Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

For this pulse-pounding standalone set in the same universe as the Crowns of Nyaxia series, Broadbent expands her vampire political drama into a mystical corner of the human world. After the devastation of the land of Glaea by the brutal Pythora King during Sylina’s childhood, she pledged her life and sacrificed her eye to the Arachessen, a celibate, all-female order of mystical seer-assassins in service of the goddess of fate. When the vampire Atrius, cursed by the goddess Nyaxia and exiled by the House of Blood, arrives to conquer Glaea, Sylina is tasked with infiltrating his army, gaining his trust, and killing him. But as she grows close to Atrius and learns his troubled history, her compassion for him grows, while her willingness to do anything her goddess commands—and to avoid sex—wanes. Broadbent does a good job depicting Syrina’s magical alternative sight, and her disorientation when it is sometimes blocked, as well as keeping the vampire captain romantically mysterious. Fans of the setting will find plenty of the politics, battles, shifting loyalties, and high intensity enemies-turned-lovers chemistry they’ve come to expect, though with fewer vampires and a bit more of a populist bent. It’s another winner from Broadbent. (Mar.)