With the continued success of the Interview With A Vampire series, we have seen there is always to update older texts.
For Sara Hinkley’s novel The Red Sacrament, we don’t modernise the setting but this feels a story that owes debts to those that came before it. By this I mean, Hinkley is aware of the vampire lore but puts whole new spins on how they operate and survive.
We begin in Paris in the late 1800s, and follow a ragtag group of theatre performers who tend to stay out a bit later, if you catch my drift…
This sprawling tale shows the group having to adjust to a changing world, and what starts off as a weird, off-kilter almost peak behind the curtain, becomes a tale of survival against the odds.
I can’t recall vampires being thrown into times of war and revolution, and it’s this energy that gives The Red Sacrament a fresh feel.
Hinkley is meticulous in her descriptions of Paris at this time, so much you can almost smell the decay and rot, as the city struggles in changing times coupled with the vampires need to survive.
You may feel like the vampire lore has had all of its boxes ticked at this stage, but Hinkley has shown there’s plenty more fresh blood to mine yet.
The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley is available in various formats from Titan Books.
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