Ok, I did not finish this sampler but that’s because what I read was brilliant and I now want to wait until I have the entire book in my grabby little squirrel paws. So far, this is strong, intense and grimdark with vampires. What’s not to love? Can’t wait to read the whole book.

I was kindly sent an eARC sampler of ‘Empire of the Vampire’ by Jay Kristoff through Netgalley for an honest review.

This sampler was such a tease, the first 300 pages were filled with pain, despair and a charmingly sadist character. So a 100% Kristoff novel which has you immediately sucked in. *excuse the pun*. Jay Kristoff has created a rich and haunting world filled darkness, danger and hopelessness.

The characters in this book are so well presented, the author has a way of creating likeable, real-life characters in few words. I thoroughly enjoyed how the story is told, through the perspective of the main protagonist telling tales of his adventures to his vampire jailer. You would think that you would stagger through the pages as you are placed in one timeline and then the next but, Kristoff has made it so you can waltz through with the moral high ground of coming back to the present time.

This book is filled with bloodshed, vengeance and dripping with plot, it had me on the edge of my seat, biting at my fingernails with anticipation. This book should come with a health warning as my heart was in serious danger of combusting.

Despite only reading 300 pages, I already feel invested and feel hooks digging in deep with this book. Based on what I have read, I’m rating this book 5/5 as I know it will be legendary!

This was fabulous!! In my opinion, the best Jay Kristoff so far. Normally I find his work a bit hit or miss, but this- this was perfect- and a lovely long extended chunk which left me craving more immediately! If it continues the way it started, I will have found my favourite vampire story. Kristoff has knocked this one out of the ball park.

Beautifully written, intriguing setup and story. Just not sure how much I want grimdark at the moment.

My thanks to HarperCollins U.K. Harper Voyager for providing an advance sampler of ‘Empire of the Vampire’ by Jay Kristoff, due to be published on the 7th September.

This is the first in his Empire of the Vampire series and the full novel is a whopper at over 700 pages. The sample was over 300 pages, which felt a lot.

It’s been described as ‘Interview with the Vampire’ meets ‘The Road’. Now while I adore the first mentioned, I was not a big fan of the second.

There has been a great deal of anticipation about this novel given the popularity of its author and well - vampires. It is my first experience of reading anything by Jay Kristoff.

I have long enjoyed both vampire novels and historical fantasy, so I rather expected this would be a winner for me. It wasn’t.

While there were points of interest, it failed to wow me for a number of reasons. I did find it hard to suspend disbelief that any kind of human society could survive 27 years with the sun blocked by what appears to be the after effects of a massive impact.

As the premise has an imprisoned half-vampire slayer telling his life story to a vampire, a bit of time and place jumping about was to be expected, though it became a bit confusing. Also, it was quite slow going and rather dialogue heavy. Sometimes it was like reading a tv series script. As a result, I ended up tuning out and wasn’t particularly engaged.

I wasn’t bothered by its sex and violence though the constant effing and blinding became tedious. Sometimes less is more.

Overall, it was okay though I wasn’t excited enough to consider preordering the full novel. However, I probably will either buy (or borrow) its audiobook edition at some point to see how things work out for Gabriel de León and pals.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

And Jay Kristoff does it again! Honestly, I don't know what is going on with this guy but I would read his groceries list if he wants to make it public - which I'm not sure he would or should anyway. I didn't realize i asked for a sampler before I actually request it, only after it was approved but at least it wasn't when i finished reading, I'm utterly excited to see where Jay is going with this huge beauty.

*slaps kindle* Human's of earth, you need this book. It fit so much in it.

My only issue is now I have to wait for the full book and I'm super impatient.

Huge thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me access to this sampler. Mister Kristoff has done it again; you instantly find yourself drawn into the world he has created with his beautiful writing style. The format was not what I was expecting at all but it works really well and leaves you always wanting to read just one more chapter. I look forward to the publish date so I can finish reading the rest of the book!

How could you end it there?!?! Wow. What an incredible start to the story. I don’t know HOW I’m going to function as a human being for the next few weeks until the book is released in full. Thank you for giving access to the sampler. I’m already pretty confident this will be my favourite Kristoff book yet!

Thank you so much for approving me to read this sampler! I loved the Aurora series by the author so I couldn’t wait to see what he wrote in the Empire of the Vampire. The books were completely different.

This one is a veeeeery slow burner. It is a bit like a long journey on The Lord of The Rings when they walk and walk and walk and walk and kill monsters on their way.

I enjoyed it, especially the dark characters, a weird humour and a free bad language. If you’re sensitive to cursing, this book won’t be for you. In my opinion those elements fitted perfectly to the story.
Also the vampires are just bad, they’re monsters and I like how different it is to the vampires portrayed in recent years’ fiction when they’re handsome and fascinating and teenagers fall in love with them. Definitely nothing like that here!

Especially interesting was building the hunters, mixing unique and new ideas with elements of myths existing in our culture.

I feel I’d like to finish this book sometime, but as it’s a really slowly moving one, it probably will take me a few weeks, reading just few chapters at a time.

I was recently blessed with the first 300 pages of EOTV and I devoured them ravenously. I was a bit concerned at first that this would end up being a cliché vampire story but I should have known better. Kristoff has a way with writing that is so engaging you can’t stop loving the characters and being utterly absorbed in the worlds he creates. To me this book is a blend of ‘Interview With a Vampire’ and ‘The Witcher’. The main character, Gabriel de León, made me think of ‘The Hound’ from ‘Game of Thrones’ but…well…handsome. It made me laugh, tense, sweat and begging for more. Trust me, whatever your tastes you will love this book. I can’t wait to read the rest.

