Saint-Germain makes jewels (don't ask) for Ivan the Terrible in 16th century Russia.Not one of my favorites of the series. I enjoy these, but I need to remember to space them out because they all have pretty much the same plot transposed into a different setting. It's as if Saint-Germain is doomed to live out the same drama over and over again as he moves through the ages, with new players and new scenery but without being able to alter the outcome. No wonder he's so melancholy.(I should start tallying the various injuries Saint-Germain has endured. The man has been disemboweled, crucified, flogged, poisoned, shot, and stabbed with every sort of sharp implement known to man. And I've only read about half of the series.)Saint-Germain marries in this book. I think it's the only time in 4,000 years that he does so. But his relationship with his wife is pretty par for the course, nothing special; she's no Olivia or Madelaine.I like Olivia's haranguing letters (written from the court of Elizabeth I of England in this book) but otherwise I'm mostly bored by the letters that the author uses to begin each chapter.
This novel had two great things going for it: its suave, benevolent vampire hero (the vampire your mother always hoped you'd marry :-) and its 16-th century Russian setting. But Yarbro takes very little advantage of either one. We almost never see the vampire doing anything specifically vampiric --perhaps Yarbro counts on the reader having read the previous books and not needing to know more about his peculiar nature. More importantly, there is little sense of time and place. Yarbro should have done more to transport us to medieval Russia: a few onion domes and an endless blessing-of-icons won't do it!
What do You think about Darker Jewels (1995)?
1582 - The last years of Russian's Czar Ivan VI's (Ivan the Terrible)reign - He ruled for 50 years - and was a dynamic, effective ruler - warring and winning land for Russia - by a man thought to be insane.... In this fiction he is crazed by the guilt of killing his son (striking him in the side of the head in anger) - spending an inordinate amount of time in chapels, not washing, obsessing over getting a message of forgiveness, consulting witches, going into convulsions at times.And Rakoczy, ex
—Kathy
