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vondav's review against another edition
5.0
Set in WW1, it follows the journey of Private Wilson who is serving in Belgium. Earlier in the war Wilson was involved in a fire but having no memory of the incident, carries on doing his duty and fighting the Germans. Joining up with a new garrison, their orders were to take Black wood. Brookes a very young soldier gets injured so its left up to Sargent Smithy and Private Wilson to try and save him and take Black Wood. Over time Private Wilson memories slowly come back and what a shock when he finally remembered what had happened.
This book combined the horror of vampires and rats and the factual horror of war, I don’t know what would be more scarier, meeting the large rats or crawling through the trenches whilst you are dodging bullets. The description of the war was quite a graphic and although I have never been one for reading about WW1, I really enjoyed this book. Everywhere Wilson went trouble followed and I kept wondering when he was going to break. Whilst reading it you could imagine yourself being there with him, the sight that he saw especially when the rats began to eat. I especially enjoyed reading the scenes set in the field hospital, because I think that is when you started to understand exactly what he had gone through and more of his supressed memories were starting to resurface.
My first book from this author and I have already downloaded book 2 in this series
This book combined the horror of vampires and rats and the factual horror of war, I don’t know what would be more scarier, meeting the large rats or crawling through the trenches whilst you are dodging bullets. The description of the war was quite a graphic and although I have never been one for reading about WW1, I really enjoyed this book. Everywhere Wilson went trouble followed and I kept wondering when he was going to break. Whilst reading it you could imagine yourself being there with him, the sight that he saw especially when the rats began to eat. I especially enjoyed reading the scenes set in the field hospital, because I think that is when you started to understand exactly what he had gone through and more of his supressed memories were starting to resurface.
My first book from this author and I have already downloaded book 2 in this series
ash_thelibrarian_reads's review
1.0
This was an excellently written novel and it is obvious that Yeates has a talent for writing, but unfortunately the circling of the events and the fact that it seemed to transfer between dream and reality pretty much nonstop made this novel too redundant and ultimately confusing for me to enjoy. I appreciate that the author actually vilified a vampire seeing as how lately almost all novels in the vampire genre are about young women falling in love with brooding, self loathing vamps, but the lack of anything happy ever happening throughout the entire novel just depressed me. Wilson having to sacrifice himself in the end was not at all how I had hoped the plot would resolve. Overall, I personally did not enjoy this novel all that much, but anyone who loves to read about the realities of war and who enjoys a lot of gore and a somewhat depressing ending will indeed enjoy this novel.
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