[Vampyricon Trilogy 02] • The Lady of Serpents

With ancient sorceries unleashed, this game of thrones and vampires begin anew as a dark adversary holds Aleric, the Falconer, prisoner -- and prey. In this, the second book of The Vampyricon, New York Times bestselling author Douglas Clegg continues the epic dark saga of Aleric, the newly-anointed priest-king of the tribe of vampyres.

The kingdom is home of the shadow-priests of the Veil, who whisper dark secrets to their new queen as white towers rise and forests fall. Heretics burn on the Illumination Nights and an enormous arena houses endless gladiatorial blood-fights between vampyre and shapeshifter, and somewhere in the bowels of the castle sits an infernal machine for the torment of the vampyre race -- called the Red Scorpion.

In a medieval world, within a forgotten century where dark and dangerous magic lies hidden among lost cities of legend, Aleric the Falconer must escape his prison and find the vampyre Pythia, who has been taken prisoner herself halfway across the world.

Be sure to get the rest of the Vampyricon trilogy:

The Queen of Wolves, Book Three

“Astonishing. Douglas Clegg writes of…nightmares with such clarity and passion you don’t end up reading his books; you end up drinking them in. The Priest of Blood is a bloody gem.” -- Christopher Rice, New York Times bestselling author of The Vines and Heaven's Rise.

"A dark tale of swords, sorcery, and vampires." -- Christine Feehan, NY Times bestselling author.

"Douglas Clegg has accomplished a rarity in the horror vein...This book will sink its teeth into you" -- The Kansas City Star

"Richly layered, beautifully rendered foray into a past filled with sorcery and mystery -- and a rousing good story." -- Kelley Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author

Stunning...gives the iconic vampire a massive makeover. -- Publishers Weekly, starred review.

Discover Douglas Clegg's fiction:

Lights Out Neverland The Children’s Hour The Halloween Man You Come When I Call You The Hour Before Dark Nightmare House Bad Karma Goat Dance Breeder Afterlife Purity Dark of the Eye The Words Wild Things Red Angel Night Cage Mischief The Infinite The Abandoned The Necromancer Isis Naomi The Nightmare Chronicles The Attraction Night Asylum The Priest of Blood The Lady of Serpents The Queen of Wolves

From Publishers WeeklyThis second installment in Clegg's unfolding Vampyricon epic brims with the same dazzling invention and creative mythography as its predecessor, The Priest of Blood (2005). Aleric, the Breton falconer, returns as heir apparent to the vampire throne, but in a world vastly different since he breached the Veil separating the ordinary world from the world of the vampire myth stream. The "lost century" he finds himself in after years of imprisonment in a silver-sealed well is a cruel, plague-ridden time where he and his un-dead companion, Ewen, are forced to fight gladiatorial battles against human and animal opponents. Old friends and enemies appear in new guises, and unforeseeable plot twists abound. Clegg's rich descriptions, ingenious variations on vampire lore and intriguing speculations on a secret history underlying our own make this an exuberantly imagined dark fantasy. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From BooklistVampyricon, Clegg's alternate history interweaving nations of vampires and humans, resumes the adventures of medieval peasant-turned-vampire Aleric (see The Priest of Blood, 2005, for backstory). Now in brutal captivity and forced to fight in the sorceress Enora's arena, Aleric must find the alchemist who gave Enora her power. The resulting quest leads him to the ancient home of all vampires and the discovery that the only way to destroy Enora is to unleash the power that ended his own life as a human--the lady Pythia. Well-drawn characters and a reasonably original alternate world boost the page-turning capacity for dark fantasy fans. Frieda MurrayCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved