Amaya Tenshi’s Dracula’s Guest featured Vlad Tepes, still a vampire (specifically, a strigoi) living in modern Seattle.
It also featured Cammy, a Seattle college student snowflake who is not quite a disaster. But she is trying her best.
The Story
Several months after cleaning up a new nest of vampires, Vlad Tepes is still dealing with his houseguest, and still dealing with the modern world, hating every minute of it—the less said about self checkout, the better.
Now that his houseguest Cammy knows of the supernatural, she’s jumping at shadows—then again, some shadows will eat her. When the fae start to latch onto her as a way in to Dracula’s good graces, that starts becoming a mess.
Then a recently deceased pro wrestler comes back from the dead as a Draugr, a nigh-unstoppable Norse monster, complete with werewolf sidekicks. It is, of course, up to Dracula to put the creature back in its grave. But when it has more power and more abilities than even Dracula, and its very presence turns his closest alley feral, it’s going to be a challenge.
All the while, there’s something in the background, setting the stage to make its own move.
Dracula’s Match was so much better than Dracula’s Guest, and I enjoyed that book, honest. It helps that Dracula’s Match spends more time with Dracula, from Dracula’s point of view, dealing with the main plot of the novel, while Cammy is a little bit more of a background character. She’s still key to both plots—both the fae and the draugr—but she is far less annoying.
But I do enjoy everything Madam Tenshi does with Dracula’s Match, even down to getting the phonetic spelling of accents down. Her fight scenes are smart and thoughtful, with good tactics. The action is all tightly written, and each battle is tense.
By the end of the book, everything comes together almost as neatly as a Tom Clancy novel, where despite everything being unrelated, they tie up each other nicely.
Also, there’s enough of a set up for the next book that I am eager to try it.
The Characters
Dracula just gets more interesting the more we go along. He’s a man of faith dealing with a Godless world. He’s a nobleman who believes in noblesse oblige and takes those obligations seriously … and he is treated with the same modern disrespect, worse than any peasant. I haven’t seen someone put this much effort into getting Vlad Tepes correct since Fred Saberhagen’s Dracula novels. Amaya Tenshi has clearly done her research into the background of Vlad Tepes to make him more than the one dimensional monster portrayed by Stoker or historians. She’s even put in a historical note in the back of the book that would make Bernard Cornwell proud.
Cammy is learning her limits, the hard way. She’s still traumatized putting down a friend who became a vampire. She’s not quite too afraid to leave the house alone after dark, but close. After Dracula sets her straight on her abilities, Cammy does seem to settle down into a niche roll here: Researcher. Vlad may be good at many things, but searching the internet is not one of them. But yikes, there are so many parts of the world that Cammy doesn’t understand, either pragmatically, historically or supernaturally. And she doesn’t have the wisdom to do what she’s told in areas she expressly states she is ignorant about—rules like “Don’t interact with the fae, they are dangerous,” or perhaps “Don’t poke the strigoi.” Also, it’s so noisy in her head, one suspects she might be ADD, ADHD, whatever the current parlance is.
Even the book’s antagonist, the Draugr, is a fully fleshed out character, complete with a full biography that I feel might have been cobbled together from a few people I’m vaguely familiar with. In fact, his biography, assembled by Cammy, is essential to the climax of the novel. Seriously, my congratulations to Madam Tenshi for making Cammy a useful character, beyond just someone to explain things to.
And there are just enough overlapping qualities between the Draugr and Dracula that it makes for an interesting empathy there.
Cammy’s friend Brian the cop is definitely piecing the supernatural world together. The character is more than brave enough to fit into the world, but he’s a bit too fragile. If he got beaten up anymore, he would look like Jim Rockford. I can’t tell if he’s going to turn into Van Helsing or Renfield. I like the guy, but he’s clearly still in a state of development. I don’t know if Amaya Tenshi couldn’t think of more for him to do in this novel, or if he’s taking that much time to incubate.
The World
The world of Dracula’s Match is very much under construction, but that’s because there’s so much to it. Amaya Tenshi clearly spent a lot of time on folklore, and may be restraining herself on how much to put in at any one time. This might be the modern world, but the supernatural is clearly still dangerous, and is living in a Pre-Christian world.
There are certain organizations here that are shadowy enough that one wonders how they’re going to jump next.
And there is more than enough local color to establish Seattle as a distinct entity. It’s more than some urban fantasy novels shoot for these days.
Politics
This is very …. right leaning. I’m not sure how else to describe a book where the hero is royalty, but believes in noblesse oblige and takes those obligations seriously. Dracula’s solution to a homeless man is to offer him a job—when the methhead refuses, Dracula makes certain he can collect disability.
There’s also enough philosophy and theology in here that atheists may develop hives.
Dracula’s thoughts on government bureaucracies are entertaining.
Content Warning
It’s not particularly gory. At one point Dracula is ripped apart, but he treats it more like an annoyance, and the description is kept to a minimum.
Who is it for?
For anyone who enjoy history like Bernard Cornwell, an urban fantasy world that treats the supernatural as dangerous, and a Dracula that Fred Saberhagen would love.
Why buy it
This is a thoughtful, action-packed urban fantasy with enough character studies to just pull you in.
Looks interesting. Is it comparable to Christopher Moore's Blood Sucking Fiends series?