Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle

Received free e-galley from NetGalley & publisher - Curiosity Quills Press, for an honest review.

I am a fan of Cox' Division Zero series and looked forward to a new genre from him. This book is a unique, stand-alone novel that spans a long time frame. It starts off with Father Antonio Molinari casting out unclean spirits from a peasant girl and while resting being introduced to the real story - a child who is a vampire. This is unimaginable for him and as he struggles with a child's innocence and the inherent evil of vampirism, he is turned. The book has great character depth and is unlike many of the current vampire ya genre books out there. It seems more like a true, old-fashioned book with ALL the characters having good and evil, all flawed yet struggling. Highly recommend.

Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle by Matthew S. Cox is such an awesome fantasy novel from start to finish! Talk about a finish, WOW, I didn't see that coming! The book is set in the 1800's about a Priest that hunts evil, vampires, demons, etc. He is led to a child that is a vampire and held by two Priest that have been torturing her to test her. She is not responding like adult vampires. The Priest sees good in the child and decides to protect her. The story goes from there. Very exciting and never dull. Touching, frightening, and fast moving. This author never fails me, I love his books. The books are so well plotted and weave plots into plots with twists and turns. The characters are rich with life, no pun intended. Each and every character you can say, "I know him/her!" What a wonderful fantasy, mystery, action, adventure, and fatherly love story. Great job! I received this book from NetGalley for a honest review.

Review originally posted <a href="http://www.girl-who-reads.com/2016/08/review-chiaroscuro-by-matthew-s-cox.html">at Girl Who Reads.</a>

Father Antonio hunts creatures of darkness in Europe, from demons to vampires, and tries to save the innocent so that their souls can be saved. He tries to rely on his faith, but it's sorely tested when he is called to examine a child vampire named Sabine. Holy water and the cross don't trouble her, and she continues to pray to God to be a good person. He can't reconcile this with the horrible monsters he had destroyed, and in trying to prevent her destruction at the hands of other priests is mortally wounded. Sabine saves his life by turning him into a vampire, and Father Antonio spends the rest of the novel in search of a way to undo the curse so that she can find salvation and free her soul. His faith is tested many times, but his concern is always for Sabine and her wellbeing.

This is an interesting take on vampires, especially in the form of Sabine. Unlike Claudia from Interview With The Vampire, Sabine's mental state remains that of an eight-year-old girl. She is only dimly aware of the passage of time and events so that they slide together, and she doesn't have a good concept of time. It's definitely in keeping with that stage of development and a change from the stories that have vampires frozen in time physically, but continuing to develop mentally so that they would have adult longings and understanding. Father Antonio cares for Sabine as if she was his human daughter, and tries to balance his faith in God with the fact that he is a vampire and must have human blood to survive.

Descriptions are vivid, and really paint the picture of the surroundings in each time period. It sometimes feels as though there's too much description, like we're living a night in the life of a vampire. At other times, it really hooks you in. The boat ride feels almost claustrophobic, and the decay of different hiding spots is overwhelming. You feel just as frustrated with Antonio's inability to find any accurate information regarding vampires or vampirism. It's amusing to see how he fumbles with technology, or how wrong he was when he thought television would never take off. Sabine is a sweet child, for all that she has to drink blood, and her losses were just as devastating for me to experience along with her. The ending is sudden but fits the story and the characters well. I look forward to seeing more books by this author.

Chiaroscuro started out super creepy, then slowed down a bit, but finished at a sprint. Not your typical vampire novel, this story follows a Vatican priest who is desperate to save someone who might not be as innocent as she appears, but knows that he could lose his own humanity along the way. This book was a wonderfully new take on the vampire legend, combining the familiar tropes (inability to venture into sunlight, blood lust, etc.) with new twists (using personal willpower to fight against the revulsion toward religious objects). The first few chapters were borderline terrifying, but after the two main characters met each other the story became more of a domestic, slice-of-life type of book, focusing on the interactions of two very different vampires as they attempt to survive the centuries together. The characters and their motivations were as realistic as possible in a novel about vampires and the plot was perfectly paced to keep the reader interested all the way through.

This is a welcome and refreshingly different type of vampire novel. It is beautifully written, with the two very likeable main characters, Father Molinari and Sabine.

Father Molinari is an exorcist/vampire hunter for the Vatican who has a change of heart when he meets Sabine, an eight year old whose father has turned unwillingly into a vampire. The plot revolves around Molinari protecting Sabine, from Belle Epoque France to modern Manhattan, even becoming a vampire himself in the process.

Molinari is a complex and humane character, much like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Comte St. Germain. This is a wonderful break with the tradition of greedy, inhuman vampires.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. If you like vampire novels, read this book. You will not be disappointed!