Another year is nearly done, and if this post has been published then it appears that those Mayan types were wrong (or we’re now living on borrowed time. I can’t decide which). 2012 has been a busy year here at The Eloquent Page. I’ve read over one hundred books and managed to attend three conventions.  So, without any further ado here is my annual post covering my highlights of the year. Book of the Month (January to December) Jan – Hell Train by Christopher Fowler Feb – Cyber Circus by Kim Lakin Smith Mar – Redlaw by James Lovegrove Apr – Alchemists of Souls by Anne Lyle May – Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig June – Empire State by Adam Christopher July – Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis Aug – Blood and Feathers by Lou Morgan Sept – Great North Road by Peter F Hamilton Oct –  Coldbrook by Tim Lebbon Nov – Blood Fugue by Jospeh D’Lacey Dec – Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth And now for a few specific categories of my own devising.* Best Ongoing Series – Department 19 by Will Hill – The second novel in this series ,The Rising, was released this year and it’s great.  Brilliant characters,…

Please note that The President’s Vampire is a direct sequel to Blood Oath and that this review may contain some minor spoilers. Got it? Good, now on with the show… For 140 years, Nathaniel Cade has been the President’s Vampire, sworn by a blood oath to protect the President and America from their supernatural enemies. Cade’s existence is the most closely guarded of White House secrets: a superhuman covert agent who is the last line of defense against nightmare scenarios that ordinary citizens can only dream of. When a new outbreak of an ancient evil – one that Cade has seen before – comes to light, he and his human handler, Zach Barrows, must track down its source. To ‘protect and serve’ often means settling old scores and confronting new betrayals . . . as only a century-old predator can. A couple of weeks ago I happily devoured Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth. Politics, vampires and the seriously-deranged mad scientist proved to be a real winner. I enjoyed the novel a great deal, so much in fact that I decided that I needed to read the sequel as soon as my schedule would allow. Events pick up about a year after the…

Sharp and ambitious, Zach Barrows is on his way up. But when he gets a call from the White House, it’s not quite the promotion he expected. Zach is to be the new political liaison officer to America’s best kept secret: Nathaniel Cade. The President’s vampire. And Cade is the world’s only hope against a horrifying new terrorist threat advancing from the Middle East. The fight is deadlier than ever, and time is running out . . . Like partners in a mis-matched buddy cop movie, the relationship between Barrows and Cade is at the heart of this novel. Barrows starts the novel blissfully ignorant of the supernatural forces that exist in the world. After an unexpected promotion, the truth is revealed and his world view is completely turned on its head. Initially, Barrows is all cocky attitude and very sure of himself, glad to say that doesn’t last very long. Cade by contrast is aloof, and considers humans to be little more than cattle, exactly what you’d expect from a long lived vampire I suppose. The events this pair go through start to bring about a mutual respect and by the novel’s end there are hints of a bromance…