Annwn's Maelstrom Festival

Vampire Nocturaries #2

by Eric Muss-Barnes

After the fateful night Elric DuBois is violently robbed of his humanity, he never dares to question why. Fearing what motives may have dragged him into this nightmare, Elric simply accepts his grim fate and revels in what he has become. Through his loveaffair with the young Helle Tompkins, his rage and anguish are sated. Helle braves to ask the questions her man was horrified to have answered. Upon the stage of an insidious carnival, Annwn's Obsidian Sideshow & Maelstrom Festival, two hundreds years of DuBois family secrets begin to be revealed. As the performance unfolds, Helle and Elric discover they are being played for fools by the motherly shadows which created them. How fierce burns their lust for vengeance when the truth is uncovered? Shall they be destroyed by their puppetmasters or will evil incarnate cower before the wrath of Helle and Elric DuBois?

321 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2013

About the author

Raised by the 1940's swingkid generation of his maternal grandparents, Eric Muss-Barnes grew up 2500 miles outside of Los Angeles; has spent years working at Walt Disney Studios; piloted hang gliders over 6000 feet above the Earth; dated fashion models, rockstar goddesses and glamazon actresses; been thrown and dragged by horses (arguably similar to his dating experiences); earned a living as an American Greetings toymaker and a Hollywood game designer; ridden motorcycles through mountains and desert sandstorms (make that "over" mountains, he's not Buckaroo Banzai); produced, directed and edited music videos and an award-nominated film; briefly wed a tattooed MENSA astrophysicist chick; crewed on an Academy Award nominated movie; skateboarded in pools all around California with XGames medalists; written an epic series of vampire novels; photographed numerous Playboy models and sold his images in art galleries; been published in multiple fiction/non-fiction anthologies; served 12 years hard time in parochial schools; and created and programmed a blog called InkShard where you can see videos and essays about his life as a writer.

Reviews

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book in exchange for an honest review (LoP or Lovers of Paranormal)

This is the second book in the Vampire Noctuaries series. Readers should read the first book (The Gothic Rainbow) before picking up this one. The novel is a continuation of the love story first introduced in The Gothic Rainbow. It is told from the point of view of the female, Helle, a spunky, obnoxious, sarcastic, loyal vampire. Similar to the first book, this one takes place in a goth atmosphere with characters dressing in goth attire, wearing goth hairstyles and make-up, and spending their time in the gothic industrial music scene. It also contains a playlist at the end of the contents and lyrics from songs embedded in the writing from goth bands.

A reader is provided with insight into the history of the vampire family and the illustrious home they live in. Pasts are revisited in a multitude of different ways for the characters. This helped a reader understand the main characters a little better than the first book.

Similar to the first book, the author chose to capitalize all pronouns referring to vampiric characters. This helped in terms of separating the mortals from the immortals. The book contains a lot of characters and it would not have been clear to me if they were a mortal or immortal without this type of writing. This story included more sex and violence than the first book and I found at times that the sex was just way too much and tended to dilute the rest of the story. There were also some disturbing sex scenes involving children.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the concluding part to the Gothic Rainbow series told from the view of Helle as she rounds off the story of her and Elric as they discover the truth behind the centuries old games and the use of mortals as pawns. The writing in this volume is less descriptive and dreamy than the first volume and is written in a more direct (and very Helle) manner,which makes it much more readable. Real life references and the use of the author's own subculture experiences are still found throughout the story bringing the tale to life all the more. The only downside is that I did find that the increased persistence of the relationship between Elric and Helle pushed this towards the more mainstream works in this genre which is a bit of a shame given the first volume. Overall a good finale to this epic story.