Journal Entry 1 by LeishaCamden from Alna bydel, Oslo fylke Norway on Monday, October 01, 2007

DIFFERENT COVER!!

From the front cover:

'Yarbro's recreation of Rome makes a spooky backdrop for this tale of corruption, injustice, and brutality.'
-Publishers Weekly'

From the back cover:

'The Roman noblewoman Atta Olivia Clemens appears to have her heart's desire – an adoring and politically influential husband whose wealth can purchase anything or anyone. Behind this enviable facade lies a hideous world of degradation, madness, and death.

Isolated from all she loves, Olivia's one hope is the mysterious foreigner Sanct' Germain. Will he be her salvation ... or her ultimate damnation?

Blood Games'

This is a paperback copy from Tor Books, published in 1989. The book was originally published in 1980.

This is the third novel in Yarbro's vampire series. Standalone, as far as I know, although of course Olivia appears in some of the other novels as well. I have read the first two books in this series, they're enjoyable and pretty well written, although not perhaps the masterworks some acclaim them as ... but I did enjoy them. :-) So I will definitely be reading this sooner or later ;-) and have a vague plan to get through the whole series at some point. Update will follow (but don't hold your breath ;-).

I bought this book online ... from some bookstore or other, probably in the US, through abebooks.com, in September, 2000. 

Journal Entry 2 by LeishaCamden from Alna bydel, Oslo fylke Norway on Tuesday, June 16, 2009

I've read this book now, started it in May, finished it in June.

It was an OK read, pretty good, but quite a slow one too for me. Not sure why ... the book is well written and the plot is quite interesting. Good characters and a very well researched setting - at least so it seems to me from what little I know about ancient Rome of that period. Nero and so on. :-) There are lots of detail and it seemed very convincing. Perhaps my favorite part of the book was the setting.

It's definitely a standalone novel, no problem reading it without having read anything else in this series.

Again, not sure why it took me so long to get through this book. It's been the same with all the books I've read by this author (this was the third). Her books are very dense, lots of details and various plotlines. And these TOR editions have quite a small font and dense type. They're pretty good books, but they don't really hook me.

Yarbro's vampires aren't very original, but still, pretty well thought out. There's very little blood and gore in these books. A pretty good read, but not very special.

This book will now become part of my Permanent Collection. At least for now. We'll see. :-)