THE PAST… Caught behind the lines of Hitler’s Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazi’s themselves…
THE PRESENT… Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world’s most horrible and violent events. Killing from a distance, and by darkly manipulative proxy, they are people with the psychic ability to ‘use’ humans: read their minds, subjugate them to their wills, experience through their senses, feed off their emotions, force them to acts of unspeakable aggression. Each year, three of the most powerful of this hidden order meet to discuss their ongoing campaign of induced bloodshed and deliberate destruction. But this reunion, something will go terribly wrong. Saul’s quest is about to reach its elusive object, drawing hunter and hunted alike into a struggle that will plumb the depths of mankind’s attraction to violence, and determine the future of the world itself…
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! So, those that have read this book will understand why I put it off for so long – it’s bloody enormous! The paperback copy that I have is almost 800 pages, and the print is tiny. I heard great things and I kept meaning to get around to it, but with the amount of review requests I still have pending, I couldn’t bring myself to use so much reading time on a personal TBR item of this size. But then… I made the insane decision to repaint and redecorate my living room in the last week of November. As if I didn’t already have an impossible amount of tasks to do before Santa’s arrival. I decided I wanted an audiobook to listen to while I worked, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to tackle this beast.
All 40 hours of it!
You know, I enjoyed every bloody minute of it. It’s a huge sprawling tale that deals with several characters, periods of time, and issues, but it all weaves together so beautifully and seamlessly until it ties itself up in a big perfect bow at the end.
I loved Saul and Natalie, our main protagonists, but I got most excited whenever we hit one of Melanie’s chapters. Man… what a bitch of a villain. She might be one of the greatest villains ever. In the initial chapters, I was just interested and entertained in what she and her horrid friends were up to, but as the book progresses, you start to see the true, dark depth of her character. She is awful, an absolutely evil monster, in dire need of vanquishing! And the voice actor, Mel Foster, absolutely hit her performance out of the park.
Though this is a tale of psychic vampires rather than the toothy traditional kind, I can assure you that they are no less nasty and villainous. If you’re a fan of this type of fiction, I wholeheartedly recommend it. The hours just fell away for me as I listened, so much so that I woke up one day and just couldn’t wait to gloss my skirting boards, even though glossing is by far the worst redecoration task that exists.
If you’d like more info or to get a copy, I’ve popped the sales link below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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