Midnight Harvest

Saint-Germain #16

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

In Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Midnight Harvest, Worsening military situations in Spain compel Saint-Germain to leave Europe; he and Roger travel to Boston, then Chicago, and finally to California, unaware that a paid assassin is following them. Saint-Germain visits the Pietragnelli winery and discovers how much the Great Depression has affected life in the USA; difficulties with Pietragnelli's neighbors escalate, becoming more violent and demanding to the point that Saint-Germain helps Carlo Pietragnelli take a stand against the culprits. He also reunites romantically with Rowena Saxon, now living in San Francisco.

Genres: Vampires, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Historical, Fantasy, Paranormal

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

A professional writer for more than forty years, Yarbro has sold over eighty books, more than seventy works of short fiction, and more than three dozen essays, introductions, and reviews. She also composes serious music. Her first professional writing - in 1961-1962 - was as a playwright for a now long-defunct children's theater company. By the mid-60s she had switched to writing stories and hasn't stopped yet.

After leaving college in 1963 and until she became a full-time writer in 1970, she worked as a demographic cartographer, and still often drafts maps for her books, and occasionally for the books of other writers.

She has a large reference library with books on a wide range of subjects, everything from food and fashion to weapons and trade routes to religion and law. She is constantly adding to it as part of her on-going fascination with history and culture; she reads incessantly, searching for interesting people and places that might provide fodder for stories.

In 1997 the Transylvanian Society of Dracula bestowed a literary knighthood on Yarbro, and in 2003 the World Horror Association presented her with a Grand Master award. In 2006 the International Horror Guild enrolled her among their Living Legends, the first woman to be so honored; the Horror Writers Association gave her a Life Achievement Award in 2009. In 2014 she won a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention.

A skeptical occultist for forty years, she has studied everything from alchemy to zoomancy, and in the late 1970s worked occasionally as a professional tarot card reader and palmist at the Magic Cellar in San Francisco.

She has two domestic accomplishments: she is a good cook and an experienced seamstress. The rest is catch-as-catch-can.

Divorced, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area - with two cats: the irrepressible Butterscotch and Crumpet, the Gang of Two. When not busy writing, she enjoys the symphony or opera.

Her Saint-Germain series is now the longest vampire series ever. The books range widely over time and place, and were not published in historical order. They are numbered in published order.

Known pseudonyms include Vanessa Pryor, Quinn Fawcett, T.C.F. Hopkins, Trystam Kith, Camille Gabor.

Reviews

[Jamie Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

These books are enjoyable once you decide to embrace Yarbro’s weirdly stilted, expository dialog, and if you don’t mind the endless repetition: Saint-Germain is always distrusted by the authorities because he’s foreign and wealthy; he’s always spied on by his employees and doubted by his lovers. If you don’t mind watching over and over again as he flees from persecution and sets up house in a new location, where his manservant Roger runs his bathwater and lays out his stylish clothing.

This book begins in Spain in the 1930’s, at the onset of Civil War, and Saint-Germain is forced to flee to the United States, which is suffering the Great Depression. There he meets up with an old lover and is pursued by an enemy from Spain.

Yarbro takes pains to portray each historical setting, and it’s interesting to watch her immortal characters adapt and immerse themselves in the current culture, always as outsiders. I know that some readers don’t like seeing him in a modern setting, but I rather enjoy watching the ancient vampire driving cars and figuring out how to create a passport photo when his image doesn’t register on film.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with the readers who give this volume a low rating. In the "modern" setting, Saint-Germain doesn't seem to have as many opportunities to kick butt. It was a little bit of a chore to have to wait til the last few pages before he did. Still love these books though!

[Jeannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's "Midnight Harvest"Is set in the mid-1930s,in the twentieth
century set in the period immediately before the first world war.The period between
World Wars I and II.The history is very well-written from the cars to the movies
to the depression-era America. The time period was beautifully done though the story
lacked substance.I kept waiting for something to happen Nothing really happened
throughout the entire book. Things that should have been suspenseful seamed
rushed.The main characters were likable although it seamed being a vampire really
didn't apply other than longevity.The Main character had no backbone.I kept waiting
for him to defend and protect... Never happened.I was three quarters through the
book when I discovered one of the lead characters happens to be a youthful two
million-year-old ghoul. Pretty cool right?.Well not really...only a mention in the book. A few small
laughs though.I should have never entered into this series with book #16.I need to go back to book # 1 "Hotel Transylvania" and give it a try.

[Taldragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blending the dark eroticism of the vampire with hig adventure in history's most compelling locales (in this book, Spain and America during the Great Depression), the story of Saint-Germain is the enduring drama of a lonely hero who walks the earth throughout time, battling for honour...and love.

it's good fun, i'd read others in the series.

[J. Ewbank · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book by Chelsea Yarbro and I enjoyed it. It is a very different and interesting book. Do not usually spend too much time reading about vampires but this was very interesting and different from tne Ann Rice vampires.

J. Robert Ewbank author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"

[Msoneworld4me · Rating 5 out of 5]

Revisiting this book again. It still holds up as it is well written and offers insights into a troubled time in history. Add it to your Saint Germain collection.

[Samantha Brady · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course you know what I am going to say so why say it. BECAUSE it is Saint Germain and these are some of the best books about vampires ever. I will always love these books even if it is about Madaline or Olivia. I will always be reading them. VAMPIRES RULE!!!

[Rich]

Saint Germain #6

[Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Nancy Raines]

St. Germain (1936-1938) Book 17