The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer
by Lucy Weston
“Lucy Weston?” I said when I first received a copy of this book, “Isn’t that the chick from
Dracula?” (
Dracula - now with Twilight-inspired cover!) Turns out I wasn’t remembering things quite right - in the novel, the character’s name is Lucy Westenra, but in some of the TV/film adaptations of the book she goes by Lucy Weston. At any rate, look! Vampire nom de plumme! Oh, I’m so smart.
Elizabeth I has just ascended to the throne, becoming queen over the merry realm of England. The coronation celebrations have just started, but she’s already deeply immersed in intrigue. A long dormant foe has risen to reclaim England for his own - Mordred, the bastard son of King Arthur. Lord of the vampires, Mordred is as handsome as he is arrogant, as mysterious as he is determined to rule. He approaches Elizabeth with a tantalizing offer - eternal youth and beauty in exchange for her hand in marriage. But Elizabeth cannot allow her people to become mere pawns and fodder for the Mordred’s vampire court, and resolves to destroy Mordred and his kind forever with her newly-awakened vampire slaying abilities.
I was thinking this would be a humorous revision along the lines of
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; instead, it’s a rather earnest bodice ripper focusing on the love triangle between Elizabeth, Robert Dudley and Mordred. Were it not for the vampires, it’d be a pretty standard historical romance, with decent writing, lush descriptions of court life and plenty heaving bosoms and nervous hand-wringing. It’s just familiar enough that it makes me wonder if ‘Lucy Weston’ is an author I’ve read before under a different name.
The supernatural elements of the book come off pretty weak. Somehow, visiting Anne Boleyn’s grave triggers Elizabeth’s slayer powers, which are extremely vague. She is able to shoot ‘bolts of power’ that destroy vampires. I don’t know why, or what exactly this power entails. When she defeats a vampire, she absorbs their life force, becoming stronger. As her slayer power grows, she acts more and more like a vampire, although whether this is the effect of the vampire force she’s absorbing or simply the manifestation of her slayer’s killer instinct is never made clear.
Mordred is a total narcissist, making him a good match for the equally self-absorbed Elizabeth. He splits the narrative with her, with them telling the story in the first person through alternating chapters. I felt like he was the more interesting character, largely because he had a thousand year long history to draw on, but he’s seriously underused. During his chapters, he’s largely obsessing over what Elizabeth did or will do during her parts of the book, so his past is largely glossed over. Elizabeth, meanwhile, spends a lot of time mooning over Mordred and flirting with Robert Dudley. Although she’s surrounded by men eager to protect her - William Cecil, John Dee, and Francis Walsingham - they come across as bumbling fools that are totally useless. I imagine their real-life counterparts would be furious at such a portrayal.
Early on, it’s revealed that Mordred told this story to Weston centuries later, so we know he isn’t going to be soundly defeated, and the final battle is decidedly anti-climatic. In spite of this, I thought that overall this was a fun book to read, and it would make an even better movie. I hope someone in Hollywood runs across this novel and decides to run with it.
3 out of 5 stars
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