Synopsis
A novel of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the stunning debut epic fantasy by Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings
For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.
Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.
There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.
Review
Grabbed this on Audible on my quest to read through everyone involved with FanFiAddict’s The Book of Spores. The narration by Shakira Shute was solid, and I think she was a great fit for Sam.
A mysterious group called The Grays appeared, and in one night, the status quo had changed. No longer allowed free rein of the world, the vampires have been pushed back to First Light, the last remaining vampire city. And while there is safety in numbers, the relative confinement has let corruption and deceit run rampant. The poor get poorer, drinking only the weakest of blood, making them little more than human. The rich dine on expensive animal bloods, hosting parties and living lavishly, as if their support staff aren’t literally dying. And while all this is bubbling, the city’s ruler finds out his estranged son has been murdered, sending their world into further chaos. Sam, a maid, has an eye for books and is desperate for more. What will happen when their worlds collide?
I know this book is, of course, marketed with trending comps like Empire of the Vampire and The Justice of Kings (neither of which I’ve read yet), but to me, this felt like a partial Agatha Christie novel stumbled on over into an Anne Rice novel. There’s also intrigue on the scale of Game of Thrones, and there’s an eternal cast like the Underworld movie series. The city itself and bleak world had me picturing the likes of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, but with perhaps a more wolf-like take on the werewolf. And while there is a power struggle, this is not a shoot ’em up story.
So how does it stack up? The characters are strong, and feature vampires, werewolves, and sorcerers as the main cast. Much of this focuses on the mystery or intrigue with characters holding multiple full-length discussions that held my attention as much as they moved the plot along. As this is a novel without mortals, meaning ZERO humans, it was interesting to see how they were similar, but especially the little nods of how they were different. I hope in the sequels we get more explanation because I am so on the hook for how they all exist! Aren’t vampires and werewolves turned humans? Or is there something we’ve never seen before at play?
While there is a climactic finish, the story is definitely more of a slow burn. I think the world gets pretty well fleshed out, with even a commentary on capitalism—and/or classism, depending on how you view it—and I found it really unique how the author delivered on it in his world. Vampire servants on the cheapest blood still age over time, not only establishing that the “lowly” can’t live forever but also physically showing their differences. Almost like a group of vampires without access to universal “vampire” rights and healthcare. I mean, there’s even an in-world commentary on fixed markets and the greedy gambling on them, with the sale of sample flutes of new blood being offered before they go public. While the author does well to not make all this so over the top that you can’t enjoy the book without reading into these things, for me, this added so much nuance and depth. It actually felt like there was a functioning city underneath the story.
Wildly unique, this one takes so many pieces of things I love and makes them entirely new. For fans of vampires, werewolves, magic, and intrigue.
Leave a Reply