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Saint-Germain #10
Writ in Blood
Ambitious in its scope and provocative in its content, the saga of the undying Count Saint-Germain is a monumental feat of the imagination.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's novels have powerfully captured Saint-Germain throughout his long existence, from the temples of Ancient Egypt to our present century.
Now, on the verge of the First World War, Saint-Germain accepts a top-secret assignment from Czar Nicholas of Russia to deliver one last proposal for peace to the crowned heads of Europe. But powerful men plot against Saint-Germain--and may use his love for a talented young artist against him.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's novels have powerfully captured Saint-Germain throughout his long existence, from the temples of Ancient Egypt to our present century.
Now, on the verge of the First World War, Saint-Germain accepts a top-secret assignment from Czar Nicholas of Russia to deliver one last proposal for peace to the crowned heads of Europe. But powerful men plot against Saint-Germain--and may use his love for a talented young artist against him.
544 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
3 people are currently reading
313 people want to read
About the author
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
260 books477 followersA 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 27, 2009
Yet another entertaining entry in the Saint-Germain cycle, a series of more than two dozen books about a 4000-yr-old world-traveling debonair vampire. Set in England, Germany, Amsterdam and Russia from 1910-1912.
Czar Nicholas II sends our hero to visit the Czar's ailing uncle, Edward VII of England, with a proposal for England, Russia and Germany to limit arms production and sales, given the current unrest in Europe. The plot is a little far-fetched (nobody except the Czar really expects it to work) but it's a handy device to allow Saint-Germain to travel all over Europe and Russia, tailed by British and German spies and plotted against by murderous arms dealers. (It's fun to see the ancient vampire in trains and motor cars.)
The book is a little dry in the beginning but improves greatly in the second half. We have the usual mustache-swirling villain and the expected melodramatic love affair, although the heroine has better luck than some of Saint-Germain's women. She's a strong character, and since I understand that she shows up in a later book, I look forward to seeing her again.
Czar Nicholas II sends our hero to visit the Czar's ailing uncle, Edward VII of England, with a proposal for England, Russia and Germany to limit arms production and sales, given the current unrest in Europe. The plot is a little far-fetched (nobody except the Czar really expects it to work) but it's a handy device to allow Saint-Germain to travel all over Europe and Russia, tailed by British and German spies and plotted against by murderous arms dealers. (It's fun to see the ancient vampire in trains and motor cars.)
The book is a little dry in the beginning but improves greatly in the second half. We have the usual mustache-swirling villain and the expected melodramatic love affair, although the heroine has better luck than some of Saint-Germain's women. She's a strong character, and since I understand that she shows up in a later book, I look forward to seeing her again.
September 1, 2019
Weighing at 530 pages, this is a long book. If the author did not tell the reader what every single character was wearing every single time they are in a scene, the book would probably be 250-300 pages. I like to know what people wear in period novels but I don't have to know that much. It was interesting to see the rise of automobiles and their use when horses are still used. I enjoyed living in the time period just before WWI. I also enjoyed travels to Russia, Germany, and Amsterdam. The main character, Saint-Germain, is a several thousand years old vampire. He falls in love with a British female artist. They "make love" however there are no details on how he takes her blood during the lovemaking. Also mentioned is six times and you will be a vampire too but I was not told if his British artist and he made love six or more times. The other characters are an arms dealer, a dancer/prostitute/, and a series of spies that I suspect is the same spy, but I'm not sure. It's a good story but a little less detail and more information on the dangling storylines would make it better.
This is the 10th Saint Germain so perhaps I would not have as many questions if the same characters were in her previous books but I would still have many of the same questions and problems. A good editor would have made this book much better. I find as authors become popular their books are longer and not as enjoyable to read. I've seen it happen to Stephen King.
This is the 10th Saint Germain so perhaps I would not have as many questions if the same characters were in her previous books but I would still have many of the same questions and problems. A good editor would have made this book much better. I find as authors become popular their books are longer and not as enjoyable to read. I've seen it happen to Stephen King.
