In the Face of Death
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REVIEW BY WILLIAM GAGLIANI
Readers who embrace the heady hybrid of romance, history and horror will welcome a new novel by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, the best-selling author of more than 60 novels, including the popular Saint-Germain vampire series. And readers fascinated by the Civil War will devour In the Face of Death, a satisfying tale of the lovely vampire Madelaine de Montalia and her decades-long affair with William Tecumseh Sherman. Madelaine, a character familiar from Saint-Germain novels, is a wealthy and youthful-looking vampire with "improper" scholarly ambitions. In 1845, she decides to study various American Indian tribes before their old traditions are destroyed by white settlers. But she cannot know that her immortal life will be altered by the forceful San Francisco banker she meets after spending eight years in the western wilderness. Indeed, William T. Sherman -- Tecumseh, as she will come to know and love him -- is married, but he immediately falls prey to her vast charms as an intellectual equal and a French woman of means. Conducted under the wagging noses of San Francisco society, their affair is mercurial from the start. Tecumseh is combative, passionate and headstrong, refusing to disgrace his absent wife and family. But he can't resist the eroticism of the blood bond he and Madelaine soon share when she confides her secret. Soon the couple parts as Madelaine continues her study of the disappearing native people and Tecumseh becomes the famed Union general. Years later, when war inevitably breaks out over the issue of slavery, Madelaine and Tecumseh are reunited with fiery results in Georgia, where she tends wounded of both sides, and he prepares his infamous march from Atlanta to Savannah. Yarbro's attention to detail highlights this superb historical novel full of insight and romantic drama. Tragic reunions and partings reflect the deep sadness of an immortal's love for a human and the societal propriety that keeps them apart. Like fellow author Elaine Bergstrom's vampires, Saint-Germain and Madeleine are no gore-spattered monsters, but rather mirrors held up to the events and mores of their times. Quinn Yarbro thrilled readers with her first e-book offering, Magnificat, and again she balances description, action and romance excellently, producing a highly readable historical fantasy. Yet another example of how literary horror can elucidate as well as thrill, In the Face of Death is strong fare indeed. Bill Gagliani is the author of Shadowplays from Ebooksonthe.net
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