The Nocturne Chronicles (Book One): A Vampire Novel The Nocturne Chronicles (Book One): A Vampire Novel
Paranormal Romance/Vampires
Independently published
March 19, 2021
316
They are no longer human. But now they have to fight to save their humanity.Two hundred years ago the Great Vampire War between the Nation and the Lair brought the realm of the undead to the brink of extinction – a struggle between order and chaos, from which the Nation emerged victorious and all-powerful, to reform the vampire world forever. But now the Lair has returned, sworn to bring back the old ways of killing and hunting. Adeimantos – a 2,000-year-old vampire – finds himself in the middle of a struggle for the future of his kind and the life of his beloved fledgling, while dark secrets threaten to destroy his world.From the days of ancient Athens, where a horrible crime brought Adeimantos to the realm of the undead, to medieval Romania and modern-day London, the first instalment of the Nocturnes Chronicles tells an immortal tale of love and horror.
Reviewed by Xanthe
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
The Nocturne Chronicles follows the journey of Alexander, as we flit between his past and present, his few years as a mortal then the thousands he has lived as a vampire. We learn about the relationships that are important to him, the periods of time that he’s lived through and the enemy that he and the rest of his kind that live under the Nation’s rule are up against. The Lair believe that they should be able to live in their natural way, hunting and killing humans, not having to hide, which goes against the Accord that the Nation put in place about 500 years ago.
We are reading this story from Alexander’s POV and it’s introduced as we are reading his journal. The timeline jumps around a little bit but in a methodical way that slowly introduces the reader to, first, the main group of characters that this story focuses on and then on how things came to be in the present day. It’s a very interesting premise and different to any other vampire stories that I have read, having the vampire population basically split into two and a war brewing between them, again, as they have differing opinions on how they should be living.
This is only the first book of the series and already I feel like I’ve taken part in a marathon read. For me, the story moves at a different place, depending on what time period you’re reading. The past was more reminiscent, time taken to take in all of the scenery and ambience as well as the events but in the modern years it deals with the plot of the Lair and ongoing battle that they have with them. It develops into a really good suspenseful story with secrets, betrayals, found family and trust building up the plot with a good starting place for book two. The writing sets each scene beautifully with attention to detail on everything, the emotional struggles that Alexander experiences is really easy to sense and, though I would not call this a horror, it can occasionally get a little bit dark.
There’s a good array of characters within the story. Alexander is our main MC and is over two thousand years old, having lived through many time periods and watched people live and die. His one constant is Cassandra, the vampire who found and introduced him to their world after he’d been left by the one who created him. Bartholomew is a bit like an annoying younger brother that you always argue with but love and would do anything for. Then there is Iancu, from when they first meet in the dead of night, both men feel a connection but the journey they share has a great deal of pain.
Not something that I would have picked up myself but I’m glad that I was offered the chance to read and review this one. A great, entertaining story that has been very well written and I’m very interested to see how everything moves forward in book two. There is a relationship here between Alexander and Iancu but it doesn’t even rate a one on the heat scale in this book.