Hera's Lament
Ratings1
Average rating5
Faith has unleashed the vampire virus upon America. Infection guarantees death to all but the few who bond with it—the new vampires. As panic spreads the government scrambles to eliminate the mutating virus. But two men, billionaire Xavier Masters and Senator Drake, recognise its potential—both in the promise of immortality and creating a super soldier. Now they need to find the one who started it all.
Guilt ridden by what she has done, Faith vows to destroy these vampires even if it means venturing into the military controlled quarantine zones. When Faith rescues Hannah, a young girl infected by one of her creations, she becomes the target of Xavier’s deadly team of mercenaries. Aided by an enslaved vampire they close in on her trail. But another threat looms—Anastasiya, her maker, also hunts her.
As the final showdown looms, Faith must decide: is she truly a monster or the key to humanity’s survival?
Series
Featured Series
3 primary books#3 in American Noir
American Noir is a 3-book series with 3 released primary works first released in 2024 with contributions by Shaun Griffin.
Reviews
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Unforced Errors Leave Bitter Aftertaste In Otherwise Solid Conclusion. It seems like every book in this trilogy, Griffin seeks to explore almost an entirely separate genre of books... all while telling what is essentially a scifi vampire story.
Here, we get into a near-dystopia, where in the fallout from Book 2, Faith has been unleashing the vampire virus all across America in an attempt to lure Anastasia out.
And yet again, the story absolutely works. We get a lot of excellent vampire action, we get the expected human soldiers, we get human tech trying to give humans an edge on the vampires, truly all of the expected stuff one typically sees in a book like this, done particularly well within this story.
Along the way, we even get some strong character growth from both Faith and Anastasia, which is always awesome to see.
Indeed, as a conclusion to this trilogy, this book was *nearly* perfect. But there are a couple of elements in the last 10% or so that give a bitter aftertaste, and at least one of the two was absolutely unforced - preachy politics that had no real place anywhere in this story.
The other... to avoid spoilers, I have to be a bit circumspect in describing, so allow me to mention that I tell a particular story often, I think I may have mentioned it in a review here or there, that I once read another trilogy specifically because its last book was getting *DESTROYED* in the reviews over the ending. All I can say here is that my thoughts on the ending of that trilogy and this one... well, there are reasons I say this one leaves a bitter aftertaste. As an action sequence, it was actually rather badass. But did it work for that character as portrayed to that point? How about you, oh reader of my review, read this trilogy and tell us in your own review whether you think I'm off base here.
Still, truly, truly excellent work on this entire trilogy and even this book itself. Easily one of the best vampire trilogies I've ever read, right up there with David McAfee's Bachiyr series and *well* above that fucking sparkling "vampire" one. Is it Stoker? No. But is it an awesome, gory thrill ride with some interesting twists on the overall lore? Absolutely.
Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.