The Cross by Scott G Mariani (Vampire Federation: Book 2)

6/10

The Cross, sequel to Uprising, and a novel about the Vampire Federation. I read the first book a few months ago and found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would. It was fast paced, interesting and a nice change to vampire novels that only revolve around sex or fulfilling fantasies. The Cross, I am glad to say, also stays away from that particular theme. Unlike I found myself struggling to get through Uprising but I ploughed my way through it. However, having read it I find myself looking forward to the next book in the series.

The story continues almost immediately after Uprising finished with Joel Solomon trying to cope with having been turned into a vampire by the woman he loves. Joel swears to kill every vampire on the planet but that’s if he manages to survive the next few days. Meanwhile VIA agent Alex has to deal with a video clip that has popped up on the internet revealing the existence of Vampires that her superiors are not happy about. While all this is happening Gabriel Stone, Lillith and Zachary are not as dead as they appear to be as they continue to plot and scheme about how to bring down the Vampire Federation.

The first chapter starts with a rather chilling, and somewhat disturbing, introduction that seems completely unrelated to the story until a little bit later on. While I thought it was a bit random at first I later began to really appreciate it as it is the introduction to a new major player for The Cross. A character who did make my skin crawl whenever he seemed to grace the page with his presence. Two thumbs up for the introduction of Ash.

The first few chapters of the book, while interesting, were quite slow as they follow his struggle to get to shelter before daylight and trying to get back to the UK. The pace continues to be slow after that as Mariani goes from one character to another, seeing how they have coped with the devastating aftermath of Uprising.

Once the story got going, however, I found the book hard to put down. After the slow pace of the beginning the second half of the book seems to just be action scene after action scene and many of the emotions that whirled around between characters in the first half appear to have disappeared. The action is nicely written and you begin to see sides to the vampires that surprise even them. The book climaxes with a very nicely written final battle where both the vampire and human characters have to fight off a bigger enemy then they imagined.

The second half of the book made me glad I stuck it out and continued to read The Cross. The only part that made me hesitate was Gabriel Stone revealing the true origin of Vampires but it is glossed over and Mariani doesn’t spend long on it. I don’t think the book could have been written any other way, as without the slow moving first half, the second half and the lead up to the next book would have felt rushed and make no sense.