This book as been on my "Reading" shelf for a long time. I have recently made an effort to finish some of those books, and this was the first one that I've completed. It took me a long time to finish this book because I kept putting it down--and I struggled to pick it back up again. I think that there are several reasons for this: First, it was the very first novel that I ever purchased on the Kindle app for my iPad. I had never really read a novel as an e-book before, and it kept taking me some effort to get used to holding my iPad instead of a book. Over time, I started purchasing other e-books--and reading them--so I was finally able to get used to reading from my iPad. Second, the book is long. It is 480 pages long. In itself, this is not insurmountable. (After all, I have read War and Peace more than once.) The challenge for me was that many of these 480 pages were too dull. There were long, introspective passages that did very little to move the narrative along. I think that this became the primary reason that I had trouble picking up the book again after I had put it down. Fortunately for me, I would read the book in chunks. Many of the chunks were incredibly exciting and engaging, which kept me reading. When it reached a long, dull passage, I stopped--and had trouble starting again. In the end, I was finally able to overcome both of these challenges and finish what turned out to be an excellent novel.I was first introduced to this book by a friend of mine, Shannon, who picked up the book while we were browsing Borders. (Oh, how I miss Borders!!) The book is billed as "the First Napoleonic Historical Vampire Novel." That alone intrigued me. I have an inexhaustible interest in all things French and all things Russian, and I thought it would be incredibly interesting to hear about Napoleon's invasion of (and subsequent retreat from) Russia as a vampire novel. Crazy, right? Yes, but it works. (By the way, this is a classic vampire novel; it is not a sparkly, love-stricken vampire novel.)The novel centers on the life of Aleksei Ivanonvich Danilov, a spy in the Russian military who is working to defeat Napoleon. Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 provides the backdrop for a far more intriguing tale. This is not a novel about war; instead, the war provides the context for the story. (Incidentally, Jasper Kent does a wonderful job of weaving actual historical events, like the battle of Borodino, into the narrative.) As part of Danilov's spy work, he engages with a group of 12 people (hence the name of the book) called Oprichniki, who are unusually adept at dispatching entire battalions of the French army. For nearly half of the book, Danilov and his friend do not even realize that these Oprichniki are the vampires from their childhood folk tales; however, when it is revealed to him that they are, the narrative takes on a new form. At that point, Danilov need to work against both Napoleon and the vampires.The story has a great and satisfying ending. Even so, it's not really the end! This book is the first in what is to be a quintet of books that follow Danilov and his family from 1812 to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. I have not yet read the other books, but the next one, Thirteen Years Later, is on my reading list for 2013. I had high hopes for this book. Napoleon's abortive invasion of Russia combined with scary Vampires...The set up was perfect and mostly lived up to the hype on those two counts. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of much else. The prose was a bit overblown, perhaps on purpose, but it made some passages a chore, especially when the pacing was already off in the middle sections.The biggest problem I had was with the characters. There were hints of interesting characterizations, but they were outnumbered by an underdrawn secondary cast. Honestly there were only three characters with any personality in the whole book and (spoiler alert) one dies in the first third. None of these three are women. In fact the only women characters we meet for any extended period are prostitutes. I'm honestly not a feminist, but there is a problem when the only women in your book are cardboard cutout prostitutes.Despite these criticisms, I enjoyed the book. The setting was beautiful and the villains were legitimately scary. It was a good debut novel and I would be interested to read more of Jasper Kent as he develops as a writer.
Do You like book I Dodici (2010)?
Greatly enjoyed this book and can't wait to get my hands on the next one!
—nasiba
Ok read. Ending seemed kinda rushed and incomplete.
—kyle
