not always – not shown though). Main romance is mlw; minor romances are mlw, mlm & wlw.

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Kristoff, J. (2024). Empire of the damned. HarperVoyager.

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