O.M. Grey’s ‘Avalon Revisited’ Mixes Vampires and History

Now begins the long wait for the fourth season of True Blood. But Mel and I have been promising to keep you all busy to try and make the time go by faster. Or seem to, at least. One of the ways we will recommend comes in the form of reading material. We will have a couple choices to offer up, but I wanted to start you all off with something vampire-y.

Avalon Revisited, by O. M. Grey, is a delightful combination of historical fiction, romance and steampunk. Told in the first person format, Arthur is the main character and he’s a vampire. Arthur is not just any vampire, though. When he lived he was the older brother of Henry VIII of England. History tells us that Arthur died when he was only 15 years old. We also know that he was married to Catherine of Aragon, and that after his death, his father pushed for a marriage between the widow and Henry, thereby ensuring an alliance with Spain.

In Avalon Revisited, Arthur still mourns the loss and betrayal of Catherine 300 years later. He uses all forms of debauchery to cover over his anger, and is also a cold-hearted murderer. He’s not your Bill Compton by any stretch.

As Arthur’s story unfolds, we discover that he and Catherine were on their death beds from an outbreak of fever, when a strange woman walked into the room, saw he was almost dead, bared her fangs and next he knew, he was waking up in a crypt. Catherine eventually recovered and married Henry and the rest we know from historical accounts.

Now, it’s the 1800’s and Arthur meets Avalon, a beautiful spinster who is more interested in the science of the airship they are aboard than in any person at all. And she looks exactly like Catherine. He falls deeply in love with her and she changes his life. Of course, things don’t go smoothly at all as Arthur tries to win Avalon’s heart. It seems there is a vicious killer on the loose and all signs point to him. Except the killer leaves his victims in much uglier shape than Arthur ever did.

I enjoyed the weaving together of history and fantasy in this story. I like reading about the ‘what-ifs’. In this case, what if Henry VIII’s older brother did not die the final death, but lived to watch him take his place on the throne of England with his wife as his queen. Being inside Arthur’s head during this book helps us to feel the pain of betrayal and of knowing you can’t do anything to stop the flow of events. I started out thinking that our hero was really horrible and not wanting to read further. By the end of the book, I was won over completely.

This book is cleverly written with enough humor to take the edge off of the sadness. You can’t help but love Arthur!I think that I’d also like to check out Grey’s other writings. If you want to know more about O. M. Grey, visit OMGrey.wordpress.com. Look for Avalon Revisited at Amazon.com.