I can't decide if you are my savior or my ruin...
As someone who's always been a tiny bit of a nerd about Elizabethan London, and when I saw Hampton Court Palace... I admit I had a bit of a nerd moment and decided instantly that I needed to read this.
And I have absolutely no regrets on reading this, because the way this absolutely blew me out of the water.
Vampires? Check.
London? Check.
Even better... Elizabethan London? Consider me sold.
Brynen has never been able to use her magic safely... even though she would love to be able to help those around her. But those with her kind of powers are prosecuted and sent off to the Tower of London... where their powers are removed. Witch Finders roam in search of those with powers, and she does not wish to be grabbed as her parents were so long ago.
She has settled for a life as a simple apprentice, even though she despises the widow for her ways of using simple tonics, or rancid oils to pass off as help to the poor. The widow claims she is doing good, but she sees through her ways and sees her for the vile person that she is. Until one day, Brynen is tasked with a delivery of these so-called miracles to her friend's alms house... and sees her patient as one of a pair of twins. Her heart falls, and she decides to use her magic to aid the twins.
And the Witch Finders take her away to the Tower... the same fate her parents suffered....
or so she thinks, until the Lord Essex then has her pulled out of the tower, supposedly to help the Queen on her defense of London aganist the Undead... against the vampires...
Except that's when her whole life shifts... the vampires hold the crown after easily defeating the Queen's forces, and now she finds herself not only as chief physick, but in a position of wealth, power, and respect.
The vampires will guard her with their lives...
And not only that, but she is the vampiric High Commander's fated mate...
Dazzlingly dark, with beautiful historical references to Hampton Court Palace (HCP), its history, and even some touches on HCP's haunted history.... Augusta blends these elements of spicy romance, historical events, and yearning for each other into a beautifully dark fictional work and then goes on to create an amazingly complex magic system, way of life, and a London setting that has me yearning to know more.
Her vampires have all of the standard mythos, but Augusta blends new elements and new aspects in to make her vampires truly original, and on top of that builds a deliciously complex political system of three clans who always seem to be at each other's throats like siblings to some degree.
Bound in Crimson Cord blew me away, and I am eager to learn more of the Terra Noxa...