August 28, 2018
I borrowed this one ... managed to slog through, but I found it too much of a yawn for me to track down the other volumes in a veryveryveryvery long series. Odd, because I usually love thick books that are rich in detail, with voluptuous undercurrents. Anne Rice's Cry to Heaven is on my all-time favorites list, for example, but Yarbro just didn't get me there. Sorry, guys.
October 5, 2022
Felt like this one took a while to get started. Wasn't bad, but there are better in the series.
June 4, 2014
I cut my vampire fangs reading Yarbro's Saint-Germain Chronicles, back in the 80s. When I found a copy of this book on my shelf, with a bookmark stuck in it, I realized I had never finished it (after starting it almost ten years ago!), so I figured now was the time.
If you've never read any of the Saint-Germain novels, Ms. Yarbro has taken an actual historic character, the alchemist known as Saint-Germain, and turned him into a vampire. Saint-Germain has been alive since the pyramids. There are always repetitions in each of the novels - Saint-Germain's enigmatic stare, his melodic voice, his small hands and lack of stature, though he appears, somehow, to be taller than anyone in the room. There's also the costume and food porn to be expected within the novels, and I feel I know far more about what past various civilizations ate than perhaps I ought to.
In this novel, the setting is just prior to WWI, and Saint-Germain is living in Russia. Czar Nikolai requests him to try to reach an accord with England and Germany (where Nikolai's cousins sit the thrones) to curtail the manufacture of arms and armaments, in an attempt to promote peace. Of course, despite his powers of persuasion, Saint-Germain cannot get audiences with either king, and, instead earns the enmity of von Wolgast, an arms manufacturer. Von Wolgast has spies willing to to follow Saint-Germain around and collect information, providing the intel that Saint-Germain is spending time with a British woman, Rowena Saxon, who is determined to become a painter.
With a backdrop of ongoing political maneuvering, this novel seemed sometimes tedious, but was still enjoyable. It has been such a long time since I've read anything by Yarbro, I had forgotten the sheer amount of detail in her works, from clothing to vehicles to horses to homesteads and rooms and furniture...by the time I finished this novel, I was ready for something a little lighter, like, maybe Dr. Seuss? That doesn't stop me from admiring the amount of research and work Ms. Yarbro puts into creating the scenes in her novels, and Saint-Germain certainly stands out from a lot of other, newer (and older) vampires.
If you've never read any of the Saint-Germain novels, Ms. Yarbro has taken an actual historic character, the alchemist known as Saint-Germain, and turned him into a vampire. Saint-Germain has been alive since the pyramids. There are always repetitions in each of the novels - Saint-Germain's enigmatic stare, his melodic voice, his small hands and lack of stature, though he appears, somehow, to be taller than anyone in the room. There's also the costume and food porn to be expected within the novels, and I feel I know far more about what past various civilizations ate than perhaps I ought to.
In this novel, the setting is just prior to WWI, and Saint-Germain is living in Russia. Czar Nikolai requests him to try to reach an accord with England and Germany (where Nikolai's cousins sit the thrones) to curtail the manufacture of arms and armaments, in an attempt to promote peace. Of course, despite his powers of persuasion, Saint-Germain cannot get audiences with either king, and, instead earns the enmity of von Wolgast, an arms manufacturer. Von Wolgast has spies willing to to follow Saint-Germain around and collect information, providing the intel that Saint-Germain is spending time with a British woman, Rowena Saxon, who is determined to become a painter.
With a backdrop of ongoing political maneuvering, this novel seemed sometimes tedious, but was still enjoyable. It has been such a long time since I've read anything by Yarbro, I had forgotten the sheer amount of detail in her works, from clothing to vehicles to horses to homesteads and rooms and furniture...by the time I finished this novel, I was ready for something a little lighter, like, maybe Dr. Seuss? That doesn't stop me from admiring the amount of research and work Ms. Yarbro puts into creating the scenes in her novels, and Saint-Germain certainly stands out from a lot of other, newer (and older) vampires.
