Daughters of Shadow & Blood 1

Oh, man, this book did not disappoint!

The Daughters of Shadow and Blood trilogy is about the three brides of Dracula. 

Side note: Is it me or are there SO MANY books with titles that go "_____ of ____ and _____" lately? 

 Anyway, I absolutely loved this. 

I do want to note that the chapters can be short and it jumps all over the place in timeline and setting, but each chapter is very clearly marked at the beginning. I found it very easy to follow along, but if you like linear storytelling, this series is not for you. 

The semi-main character of the series is a historian named Adam Mire, who specializes in Eastern European history. As the second bride, Elena, says in the beginning of her book, he speaks nine languages, has published four books, and is one of the world's leading experts on Middle Ages Eastern Europe. And he's not even forty. He's likeable though. 

The book's present day is 1999. It also jumps back to a few days before the actual present day in the book to track the path of Adam's journey toward where he is now: in a room with Yasamin, the eldest of Dracula's three brides. 

Yasamin tells her story, which is mostly set in 1599 in Buda, Hungary. She's the daughter of an Ottoman diplomat who was arranged to be married to the current pasha's son. Or maybe both of the pasha's sons are also pashas? I can't recall the terminology. But she's living in the haremlik (not the same as a harem) and dealing with a lot of your standard palace intrigue. And maybe some not so standard, as in one of the earliest chapters, she's almost drowned. She's married to the second son, who's your kind of boring, stick in the mud type, while his brother is the exciting one, but there's no drama involved there. When her new husband ignores her, Yasamin spends her time trying to solve a mystery in the haremlik. Bodies keep turning up. Drained of blood. A janissary named Iskander befriends and then seduces her, but she realizes as time passes that he's more linked to the deaths than she expected. 

Also, he's totally Dracula. 

Not a spoiler. You know it right away from the descriptions. And you also see chapters of him in the present as he follows right behind Adam, killing people along the way.

So we've got Adam on the hunt for Dracula's medallion in the present day, which has him caught up in all this intrigue. Two separate groups of dangerous people are after him because they also want the medallion. He's got a tragic past that's explained more as the book goes on. And for a lot of it, he's in a standoff with Yasamin, as she tells him her story. 

There are many chapters that are interviews or portions of books that Adam is reading. They expand on the history and show just how involved Dracula was in certain historical events. 

I'm not a scholar of Ottoman history at all, but I've read reviews of this that say the author did an excellent job. 

For me, Yasamin's chapters were the best. Both her in the present day interacting with Adam and her flashbacks. I love her. 

The book is full of both history and action. I've seen reviews call this "Dracula meets DaVinci Code," but the history here feels closer. In DaVinci Code, it's mostly Langdon explaining things. This shows people living what is now history. 

I highly recommend this if you like action, thrillers, history and vampires. Or even just one or two of those things. It's a really fun read.