Dark and terrible secrets may be found lurking within the cities of the Old World and the savage wilderness that surrounds them. Genevieve Dieudonne, vampire heroine of Drachenfels, battles to outwit adversaries both magical and mundane, human and beast, in this series of three linked novellas: Stage Blood, The Cold Stark House and Unicorn Ivory.
This is the second book/collection of novellas in the Vampire Genevieve series- the series contains 4 books, 2 of which are collections of novellas so I’m half way through the series and I’m loving it! Genevieve Undead, please accept your 5 star rating from me.
I’m really enjoying this series, no matter how hard it is for me to imagine the Warhammer world before ‘the end of days’! The idea of a Warhammer world with a theatre and country piles is just mind boggling to me…I play with a Nighthaunt army so when I think of a Warhammer world, I usually think of graveyards or ruins. It was really nice getting reading historical fiction for a fictional world that I play in. What a strange sentence to write!
It’s only fair to review each novella individually, so here we go:
Stage Blood took place in the theatre with a mysterious being in the theatre and a mask that possessed people. That may seem strange but it worked so well as it all took place alongside the production of a controversial play. This novella was full of the drama of the stage but with the additional issue of some unknowns that may or may not be up to no good
This book also touched upon how it feels to be in your thirties and feel replaced by the young ingenue, I’m in my mid thirties and found that totally relatable…I did not expect that from a Warhammer book!
The Cold Stark House picked up where the last novella ended and takes place in a creepy Manor House in a creepy forest. I am a huge sucker for a creepy Manor House AND a creepy forest so this story was my favourite of the three. This story revolved around a wealthy family arguing over inheritance but there was a twist that completely changed the story. Genevieve was more of a supporting character in this book and there were so many characters but it was relatively easy to keep track of who was who…even if they didn’t know how they were related to each other. This story featured a lot of hilarity at the expense of ridiculous wealthy people and I enjoyed it thoroughly
Unicorn Blood took place in another Manor House, not so creepy this time, but still had creepy undertones and a forest. There were also unicorns in this story.
This story felt like it had oodles of character development despite being so short in length.
I found myself hoping for Genevieve to go full red mist vampire because the majority of the characters in this novella were awful! It worked so well because they were horrible, if they were pleasant then it would have been a really different story and I’m not sure if I’d have loved it quite as much.
I’m so excited to read the rest of this series, my boyfriend has the omnibus collection but I may also nip into my local Warhammer shop to pick up the next book and novella collection because I love an excuse to buy more books!
Kapowski Reads 