Night blooming by chelsea quinn yarbro is a vampire book that does not read like a vampire book. I started with a book right in the middle of the series I guess, but this is fine as a stand alone book as well so I had no trouble reading it. The main character is a vampire who has been alive for thousands of years. Of course, he's good, and only drinks blood from women in their sleep without killing or hurting them, or from animals. In this volume, he's summoned to the court of Charlemagne, in the late 700s to early 800s, and you mostly forget he is even a vampire, just a really long living guy. I got a great sense of the life of people back then, as well as the politics and religion. Having taken mideval history in college, it really brought those old lectures to life (although professor kapelle did a great job of that himself!). The secondary main character, the "white woman" who was an albino whose hands bled, was entirely unlikeable. I kept thinking that as she fleshed out as a character, I'd like her more, but I liked her less. Still, all the characters were well done, the details, everything. This is a GREAT historical novel, and I'm so excited to follow our vampire guy to his next time period to learn more about it. If you like history or want to know more about old fashioned culture, read this book!