Well done Vampire cozy.

I love vampire stories, especially when they offer a different spin. This one is set in London and Cambridge shortly after the end of WWI, and the setting and era are quintesentially British. It's also an era we don't often see outside of a "cozy." (Think Downton Abbey.)

This, however, is a monster cozy, if I can coin a phrase. All the drawing room, stiff upper lippi-ness one expects from a British mystery, only the mystery is about vampires. Our hero is a world weary vamp who's fallen in love with a human woman, and this results in a tangle involving her family, and his family of monsters. What's clever is that the characters are dignified and properly attired while their world unravels. Of course, this doesn't prevent them from serving tea, or even brandy, if the day has been very, very trying.

And there is a complex villain who gave me the willies. I loved it!

Freda Warrington has created a cool mythology that is very different from what we're used to. Oh, the fanged ones still drink blood, but they also exist part-time in a parallel reality, (the description of which is amazing).

Jane Copland did a great job bringing everyone to life, and she's an important reason I'm continuing on with the series. She sets the perfect tone.

Note: This is not a book I listened to from cover to cover. I found I had to be in the mood for it. But when I was in the mood, it was awesome.

4 people found this helpful

Good story, just not for me

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Sure

Would you ever listen to anything by Freda Warrington again?

maybe

What does Jane Copland bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

great accents

Do you think A Taste of Blood Wine needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

yes

Any additional comments?

I don't like women of historic books, what is considered strength in these books is laughably weak of a modern women and i just don't care for it. There were too many "grey" characters in this book. Your main characters with both tortured, indifferent, and superior, which often just resulted in annoyingly "grey" characters. Every action required contemplation, yet no effort was made to change the behavior due them being superior.

2 people found this helpful

Set in the past, still dated

If I had read this when it was first published in 1992, I might have liked it a bit more, but it's just not nearly as engaging as later takes on vampires. Worse than that, the setting is strange - story is set post WWI, but reads like a Victorian. I kept being surprised by cars and telephones because it seems much more 19th century than 20th. And MUCH worse than that is that the characters are awful. Some of the secondary characters are interesting, but not much developed. The two protagonists are so passive, oblivious, angsty, and irritating that I started to root against them. And to put a sad cap on the whole thing, the vampire romance just happens (no build up or explanation) and isn't very romantic.

Jane Copland provides a really nice performance which got me through this thing, but nothing could save the fact that this is a long, slow, slog through dark and brooding boredom.

1 person found this helpful

Melodramatic Twilight Imitation 20 Years Before It

The standard Beauty and the Beast but vampire troupe made 20 years before Twilight came out.
The problem is, just because it does probably deserve a revisit with modern eyes (after all the niche has proven to be extremely popular) it's just that, but in Edwardian and 20s Europe.

The story features a cartoonishly cardboard villain and a very predictable story, like 50 Shades of Gray and Twilight the main female character is a wall flower that has hidden ambitions and wishes but was too afraid to pursuit her wants (compared to the bratty cartoonishly obnoxious sis

What am I doing? YOU KNOW this story already, all the beat of it, you've see or read 1 version or another of it already.
Im not even going to finish this review.
It's not worth it.

1 person found this helpful