Sword & Blood: The Vampire Musketeers, Book 1

Marques (a pseudonym for Sarah A. Hoyt) pits the three musketeers against a brilliant cardinal and a vampire horde in a reimagined France struggling under a false truce with the undead. Would-be musketeer D’Artagnan has ambitions of joining Athos, Porthos, and Aramis in their battle against the vampires, a battle that could decide the fate of the world. When Athos is turned, he must try to resist his new monstrous instincts and stay on the side of good. Very little of Dumas’s vision survives in Marques’s novel; the protagonists have the same names as Dumas’s but little else in common, and the setting is barely recognizable. The result is a serviceable and straightforward adventure story where morality is black and white and a brave few hold back the night with courage and daring, but readers expecting a Dumas pastiche will be disappointed. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (June)