Book review: The Graves of Saints

The Graves of Saints is another of Christopher Golden's Shadow Saga novels, a series that started out as a trilogy but got revived and extended into an indefinite sequence. It's always felt more like a publisher's request than a story Golden was desperate to tell, especially as this vampire saga was revived just as the latest craze for them was at its peak. And although there's been some entertaining books in the series this one really fell flat for me. This time there's the leader of an old-school vampire coven who takes a personal vendetta out on the series' lead, Peter Octavian, as well as a number of demonic incursions around the world, the graves of decapitated saints becoming portals from hell dimensions. But the book took me weeks to get through because the story steadfastly refuses to get started until at least 70% of the way in. Much of it is about Octavian dealing with a personal grief and failing to spring into action, which makes for about as dynamic a story as it sounds. This book is pretty obvious setup for the next in the series, and seems to be partly about establishing a new breed of supernatural creatures to populate upcoming volumes, but on its own terms it's pretty disappointing.