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"A really great story"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 15, 2004

Julian Cavanaugh has a vision that involves the vampire community he guards with ferocious zeal. The eight- hundred-year-old vampire wants to give his peers the choice of remaining a vampire or becoming mortal. He has hopes that those who chose to remain immortal can do so without drinking blood. Read more...

"Great storytelling and worldbuilding"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted January 18, 2004

Julian Cavanaugh has a vision that involves the vampire community he guards with ferocious zeal. The eight- hundred-year-old vampire wants to give his peers the choice of remaining a vampire or becoming mortal. He has hopes that those who chose to remain immortal can do so without drinking blood. Read more...

Summary

The Chess Master . . . Julian Cavanaugh carries the fate of the vampire Underground on his world-weary, eight-hundred- year-old shoulders. He wants only a life of peace with Lorelei and their expected child. But peace can't exist while the evil Ialdaboth lives. As the malevolent immortal draws closer, Julian plans his strategy, maneuvering allies like chess pieces on a board—except these rooks and pawns have wills of their own. . . . Lilith left hope behind centuries ago. She wants to help the Underground but fears her presence will lead her fiendish ex-master to her new friends—including Jarod Greene, the human she loves. Rafael hates being seventeen—forever. He wants desperately to be human again . . . and to love Sasha, who rescued him from Ialdaboth's coven. But if he chooses one, he may lose the other. And he may lose both if the secret he harbors can't save them all. . . . Tara Summers walks a fine line as human mother to child vampire Daniel. She wants to believe hypnotherapist Gray DeAngelo will help her. She fears, though, he may annihilate the Underground—and her along with it. Endgame . . . For centuries, Julian has dreamed of a world where vampire and human live together, in harmony. Yet with the ultimate evil upon them, he knows his dreams are doomed. Will he—can he—win the war with Ialdaboth? Or will he have to face the death of his dreams . . . and of everyone he knows and loves?