Nights of Blood Wine is a collection of fifteen short horror fantasy stories from Freda Warrington, author of a number of dark fantasy novels including Dracula the Undead, and Elfland. The first ten tales are set in the world of the Blood Wine novels, and the other five are described as tales of the imagination. The book is printed across 215 pages on good quality white paper, and features cover artwork by Martin Baines. It is published by Telos.

There are a number of positive quotes from reviews, but I feel I’m probably the wrong person to be reviewing this. I’m a huge horror fan, and enjoy some fantasy albeit usually the warrior/heroic fantasy of David Gemmell or Raymond E. Feist. However, I have no liking for the modern sympathetic vampire. Much as the ten stories set in the situations of the Blood Wine novels are pretty much stand-alone and avoid (or even pre-date) the excruciating teen hunk Twilight books, they are very emotional and gothic in the modern dark romance vein. There is nothing wrong with character-driven stories (all the best ones are), but it comes across very heavily that they were penned by a female writer. I’m afraid they just didn’t engage my interest, which is a shame as I have good memories of the book A Blackbird in Silver.

My opinion here is pretty much the same as the review of Cthulhu and Other Monsters, in that the random short stories work better than the themed section of the book. Again, the emotional aspect of a female dark romance writer is very much at the forefront of the atmosphere. Make no mistake, the writing is very good, as you would expect from an accomplished fantasy writer, but I can’t get past the thick, almost cloying honey poured over the whole thing. I’m sure my opinion will be controversial though, particularly by women who enjoy the contemporary vampire tale.

A hand-written signature from the author is a nice touch.

4

Ty Power