Synopsis: Police procedurals go supernatural in this gritty urban fantasy debut
Alex Menkaure, former pharaoh and mummy, and his vampire partner, Marcus, who was born in ancient Rome, once hunted evil vampires for UMBRA, a super-secret unit of the NSA. That was before the discovery of a blood substitute and a Supreme Court ruling allowed thousands of vampires to integrate into society.
Now, Alex and Marcus are vice cops in a special police unit. They fight to keep the streets safe from criminal vampires, shape-shifters, blood-dealers, and anti-vampire vigilantes.
When someone starts poisoning the artificial blood, race relations between vampires and humans deteriorate to the brink of anarchy. While the city threatens to tear itself apart, Alex and Marcus must form an unnatural alliance with a vigilante gang and a shape-shifter woman in a desperate battle against an ancient vampire conspiracy.
If they succeed, they’ll be pariahs, hunted by everyone. If they fail, the result will be a race-war bloodierthan any the world has ever seen.
Review: I am always attracted to urban fantasy novels and as soon as I saw this one I confess that I was very intrigued. How not to be with such a cocktail? I was excited by the idea of mixing everything with Egypt.
In this story, we mainly follow Alex Menkaure, a character full of complexity. It was nice to learn more about him, to see how much he had changed in his lifetime. Alex is part of a special police unit that deals with renegade vampires. A vampire problem? It’s up to Alex and Marcus to handle that! But here, someone seems to contaminate the blood of the vampires and it is necessary for our heroes to discover very soon what happens.
It was a pretty nice story to discover but I confess that I had a hard time really getting into it. It must be said that I always have a lot of trouble as soon as we find several characters and I did not see how everything was going to regroup. There are many things happening in parallel, several characters, a lot of complexity and at the same time I would have liked a little more development for each of them.
It was an interesting and very rich reading but I think it was a little different from what I was expecting. I think it will be very interesting to read and learn more about all the characters!
Ailsa
I’ve never heard of this book, but it sounds really cool! I think I’ll look for some more reviews though, since you didn’t love it, and see what other people think of it before I commit to buying it.
-Ailsa
Melliane
It was quite interesting
blodeuedd
Maybe not for me this time
Melliane
sorry
Sophia Rose
Too bad it got too complicated. I do love the idea of a paranormal police force.
Melliane
me too
Nadene @Totally Addicted to Reading
Interesting concept. Sorry it did not go the way you expected.
Melliane
thanks
Kim @ Book Swoon
I confess, as soon as I saw Egypt and vampires, I was immediately curious! It sounds like it was a bit confusing but overall fun. Did it have any ties to their ancient history or just a modern urban fantasy mystery?
Melliane
some ties yes and it seems that it will be developped later
Mary Kirkland
The premise of this book sounds really interesting. Too bad it wasn’t as good as you’d hoped it would be.
Melliane
yeah
Geybie's Book Blog
Sorry you didn’t enjoy. Awesome, review! My recent urban fantasy read I read is The Others series, I enjoyed it so much. I’m planning to read the rest books in that series.
Melliane
Oh great, I love this series so much!
Heidi
I am sure you have found like I have reading UF that sometimes it takes a couple of books for the series to really get going, maybe the next book will be better.
Melliane
maybe so
Jenea
This is a new book to me, but it does sounds pretty good.
Jenea’s Book Obsession
Carole Rae
It’s been a while since I’ve read UF.
Greg
This definitely sounds like an interesting urban fantasy premise, sorry it didn’t quite connect better. Hopefully it improves as it goes. I need to read more urban fantasy.
Melliane
I love this genre
Carole @ Carole's Random Life in Books
This sounds like it has a really good premise. Sorry you had a tough time getting into the story.
Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum
I just finished this. I wish we had gotten more character development and backstory on Alex, but all in all I think this was a pretty good beginning. I’ll be curious to read more for sure, hopefully it’ll be a series 🙂
Melliane
I would be curious as well
Joy // Joyousreads
It sounds very disorganized, to be honest. I can see why you would have a hard time following along. That’s too bad because I like everything about Egypt as well.
Melliane
yes!
herding cats & burning soup
A neat setting! Darn on it having a rough start for ya.
Angie @ Ba_BAMB
I have this one on my to be read pile, and I can’t wait to get to it.
Nice review.
Melliane
I hope you’ll like it
Melissa (My World...in words and pages)
I read your interview with the author and this does sound like a good solid read. Thanks for sharing about it!
Melanie Simmons
As you know, I’m a huge fan of UF. I love the idea of Egypt (especially if there are mentions of Ancient Egyptian Mythology). I do love vampires. I’ll have to keep this one in mind. Great review.