Crossed

Title: Crossed (Void City #3)
Author: J.F. Lewis
Publisher: Pocket Books, 2011
Pages: 405
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Other Void City Novels: Staked, ReVamped

In spite of his continuing hot-blooded affair with his soon-to-be sister-in-law Rachel, Eric’s plan is simple. Give his vampire girlfriend Tabitha the fancy wedding she’s always wanted, then head off to Paris for their honeymoon in the hopes of tracking down his sire, the Empress vampire Lisette. The City of Love proves anything but romantic when the True Immortal rulers of Europe try to block Eric from entering the Continent-and subject Tabitha to a series of challenges to prove her vampire worth. Back home in Void City, Eric’s volatile daughter Greta is getting lonely and bored-and that’s not good news for anyone. And when, like a bat out of hell, Lisette descends upon Void City to wipe Eric and his brood off the face of the earth-forever-this much is clear: the honeymoon is over.

The first thing I have to say about this novel is that I read these because they are so different. For the most part the rules about vampires are your classic “can’t go out in sunlight” and “can’t touch holy objects.” However I really enjoy Lewis’s idea of the different ranks of vampires having varying levels of ability and strength. The drones are the weakest and barely immortal, where the emperors are the most amazing and all seem to have some other magical element in their makeup. This part reminded me very much of one of my absolute favorite novels, A Brave New World.

Another very unique aspect about this novel is the main character, Eric Courtney. Eric is an emperor vampire and also a revenant, an angry ghost. Basically when Eric was turned into a vampire, he was pissed about the whole dying young thing and he also came back a revenant. But that is not really my favorite part of Eric. My favorite part is his attitude. For the most part he does what feels good. He doesn’t worry about hurting other people, because he honestly won’t remember within a few hours. And even though Eric used to run a strip club and kills people on a fairly regular basis, you can tell that he still has a lot of traditional ideas about honor and marriage.

I mention marriage, because the novel revolves around marriage. And it is interesting to see this no apologies, sleep around with anyone kind of guy, talk about being faithful. Because that’s what you do once you get married. He was turned into a vampire shortly after WW2 and so he was raised in a time where that was what you did when you got married. No matter how loose you were before your vows once you say “I Do” you were faithful. Apparently the only exception to this rule is your wife’s younger sister who is also a tantric witch. But he is certainly not perfect.

Overall, this novel would definitely appeal to a small range of individuals. I really enjoy Eric’s personality, his amnesia/Alzheimer’s-esque memory, and his very fickle vampire powers. But I can see where this novel and the series as a whole would not entertain a great many people. But if you are looking to read about a pretty badass dude who can’t remember how an entire room of people ended up dead, then this is definitely for you.

Ratings
Cover: 2/5
Characters: 5/5
Plot: 2/5
Writing: 3/5
Individuality: 5/5
The Whole Shebang: 3.5/5