Lightfall
Book One of The Everlands
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
A novel of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the stunning debut epic fantasy by Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings
For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.
Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.
There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Crocker's intricate debut explores the politics and power struggles in a stratified vampire city. Sam Ingle is a Worn, one of the lowest caste of vampires who are afforded only the worst blood. In her job as a palace maid, she learns that the youngest son of First Lord Azzuri has been found dead outside the city walls, killed by the sinister Grays, who all vampires have been taught to fear. Sam hopes to rise in station by investigating the murder, a search which leads her to the Leeches, a group of women spies who use their menial jobs within the halls of power to gather blackmail material for the betterment of all Worns. Working with the Queen Leech; her guard, an infamous wolf-shifter and assassin; and two mages who arrived in the city also hoping to investigate the murder, Sam discovers that there was more to the young Azzuri's death than meets the eye. But the more they uncover of what turns out to be a vast conspiracy, the more their own lives are in danger. The worldbuilding is classic paranormal fantasy, but the many players and complex politics lend this an epic fantasy feel. Crocker shows plenty of promise.
