Gabriel Lennox would rather not be involved in Chosen society at all. He would rather not drink blood, not be involved in their parties and certainly not create new vampires. He definitely has no interest in being their prince.
However, his solitude is not to continue. Lillith, his powerful and ancient creator, insists he take the throne while Seth, competition for that throne, is determined to make him into a rival. Throw in the plotting of the true immortals – as well as a whole lot of questioning over what immortality actually means – and Gabriel’s peace is shattered
So this book is definitely different from most of the vampire books out there. We follow Gabriel a vampire and hailed as a prince who really really doesn’t want to be a prince.
There’s a really interesting ongoing plot/debate of this book about what it means to be immortal. After all, Lillith promises the vampires (or not vampires since they often deny the title) immortality but how do they know they have it? And how do you even test that? And does the rules for one apply to all? This is central obsession of Gabriel and Seth – are they really immortal?
And if they are immortal then that begs lots of other questions – like why is Gabriel following orders? Why should he do what Lillith tells him? After all, isn’t he immortal, what is Lillith going to do?
In fact a lot of Gabriel’s character – in between the eternal surliness that is ever-present in this character – is based on him questioning the reality people present to him. He doesn’t want to be prince, but if he is going to be prince then they don’t get to make demands of him so who are all these people giving him orders?
Interestingly we also have some characters in very painful and difficult circumstances – Bela lost in Seth’s shadow and Colin, battling addiction and hatred of the world and himself – that latter of which really drives him to extreme behaviour. I wish more had been developed with him because he seemed to be a far more compelling character than the eternally surly Gabriel whose specialness seems entirely based on the super special woo-woo only he has for Reasons
The world itself is also somewhat unusual. We have many books with vampires deciding they should take over or be superior and the protagonists opposing that. But this comes with a whole different level brought by Lillith and her fellow originators of the vampires, each with their own agenda
