Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For those of you in the know, all I really need to say is TIM POWERS. You'll get it.

For everyone else, we've got here a VERY period tale that has done an immense measure of research into the lives and times of Christina Rossetti and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, featuring these siblings as main characters in an all-out VAMPIRE novel. And it never feels contrived.

Excuse me, lol. We have a modern audience here. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a famous poet and painter in the 19th century. Christina Rossetti is the author of Goblin Market.

It almost behooves me to read Christina's work and apply it whole-heartedly to Tim Power's tale, because the events within London, her family, and the strange collection of characters seem to explain an AWFUL lot.

Because it's not just about vampires. It's about mortal sin, carnality, dead babies haunting you for the rest of your life (literally), and ghosts. Not to mention that this novel spans from high society to the dregs of the underworld, in full adventure mode.

Certain things are not talked about. This is the London of THAT time. And these vampires are not the kind of hokey vampires we see today. They're nuanced and the system of magic that Powers enables them to come to life is as nuanced as the characters. And strange, too! Powers has an uncanny ability to bring in disparate features of ... ANYTHING ... and pulls them off in style. No spoilers, but this one was a treat.

View all my reviews