"Sanct' Germain gives a scintillating look at Spain between the 17th and 12th centuries"

Early in the seventh century, a religious upheaval in his part of Hispania compels Sanct' Germain (Saint-Germain), accompanied by his loyal servant Rogerian, to flee to the nearby mountains. The nasty wintry weather forces the two undead to take shelter in Mont Calcius, a village with one occupant. Apparently, the villagers abandoned their homes leaving behind a pregnant Csimenae. Feeling sorry for the young woman, Sanct' Germain helps her give birth to a son. When a boar fatally injures Csimenae, he ignores his instincts and ironically saves her life by converting her into a vampire.

Over the ensuing centuries, Sanct' Germain learns one of history's more painful lessons that no good deed goes unpunished. Defying all of Sanct' Germain's warnings on survival, Csimenae becomes a mother to a vampire horde that heeds her every word as if she were a goddess. Realizing the danger to his kind, Sanct' Germain knows he must stop Csimenae before she exposes the existence of vampires to the fundamentally religious right and the supernaturally fearful masses.

COME TWILIGHT, the latest Germain tale, is quite insightful when it provides a rapid but scintillating look at Spain between the seventh and twelfth centuries. Sanct' Germain retains his charm when he enables the audience to focus on the upheavals in Spain. Csimenae is a spry character who enhances Sanct' Germain's personality during their mentor- student relationship. However, when conflict enters the story line, the tale seems to lose some of its momentum. Sanct' Germain fans will bite into this well written novel in one sitting, but other readers will believe that long running vampire series seem to need some blood donations.

Harriet Klausner Copyright © October 2000
for ParaNormal Romance Reviews

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Courtesy ParaNormal Romance
Posted April 18, 2002

Summary

Yarbro's latest tale of the vampire Saint-Germain is full, as usual, of more of his loves, adventures, and tragedies, and this time spans some five centuries of the history of the Iberian Peninsula. In the seventh century, Saint- Germain makes a vampire of Csimenae, a young noblewoman trying to save her infant son's inheritance. Despite his forbidding it, she creates other vampires. Thereafter, under the Moors and during the early years of the Reconquisita, "the demons of the mountains" are dreaded, and when Saint-Germain returns he is in personal danger of true death. Should he destroy Csimenae as a cautionary lesson? In the historical panorama Yarbro unfolds lie the book's real pleasures, thanks to thorough research and the admirable avoidance of giving historical characters twentieth-century psychological motives

Roland Green Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved