Vampire Watchmen

Samantha Carter, who lives in London, goes back in time to the London of 1665 to fight vampires with her friends from another time travel experience. This is a one-sentence summary of the book Vampire Watchmen.

This is the second in a series of books that tell us about the time travels of Samantha and her fights with vampires. Her friends, the preacher, Harry, Louise and Zoe are turnskins or skinturners, which is another name for werewolves.

Samantha feels drawn toward the Underground, where all the books in the series seem to begin, and once inside, suddenly lands in the London of 1665. The author, Tim O’Rourke, has incorporated The Great Plague (1665–66) and The Great Fire of London (1666) quite convincingly in the novel.

Unless you know British history well, you might believe his explanations for both these historic events. You may even believe in his version of what happened to Catherine of Braganza, Queen of King Charles II.

The book is well-written and managed to keep my interest alive with its vivid descriptions. Although the characters are interesting, I wished that there was a little more background information on them.

Even though ‘vampire watchmen’ mean Samantha and her friends, there is also a watchman who is a vampire, which makes it slightly confusing.

I had difficulty in understanding some of the frequent references to what had happened earlier; so I had to read the synopsis of Vampire Seeker, the first book in the series and Vampire Flappers, book number 1.5. 

I liked the book. I would have liked it better had I read the books 1 and 1.5.

Note: This book was given to me by Little, Brown Book Group UK in exchange for an honest review. I thank them (especially Clara Diaz) for that.