July 7, 2012
1910 – Europe is in unrest – The rulers of England, Germany, and Russia are related (Edward of England and Nicholas of Russia are cousins, and the Kaiser is their uncle)… and Nicholas reads the signs of and fears war; he especially fears it for his family – his son who is so curious, but is hemophiliac and at risk, and for his daughters. He engages Ragoczy to approach Edward and the Kaiser in secret to attempt to negotiate an arms reduction towards maintaining peace … but Ragoczy fails, for many reasons – Edward who is favorable to the deal unfortunately dies, and his son is taking the middle road… and due to the underhanded ways of von Walgast, who spreads rumors about Ragoczy, kills Nadenza (a retired ballerina whom Ragoczy is underwriting her school, who also prostitutes herself and others for additional money) and plants it on Ragoczy, Ragoczy never gained access to the Kaiser. His mission failed.
Von Walgast is a baron, and he is pedaling arms – making improvements (automatic triggers, armored cars) and selling to anyone… and he it becomes personal for him to counter Ragoczy – to the point that he kidnaps Rowena… but Ragoczy finds her (by their blood connection), and saves her.
And his love – his humanity – in this book is Rowena. Her grandfather is a millionaire businessman in San Francisco (started by selling to miners in the gold rush), his daughter married an impoverished English Duke & steps into the royalty, and Rowena is rebellious – an artist who does not want to be tied by the traditional roles of women and subjection – and her grandfather finances her independence, in spite of her parents’ ditress. She unbends to allow Ragoczy into her bed, and to have tender feelings for him – and we come to love Ragoczy more for his acceptance and appreciation of her vision.
And we also meet Countess Amalija – an elder woman (50?) and his long time lover. He enjoys her in a different way than the other women we have met… she does not seem to need him the way others did? But there is a closeness and respect between them. hmmm
Von Walgast is a baron, and he is pedaling arms – making improvements (automatic triggers, armored cars) and selling to anyone… and he it becomes personal for him to counter Ragoczy – to the point that he kidnaps Rowena… but Ragoczy finds her (by their blood connection), and saves her.
And his love – his humanity – in this book is Rowena. Her grandfather is a millionaire businessman in San Francisco (started by selling to miners in the gold rush), his daughter married an impoverished English Duke & steps into the royalty, and Rowena is rebellious – an artist who does not want to be tied by the traditional roles of women and subjection – and her grandfather finances her independence, in spite of her parents’ ditress. She unbends to allow Ragoczy into her bed, and to have tender feelings for him – and we come to love Ragoczy more for his acceptance and appreciation of her vision.
And we also meet Countess Amalija – an elder woman (50?) and his long time lover. He enjoys her in a different way than the other women we have met… she does not seem to need him the way others did? But there is a closeness and respect between them. hmmm
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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April 17, 2023Yarbro’s St Germain tales are filled with history, relationships and elegantly lyrical writing.
May 29, 2013
It was just okay. I am bored of the St. Germaine series and the previous book I read from same author was awful. I just left it on the window pane at the ice cream shop in the University District when I finished reading it.
March 25, 2009
Anything with St. Germaine is a cracking good read.
January 8, 2011
Second or third time I've tried to read this one, am reminded again why I quit. Is boring and quite formulaic. Yarbro's psycho-sexual-sadist villains get repetitive.
October 22, 2014
Saint-Germain in 1910 Europe & Russia. Loved the characters in this one, especially how CQY portrayed Czar Nicholas.... and Rowena Saxon-"No-I'm-not-going-to-marry-you, Rupert!" -Pearce-Manning :-)
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September 1, 2013St. Germain (1910-1912) Book 11
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews