Customer Reviews

Sanguisuga

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found the book intriguing and mesmerizing. It's not your typical vampire book and that should be celebrated. You are made to feel as if you're in the book with the characters as you read their journey. I can't wait for more books from this author, write fast please!

Sincerely,
A fan for life

If you have read any of the Anne Rice books, you know they were different. However Sanguisuga is remarkable in so many ways. Kind of a myth buster. "Sorry boy the cross ain't going to help you." not a quote from the book but mearly a touch of what you may not expect. It is also a love story, a coming of age story. With twists and turns, I didn't want the book to end. I am a slow reader and I finished it in less than 3 days. If you enjoy Vampires try this book you won't regret it.

Rob Walkan: got this as a gift from the person who's account this is.

That's what I said! Interview with the Vampire? Forget it, Sanguisuga is the book that Interview "should" have been. the main character Doran Payne could eat Lestat for breakfast. Christi-Anne has pulled off an amazing feat with this novel:
She truly has written one of, if not the best gothic vampire novel since the master himself, Bram Stoker.

And why shouldn't a vampire love? In a genre that is so over run with the same old story told over and over again, Christi-Anne breathes new life into it. Think Legends of the Fall meets Interview with the Vampire. The is the closest comparison I can make. Such an amazing, epic adventure of one vampire coming to terms with just who and what he is. All the while find what he desires the most: true love.

All I can say is this: Buy this book! Christi-Anne is sure to be the next big thing well in any genre. Her words just flow off of the pages and into your heart.

B.P.

Full disclosure. I am completely burned out on the vampire mythos. When I was young I used to love hearing about Dracula, and listening to my parents talk about the Bela Lugosi movies, and in my teen years I laughed out loud through most of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the movie, not the series) and Little Monsters, and somewhere in between that I got hooked on, and was upset by the cancellation of, the updated version of Dark Shadows.

But at some point, I just got sick of the whole thing. I didn't want to hear about vampires, see vampire movies, or read vampire books. I think I actually rolled my eyes and groaned when I first saw the Van Helsing movie trailer, much to the chagrin of the people sitting in front of me. I think my disinterest began with what I believe to be the unfair praise heaped upon the incredibly dull movie (sorry, but that's how I feel) Interview With A Vampire, but it's safe to say that it was the Mel Brooks stinker Dracula Dead & Loving It that, forgive the metaphor, drove the final nail into the coffin with a sledgehammer. Oy that movie was bad. People say Robin Hood Men In Tights was bad, but those are people who haven't seen Dead & Loving it yet.

Anyway, with the exception of the Blade movie (which i considered to be Comic Book movies as opposed to Vampire movies), I was just done with it. "Another vampire movie on HBO? Fine, where's my Gilmore Girls DVD?" I imagine you're wondering where I'm going with this.

My point, and I do have one folks, is that I really, REALLY liked this vampire story. The tale of how I came to purchase it is a long, boring, and very nerdy one, so I'll just skip to the good stuff; what I liked about it. It wasn't so horribly cliched. Yes, some of the vampire story standards were in here, and yes I did cringe a tad when I got to them (the no-reflection thing; what is that about?), but overall it didn't feel like just another vampire story. Also good is the utter lack of romanticism of the vampire lifestyle. The author here in no way tries to make it look like being a vampire would be the coolest thing next to being in the entourage of some undeserving teenaged celebrity. Repeatedly throughout the tale more than one vampire regrets becoming or having wanted to become a "sanguisuga." The use of song lyrics (particularly those of Sarah McLachlan) is another plus, as is the occasional dark humor, and even the fact that this book, unlike most vampire tales told in the last 50 years isn't Americentric. The book's Canadian sensibilities adds to it's charm. Finally, kudos to the author for avoiding a sappy ending. Yes, the ending (which I will not spoil) is sad, but it doesn't feel like sad for sadness sake. It seems natural that the story had to end this way (of course, I felt the same way about Matrix Revolutions, so take this with a grain of salt).

Now, in the interest of fairness, I should say there were things about this book I didn't like, and I'll include them now so as to provide a well rounded review. I'll set aside minor complaints about spelling errors, since this is a first edition coming from a small publishing company, and if even a giant like Random House or Simon & Schuster can let one slip, let's not judge this too harshly.

Something I can and will judge harshly however is the overuse of the word preternatural. Yes, it was used in a proper context, something that I don't recall ever seeing in an American-made novel where the word has turned up, but in all honesty, by page 75 I actually rolled my eyes every time I saw that word. And it showed up quite a bit in this 463 page tome. Another complaint I had was the occasionally abrupt shift in narrative, especially in the second half where at least twice I can recall of the top of my head occasions where I would actually get lost and say something like, "wait, weren't we just in the crypt? How'd we get to the car?" Another problem with the second half and it's use of the 3rd person narrative (where the first half had been mostly 1st person), was that the climax was dampened considerably because several of the characters who were to take part in it were described as being alive after it, even though it hadn't happened yet. Confused? I don't blame you, I had a hard time thinking of a good way to explain it. Let me put it this way; imagine a movie where the first scene is the main character getting killed, and the remainder of the film is told in flashback. Half way through the picture, the lead character is in peril. Normally, this is supposed to be a tense moment in a story, but since you already know that a character is going to live at least another 45 minutes in real time, what's the point? I hope that helps. Lastly, maybe I just missed it early on in the book, but the vampiric ability to mess with locking mechanisms with their minds seemed to just come out of nowhere. Granted, having fallen out with the vampire mythos some time ago perhaps this is a standard of all vampire tales dating back to Bram Stoker's and I simply forgot, but here it just seemed like the author, who I actually sort of know and hope she's not offended by this, wrote herself into a corner and needed a deus ex machina to get out of it. These problems, plus the use of the "open ending," which in the case of this book was the use of the kitchy "The End... Or Is It?" closing, are what's keeping me from giving this book the full 5 stars.

Still, in spite of all that I would gladly recommend this book to anyone who is into, or just starting to get into the vampire mythos. Anyone who doesn't care for vampire stories though, well, unless you're friends with the author you probably should just stay away.