is this really castlevania fanfic? i love castlevania, but really couldn't get into this. unlikeable characters, bland story. i was really excited for the polyamorous vampires, too. :(

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

If you have been chasing the high that the Supernatural gave you, then read Silver under nightfall! It has a dean-coded character set in a Castlevania + Resident Evil World!

This book is so supernatural and dean-coded. A righteous and powerful vampire Hunter, who the kingdom has ostracized he fights to protect under the guidance of his awful asshole father who forced him to fight in order to avenge his mother, who was killed by the monster they hunt
He teams up with two vampire nobels who work to bring about a human vampire alliance. One of them is a powerful and ethereal vampire who loves humanity and knows the pain of being forced to do horrible things at the order of his king (wink wink Castiel). As they try to figure out who is responsible for creating a new superhuman strain to vampires called the rot, Remy and his partners get closer than expected.
Remy is a self-sacrificing, righteous hero who has been used by everyone around him for their own gain. He throws himself into danger to protect those around him and will take the most tragic hunts that other hunters refuse to touch in order to bring peace to the victims.
He is constantly used and degraded by the people around him and still fights for the kingdom that scorns him at every turn. He doesn’t believe himself deserving of love or comfort but truly deserves the world for all he has endured.
AND IT HAS AN AMAZING POLY ROMANCE!

Silver Under Nightfall is a gothic polyamorous vampire hunting murder mystery. We follow Remy as he works with two vampires to track down a new breed of vampire that could have dangerous consequences.

I thoroughly enjoyed Rin Chupeco's writing, world-building, and character relationships throughout the book. It was wonderful to see consent explored through the story through the polyamorous relationship. The atmosphere was perfectly gothic and what was happening with the vampires kept me engaged until the end.

My only complaint and why it's a 4 star was because I thought the pacing dragged a little in the middle, but the beginning and end worked really well for me. If you are looking for/interested in trying a queer vampire story, I'd highly recommend this one!

This book immediately sucked me in, I read it in nearly 3 sittings! It has something for everyone: morally grey characters, sex appeal, adventure, gore, and a great mystery. I cannot recommend this enough, Rin Chupeco has earned a lifelong fan!

Remy Pendergast's tale is a seductive blend of gothic horror and exhilarating adventure within the treacherous courts of Aluria and beyond. With a lineage as scandalous as it is noble, Remy stands as a pariah among his peers, an elite hunter entwined with the fate of a kingdom teetering on the edge of a dark abyss. As he allies with the enigmatic vampire heiress Xiaodan Song and her formidable fiancé, Zidan Malekh, against a monstrous threat, I found myself engrossed in the narrative that thrills with its brutal elegance and evokes the chill of ancient crypts and the warmth of forbidden affection. The court intrigue and sinister plots had me holding my breath with each page turn. However, the journey is as humorous as it is harrowing, punctuated by moments of poignant insight and razor-sharp wit.

The brilliance of this novel lies not only in its relentless pace and gothic atmosphere but in its characters—Remy, with his complex heritage and unwavering courage, ascends as a hero for the ages. The romantic entanglements are electric and I am hoping we get more in the second installment with such wonderful representation.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than it deserved. The premise just didn't pay off for me and I nearly got a headache from the bloated cast of secondary characters. Holy crap, there are a lot of people in this story. Remy was not a very compelling lead and it seemed that the romance happens because people feel sorry for him (??) There is a lot more telling than showing and in the end I didn't much care for anyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and SagaPress for this copy of Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco.

This book follows Remy, a vampire hunter, who gets involved with two vampire heads of Court. Working together, they investigate a new strain of vampire that has emerged. Over time while working with the Xiaodan and Zidan, Remy begins to question human and vampire relations, as well as his own feelings for the engaged vampire couple.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one! I thought it was entertaining and had a relatively easy story to follow. There wasn't anything overly complicated politically or within the world building. Vampires exist - they belong to eight different 'Courts'. They have a tenuous relationship with the human population of the world. Each Court has a different vampire that rules over it. The engaged couple of Zidan and Xiaodan, rulers of the Third and Fourth Courts, happen to enter into a working relationship with Remy, which eventually develops into something more.

