Sense and Sensability and Vampires

 Combining Books 2 and 3 of Philippe Boulle's Victorian Age Vampire trilogy into one review to save time and effort. 

Book 2, The Madness of Priests, enjoins us in Victoria and Regina travels to Paris, seeking the trail of her mother. We also spend time following Regina's father and her sort of fiance as they get variously involved in Kindred affairs, as well as get back to Beckett as he seeks information of Kemintiri, the thousand faced bride of Set. Oh yes, and Regina's best friend, who having watched her husband get murdered in book 1, winds up in a Sanitarium overseen by the Malkavian sheriff of North London. We also find out Mithras, the very very ancient Vampire Prince of London, is acting strangely, and he too gets locked in the Sanitarium by the end. 

Oh yes, and while in Paris, we meet Anatole, the Malkavian who becomes the Priest of Gehenna in the modern age. Here, he's running a rather infamous prison complex, perverting the proper rituals to suit vampires, all while luring in Regina and Victoria, who are in turn pursued by Regina's father and her fiancee. (The fiance is now under the control of the London Ventrue, but Dad's all wrapped up in the Society of Leopold, aka The Holy Inquisition.)

By the end, the stage is set for a trip to Hapsburg Vienna to find out why Regina's mother is so important to the Tremere.

 Which brings us to book 3, The Wounded King. We start in Vienna, as Regina has been turned into a Vampire by Victoria. Regina's father and fiancee also arrive, and again hook up with the Society while Regina and Victoria try to get an audience with the Tremere. It gets rather ugly, as Dad winds up dead, the fiance's best friend gets eaten by another vampire, Beckett runs off with Mom, Regina nd Victoria start arguing, and eventually we all wind up back in London and County Durham for a finale that involves a bunch of Thaumaturgy, the reveal of Keminitri, a Revanant family under Tremere control, and a bunch of ugly. Suffice it to say, no one winds up happy by the end. 

While it was nice to finally finish these after nearly 20 years, I still feel a bit like the main purpose was to hide cameos of the "Signature Characters" from the Dark Ages and Modern Clannovels in another era. On the other hand, with Hesha, we get a better look at the beliefs of the Settites (now The Ministry in 5th Edition) and how it can be reflected in every day things.