I really appreciate being drawn into a very real fictional world where the author has taken the time to paint in details so intricately that you find yourself wondering if this story really could be true. I also appreciate a good vampire tale. Not the Young Adult teen love stories that are so prevalent and popular today, but the great ones full of history and mystery. Not since a good friend handed me a copy of Interview With The Vampire by the great Anne Rice have I found a vampire series so rich in detail and so beautifully crafted as Compendium to Sands of Time: The Early Scrolls by Christine Church. A compendium is a collection of things that have been gathered and presented together, usually in the form of a book. In this Fate of the True Vampires series by Christine Church, it is a collection of ancient Egyptian scrolls.

The writing is masterful enough to flawlessly pull this off. It reads like a very personal first person account of emotional and fantastic events. Life in ancient Egypt came alive for me in a way it never has when reading the Bible or even watching a good movie. The Early Scrolls is the second book in the series, but apparently it takes place in time before the first book. So if you have The Early Scrolls in your hand and you cannot find Sands of Time, which is book one, go ahead and read it. You are in for a fantastic treat and it won’t spoil the first book for you. You will definitely want to find it and read it too. I do.