I thought the relationship between Remy and Xiaodan and Ziadan was written really well. Chupeco did a great job of touching on this idea of communication and consent between the characters. They wrote some great polyamory rep in this novel and I thought that Remy's perspective of the relationship as it unfolded was great to watch. He struggled with voicing and identifying his feelings for Zidan and wasn't sure how to navigate that initially.

All of this is set on the backdrop of the new strain of vampire rampaging through the land. There's action - some really great fight scenes, and some somewhat predictable reveals, but that didn't take away from the entertainment value of the story.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review!

Thanks to Saga Press for sending me the widget for Silver Under Nightfall! This review is entirely my own thoughts and opinions of the Netgalley e-arc.

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When it comes to vampire stories, it's not that hard to get me persuaded to read them. Especially when you start out your pitch with "queer, bloody Gothic, vampire fantasy". I will say yes. Which is what happened with this book. And oh wow am I glad I said "Yes" to the book!

Silver Under Nightfall is a fantastic take on vampire mythos. Remy is a reaper—vampire hunter— who is shunned by his city and fellow reapers, mostly thanks to his father. So he pushes himself to be the best of them. When a new sort of infected appear, he sets out to investigate, only to fall into partnership with two Vampire leaders—the heiress of the Fourth Court and the King of the Third Court. As they travel together, uncovering the secrets behind the Rot, Remy discovers there's more to the history he thought he knew of his world, and to his partnership with these two vampires.

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MY THOUGHTS:

This is a bloody brilliant tale. Rin Chupeco has once again proven to me that they are a stellar storyteller and weaver of new worlds. While keeping many of the classic tropes of Vampire tales, Rin also weaved in new aspects that made Silver Under Nightfall a fresh take that kept me hooked on this book. Some of my favorite aspects of this book were the fantastic monsters that were horrific and grotesque, which created exhilarating and nail biting action sequences; excellent political machinations and court intrigue; delicious bisexual/polyamorous tension; and a wealth of fully fleshed out characters that were dynamic and complex.

At the start of the tale, Remy is... annoying. He makes me uncomfortable in that way overly sex-obsessed young men do. And I think that was the author's goal. We very quickly come to find out that while Remy has been shunned by the majority of Reaper society, the married women of the Ton, particularly the estranged wife of the High Lord Steward, have been using him in their beds from the moment he hit puberty. And with his father encouraging it, it's no wonder he is as annoying and uncomfortable to follow at the start. But as he begins to separate himself from the society that shunned him and the ton that abused him, he begins to grow with the help of Xiaodan and Malekh. By the end of this book, he's become one of my favorite characters in a vampire book. Him, Xiaodan, and Malekh.

The tension between the three is absolutely delicious. I especially loved the exploration of Remy's sexuality. He's never been with a man before, so Malekh was his first. Exploring those growing feelings of attractions that Remy has never had for men before was fantastic representation of how bisexuality is discovered for some. It was for me. It was such validation for me to see a character uncover their sexuality in a way similar to how I discovered mine. And while there were many ways that Reaper society mocked him, I appreciated that Rin chose not to have Remy mocked for his queerness. Lord, they attacked and shunned him for many things—both true and false narratives—but him being queer was not one of them, and I appreciate Rin for that choice.

Overall, this was a delightful tale that was incredibly hard for me to put down. I've been in a bit of a reading rut lately and this overcame it. If you're like me and you love queer vampire tales, then this needs to be on your immediate TBR. Rin Chupeco hit a homerun with this one AND the sequel is out next month.

Thank you again to Saga Press for reaching out to me and sending me a copy of this book. I had an absolute blast reading this.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book—dark and bloody, perfectly gothic, adult fantasy with vampires and vampire hunters, gruesome monsters, court politics, murder mystery, and a dark QUEER enemies-to-lovers romance with angst and banter and 🌶

It's a page-turner, with not a dull moment, perfectly paced, full of action and tension. The characters are so alluring, a brooding and mysterious centuries old handsome vampire lord, a gorgeous vampire princess with strange powers, and an outcast vampire hunter, I'm rooting so hard for this trio, they are dealing with so much 😭

I'm a HUGE fan of Castlevania, EOTV, and The Witcher, and this series has vibes from all three.

I love this book. I love everything about this book. This book chewed holes through my brain matter, Very Hungry Caterpillar style. This book will live inside me, forever. Silver Under Nightfall is fun and sensual and fast paced and horrific and I love every single word.