I need the book right now!!!

This has wet my appetite even more for Kristoffs latest release and I can’t wait to carry on with the story and see where it goes

No doubt it’s going to end on something to make me cry or scream!!

Absolutely amazing! Nevernight’s flip side; giving off twisted Interview with the Vampire vibes, Kristoff employs beautifully descriptive writing to deliver a story and characters that gripped me from the get-go. I cannot wait to get my hands on the full edition in September!

Eeek!! I just love Kristoffs writing style and a sampler wasn’t enough! Dark atmospheric and captivating! Already pre ordered the book. I think if you loved the nevernight series you are going to love this

I CANNOT wait for the actual book. The Sampler was not enough. I want more Vampires, more Gabriel, more Chloe, more Saoirse, more Dior.

Like a fine wine you open this book and enjoy
This book is dark and plenty of blood sucking moments
The storyline jumps back and forth but it is easy to follow
This book is highly recommended and memorable and I can't wait for the next book

Wow, wow, wow
I just need the full version of this book.
I am eagerly anticipating my pre-order coming through the letterbox.
I cannot wait
Thank you for sending me the sample.

Bloody hells bells!
Kristoff has really turned out another brilliant book. Even though it was only a sample, the story sucked me right in, I absolutely devoured the pages until the end of the sample, and now I'm left thirsty for more... (should I stop with the awful loosely-based vampire puns?)

Bring on September please /m/

I'll begin this by saying that this book will definitely not be for everyone. While enjoying it greatly myself, I can still acknowledge this.

Secondly, I loved that this book took us back to the more evil demon-like vampires, the Dracula level big-bad. It had been quite a while since I read something or even seen something widely published that didn't feature vampires as a love interest or in an urban fantasy romance. Not to say those don't have their places too, but getting to see Kristoff's vampires in all their fangs-bared, bloodthirsty glory was something else.
He seemed to incorporate a lot of European and East European mythology, including some of the most well known features that modern audiences associate with vampires. Eg. silver, religious iconography being abhorrent to them, running water, needing an invite to enter a home.
It was interesting to see the author weave these almost 'cliche' features into the narrative and yet somehow still make the world seem original and ever expansive.

If you enjoyed the style of storytelling in 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss I think you'd enjoy this style of character memoir also, as we follow Gabriel both in the present. Where he is recounting his life to chronicler and prison guard, Jean-Luc. And also his past, from his origins to his time as an initiate of the Silversaints and thereafter.
I thought the pacing of this was quite well done, told in chunks through one time line or another it gave you time to get invested in that particular plotline and characters rather than skipping around like with alternating chapters. Which can be quite restrictive, I've found.

I was definitely not disappointed in the world building aspect of Kristoff's writing, yet again, even in this first book it felt fleshed out while yet still leaving the reader with some questions as to where else we'll get to see throughout the series. I'm very much looking forward to seeing final copies of the maps that accompany this world.
There seemed to be clear inspirations taken from French language but also of Celctic mythology and ancient history, which was interesting, I've never seen Jay Kristoff really write about the fae, but I really hope we get to see more of that.

As well as mythological inspiration I definitely found hints of inspiration from the original text of Dracula and even Lord of the Rings, I don't know if this was intentional or not or just my own perception of reading. And obviously inferences of the Christian church and its history.

Throughout the entire book I definitely felt like I was in the trusted hands of the author's imagination. Like he knew exactly where his plot was leading, and even though it may be heart breaking at times and infuriating to wait for future books to reveal secrets and answers, I never felt like Kristoff was just writing filler or anything inconsequential. Which is a pretty mean feat for a book nearly 800 pages.

However, back to my original comment. This will definitely not be for everyone and perhaps even offensive to some readers.
If you're at all offended by bad language or sensitive to dark humour, I really don't think this would be the book for you. As it's absolutely riddled with both. Even more so than any of his previous works in my opinion.
There has been some criticism in the past of how this author writes female characters, and I have to say it was a tad overkill the amount of times that women or women's body parts were used in insults throughout the book. It has a very blunt, crass, almost 'lads' humour to it at times. So again, if this is distasteful to you, this may not be the book to pick up.
There was quite a bit of sexualisation of women also, in terms of character description, from my reading experience, however, I don't think this was done in a chauvinistic or overly sexist way as it was mostly used in more intimate scenes with the main characters love interest. Again, this will be down to each individual reader if they like/dislike intimate scenes in their books.

I will say some characters, both men and women, did seem quite similar to previous characters of Kristoff's. Although they were distinct, they did seem to come from a similar template. However, this could just be down to the nature of the world that they're written into, I'd be interested to hear what other reviewers/readers opinion is on this.

One of my favourite aspects of this book would have to be the characters and their relationships and friendships to one another. Especially between Dior and Gabriel and its development. Without giving away spoilers.

As well as themes of revenge, faith, friendship, loyalty I think this book did a great job of exploring the theme of the famous Nietzsche quote, "“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”
For anyone who's read the book and understands the curse and burden of the Silversaints, I don't need to say anymore.
The struggle with one's faith was also a huge aspect of this book, one that which a lot of readers can relate to. Even though this is a fantasy, some of the questions asked echo a lot of modern society.

As much as I want to go into more detail and talk about all the feelings, I would hate to spoil anyone prior to release of such a highly anticipated book. So I shall park my thoughts here until it's safe.

Bloody, a little bit sexy, and with copious amounts of danger. Jay Kristoff is at his best when given full reigns to go full on dark. Empire of the Vampire is no exception. This has all the trademark Kristoff grimmdwrk fantasy elements with vampires. Vampires.

Honestly I'm already obsessed and I've only read a few chapters. Get ready for a while ride.