Angelique Armae, Dead Walkers: The Protectorate

Dead Walkers: The Protectorate

Angelique Armae

ImaJinn Books, Sep 2005, $13.75

ISBN 1893896366

In 1815 Ireland Donovan Bramwell is a mixed breed part vampire and part mortal. His grandfather heads the Protectorate, an organization consisting of vampires and humans at war with the malevolent Upyran Vampires sect that sees mortals as the lowest rung of the food chain. Donovan hates both sides. When the Upyran Vampires Prince Vestos bit him and killed his father, the Protectorate did nothing.

Now his grandfather has become a total vampire so he expects his heir Donovan to lead The Protectorate or he will be left penniless and homeless. At the same time Donovan deliberates his future, Ceni Princess Iceni needs help regaining her lost amulet stolen by Vastos when the vampires and their Roman allies eradicated her people. She chooses Donovan as her best bet and starts to seduce him into being her loyal slave, but her effort fails when he reads her mind. Still he finds a desire to help Ceni and wonders if she already completed her seduction of what is left of his soul that he fears will make him enslaved to Vastos. However Vastos has his own dilemma as he knows his soul is rotting. To save himself he either must kill Donovan or Iceni for he is a Dead Walker too.

DEAD WALKERS: THE PROTECTORATE is a terrific fantasy that provides the audience a powerful tale in which the three prime species, vampires, mortals, and the quasi seem genuine especially in their varying interrelationships. The action-packed story line provides insight into the diverse vampiric clans and how the quasi live in human and vampiric camps. The triangle of life and death between the lead trio makes for a compelling one sitting supernatural thriller, but it's the world they live in that fascinates readers.

Harriet Klausner