This is a past read and reviewed book. I received complementary copy of this book for an honest review and finished it January 29, 2015. This is book 1 of the Affliction series.
Parental advisory: this book portrays a warped sense of what Christianity is. Priests who pray to God, capture, contain and rape vampires, all in the name of Jesus, as well as drink vampire blood to elongate their own lives. I've never read a vampire novel before, but it was a good read, with thought-out, well developed characters. I would have given this book a higher rating were it not for the graphic scenes beginning in chapter 8.
I love how the book opens up to explain about a virus that changes your body composition and how the person then becomes "Afflicted" or otherwise known as a vampire. It also explains from a first person point of view, all the myths about vampires, such as using garlic or a crucifix o ward off a vampire. Silver is specifically pinpointed as something that can harm someone with the VN73 virus.
This author has very poor usage of commas, which prevents the sentences from being read smoothly and I have had to reread numerous sentences to understand what is trying to be said.
Our main character, Kati, is a 14 year old, underprivileged girl, who lives with her mother. She is approached by the Countess, Bathory, to work at her castle and bind a bunch of papers into books. Kati can not read up to this point, which is what the Countess is looking for in a book binder. The Countess brings in 4 young, wealthy girls to teach how to become ladies, one of whom befriends Kati and teaches her how to read.
*Graphic Spoiler Alert*
Kati begins to read the Countess' journals and we discover the Countess' childhood. Up to the chapter 8 mark, this was a clean book, but at the middle of this chapter, there is a graphic rape scene between the captured young vampire and a Priest. We are told that this would be a nightly occurrence, and not necessarily by the same Priest, each time. There are also other scenes between the girl and her vampire keeper, Vyktor, later on in the book. This book ends with a cliff hanger. What happened with the Countess' son who was to be healed? Is that in the supposed next installment that the author mentions at the end?
All in all, I would recommend this book to those that have a firm understanding of Christianity and know that what the Priests in the underground compound, are not correct in their thinking and warp what the Bible says to be true. Use your own judgement. As a Christian, I would not let my children read this book because it goes against what we believe to be true. 2 out of 5 stars.
From the back cover:
Do Vampires live forever? Hell no! Immortality is earned...
The year is 1609 and fourteen year old Kati lives a quiet rural existence with her mother in the outskirts of Csejthe Castle, the home of the powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory. When the Countess personally shows up at Kati’s house offering her a job as a servant, she is happy to go if it’ll help her mother break out of poverty. Once at the castle the Countess ensures that Kati is illiterate before giving her the task of binding a series of centuries old notebooks which hide a blood soaked and violent past. As the months progress Kati discovers that her new mistress is fearsome, cruel and dangerous, but she is unable to leave without fear of retribution. She realizes that her only hope of understanding and escaping the Countess hides within the journals she is unable to read. Finding herself in a desperate situation Kati must uncover the secret behind the Countess’s erratic behavior and stop her before it’s too late for her and everyone she loves.
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