The Holtur Curse by Cameron Wayne Smith

         "Welcome to Holtur..."Sonja said menacingly. "The gods had forsaken us long ago." She raised her claymore. "We create our own blessings here."

         I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. There were parts that I liked and even enjoyed reading, but the parts I didn't enjoy were really difficult for me to get through. I'm a character-driven reader, and the characters in this book were hard to enjoy at best, and unrealistic at worst. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first I'll start by telling you what The Holtur Curse is all about and what I liked about it. 

         The story focuses around a bi-sexual Captain of the guard names Sonja, and her home city of Holtur. Every day Sonja and her group of slayers/guards have to go outside the walls and battle monsters (like vampires) that attack the city. But one day a group of barbarians (called the Brothers of Eternity) threatens to destroy the city of Holtur. They claim that they will pillage the town and rape all of the women if they aren't given an item known as the Eternity Grail. But there's a problem, Holtur has no idea what the Eternity Grail is, or how to find it.

         "The Eternity Grail is close," Crispin said with a nod. 

         "Look we are sporting men." Caede gave a big, toothy smirk. "Tell you what, we'll give you three suns to find the Eternity Grail. In three suns, you hand it to us, and we'll be happy to forget this place ever existed. I'll see to it my men even leave your women alone!"

         After the whole barbarian ultimatum thing, we finally get to see more of the vampires and things start to get more interesting. The vampires we encounter are exactly like the stereotype and also very much not like the classic at all. I really loved the whole idea behind them, and the city of Holtur in general, but I can't go into more detail without ruining the story. 

         This story also features plenty of other monsters, like giant beetles that absorb fire, and six-legged insect steeds; plus there are lots of great fight scenes that were entertaining, fast-paced, and a lot of fun to read. 

         Humans though - even when you cover them in armour- were squishy bags of stinking organs and blood. A hard strike - almost anywhere - and they would scream, open, split, shit, and die.

         Now for the things that I didn't like about this book. I'm all for strong female characters and I also love the idea of more lgbt friendly characters, but Sonja's sexuality felt forced and completely unnecessary to the story. Like it was only there to give the reader an excuse to see some possible girl on girl action, not because it actually added to the story. 

         Two scenes really stood out for as examples of this, one is near the beginning when Sonja is forced to wear a dress that doesn't really fit. This dress is so horrible that she ends up struggling with it all night. Sonja is so muscled and awkward that her boobs keep almost popping out of the fancy dress and she can't get them to stay put. At one point she has to go to the cellar for some alcohol, but on the way there her breasts break free of her crazy dress, and she decides to let them jiggle around until she's able to find the bottle she needs. 

         Another point was when Sonja is given shelter for the night and gets hit on by her host's wife. After Sonja very clearly tells the wife no, the wife asks to watch her bathe, and Sonja agrees even though she doesn't want to. This has zero relevance to the story. We never come into contact with the host or his wife again, and Sonja doesn't come away changed, just a little creeped out for a second.

         "Thank you for the offer," Sonja said,"but I'm not in the mood right now." Nor did Sonja like women almost double her age!
         "That is fair enough," Oddette said. "You won't mind if I watch you prepare though, would you my dear?"
         Sonja rolled her eyes. "If you must." Dressing as quickly as possible became Sonja's immediate goal. Oddette watching her - drooling and moaning - didn't make it any easier.

         Overall, the world building in this was great, and the idea was interesting, but the characters themselves were either boring, unrealistic, or incredibly annoying. I wanted to like this story and mostly I did, but the bad really out weighed the good for me on this one.   

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(Also available on Kindle Unlimited)