As many of you may be aware I have a real penchant for vampire books, in whatever shape of form they may take, though have quite recently seemed to have found myself reading more of the romantic/erotic sort!

My brother in law knowing this fact (and also due to him making a mistake with my sisters xmas present and getting the second book in this series!), purchased the book I will now review for you (but only as my sister needs this one first!).

The book in question is "Uprising" by Scott G Mariani.

For centuries vampires have stalked the earth, feeding at will from humans, but remaining reasonably undetectable, that is until the 21st century and the technology that has come with it!

To monitor order within the vampire ranks an new organisation is established to ensure vampires remain in the shadows of the humans sight, called simply the "vampire federation".

This is policed by special agents such as Alexandra Bishop, who will hunt down and destroy any vampire jeopardising and going against the new vampire rules, but there is a growing stronghold of ancient vampires who don't take kindly to the rules, and when a leader is found to take back their blood sucking rights against the humans/dinner, a war between the factions soon ensues.

Police officer Joel Soloman is drawn into the world of vampires after he investigates a series of gruesome murders, that seemingly leaves the victims drained of their blood, though he is no stranger to the secret world, after an incident in his childhood that left his family dead he finds that the last words his Grandfather spoke to him may well be the one's that could save his life.......

This book is completely different to the type of vampire books I have read before, feeling more like the old school vampires of my youth it is much more grotesque, and in now way romantically soft and gentle like the newer incarnations (ie Twilight!).

I loved how even with this fact the vampires have been completely modernised, with technology advancing at the rate it is, the tools that the vampires have available to them made the story feel much more sinister and at times believable, why shouldn't they now be able to walk around in the daylight due to a simply tablet protecting the from the harmful UV rays, and synthetic blood (as is the case with a couple of other books in recent times) no sustains the vampires sufficiently enough to function (though when needs must they can still "dazzle" a human into becoming a dinner date!).

The old school vampires are much more archaic feeling, with this being a deliberate act on the characters parts, they believe that they shouldn't be able to walk around in daylight, so the don't, and the synthetic blood again is a big no-no, so do expect some pretty horrific scenes, there are a couple that did turn my stomach a little, especially when trying to groom and feed the master vampires ghoul (a human servant hat becomes a dead waking creature to serve the masters needs in daytime, but becomes a flesh eater in the process), that scene involving him eating flesh of a very young type (no more is needed to be said on that point!), though this was very brief, the story soon went back onto an even keel from that point.
That said though, this is a vampire book, albeit a modern take, and in my childhood they were creatures of horror that were to be feared, not fancied, so the fact that the author made these creatures distasteful and scary was no mean feat, and probably needed something horrific to get their point across!

This was not a bad book at all, more than readable, and probably would appeal to lovers of all horror genre's, and with this being the first book within the series I expect a thrill packed read to come!

Price wise this has a RRP of £6.99.

Thanks for reading x

ISBN 978-1-84756-212-8