Review: Ambrosian

Ambrosian by Siobhan Baxter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very interesting and compelling take on the vampire legend. Our protagonist, Tara, is a young woman who has no interest in vampires. They can stay in their lands and she in hers. Unlike so many other humans, she feels no fascination; she does not want to meet or socialize with them. She doesn’t understand the attraction and is dismayed when her sister insists they visit a vampire club. Even though Tara doesn’t want to go, she needs to be sure Hannah is safe. With that one fateful decision, Tara’s life changes forever.

At the club, Hannah is in her element drinking at the bar, making new friends, and cozying up to a vampire. Tara watches in horror as Hannah becomes a willing blood donor. She is adamant it will not happen to her. No fanged monster is biting her neck. Not now, not ever. Never comes a little sooner than Tara expected, when she gets herself into a spot of trouble and has to choose one vampire over another as the lesser of two evils.

At least it’s over with, and she never has to do that again. No more vampire bars, no more vampires. Been there, done that, has the mark on her neck to prove it. However, it’s not going to happen again, no matter how much Hannah pleads for her to go again. Except, she’s feeling a strange compulsion to visit the bar again. So much so that she’s begging Hannah to go with her. How weird, this can’t be what she wants, can it? She isn’t turning into a blood-junkie, she despises blood-junkies, chasing after vampires is contemptible, and it certainly isn’t her.

Tara soon learns that she is in grave danger, the compulsion wasn’t coming from inside herself, it was a vampire messing around in her head. Not to mention, there’s the matter of the single bite, the one that she thought she’d never have to experience again, awakening something inside herself that will require her to seek out the company of vampires over and over again as long as she lives. For Tara is something rare, a prize that any vampire who tastes her blood or discovers what she is, will fight and kill for. Tara is an ambrosian.

Ambrosians are so rare that many vampires think they are just the stuff of legend. Ambrosians have a genetic condition that makes them the perfect vampire food supply. Not only does their blood taste amazing, but they produce extra, necessitating regular blood letting. Not to mention that they become addicted to the venom injected during the feeding process. Without a vampire, Tara will die, but with a vampire, she will become its property. In vampire lands, humans have no rights. Vampires own them and breed them like cattle. This isn’t the life Tara signed up for, and she’s determined that somehow she’s going to figure a way out.


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