Review: A Vampire Novel I've Been Waiting For!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 15, 2013
I can't really explain what intrigues me about the vampire genre in film, TV, and fiction.  But, I've been a fan since the Lost Boys days when the Coreys (Haim and Feldman) were stealing our hearts in 80's movies.  When I discovered Anne Rice, I devoured her Vampire Chronicles series book after book, often finding myself happily afraid to sleep with the lights off in my undergrad dorm room.  Since then, I've taken the dive into the Sookie Stackhouse novels, as well as the Twilight series.  Those sated my vampire palate, but many things about these novels were more annoying than enjoyable.  Then, I discovered Vampire Elite.Irina Argo introduces readers to adult immortals with adult problems.  Her vampire world is constructed with an Egyptian creation story involving Ra and his Old Lady Hathor (she's very Ancient Gemma Teller) with the spawning of two undying creatures: the Sekhmet and the Amiti.  Sekhmet are what we would associate with vampires.  They are bloody thirsty, and hard up for that good red stuff.  To help balance their power, Hathor creates the Amiti to attract the Sekhmet, form a blood-bond, and defuse all those "let's kill humans for food" desires.  What she doesn't count own is the Sekhmet figuring out the downside of this arrangement, and the awesomeness of Amiti blood.Fast forward to modern times, when Amiti leadership depose of the reigning Queen Istara to make way for a monarch who is more open to their "kill all vampires" philosophy.  It also doesn't help that the queen's hubby is a Sekhmet.  She's forced to mate with another Amiti, Marcus, and conceive a daughter to take her place.  You can imagine that this forges a very cold relationship between the queen and her baby girl.  Istara curses the rug rat who will be Queen, to have a hard knock life.  When the child, Arianna, finally becomes an adult, her mother's curse comes to fruition.  She becomes a pawn in a very selfish, complicated game at the hands of Tor (A.K.A. Istara's vampire boo), her half-sister Simone, some cray cray Sekhmets, and a host of other immortals including her peeps, the Amiti.I loved this book from beginning to end.  I like how Ms. Argo weaves in other immortal creatures into the story, like winged demons and werejaguars (Grrr, baybay, grrrr), to make a very diverse creature world.  There's no sappy romances or plot inconsistencies.  I also liked how the story point of view switched from character to character, and new players were added in well into the story.  Once you get started, you'll be hooked until the very last page.  This author is on my radar.  Bleep. Bleep.