I wanted to like this book so much!  It sounded like such interesting fun from the blurb and I enjoyed the James Rollins book I read earlier this year, so I was looking forward to another action-filled thriller with some cool religiously supernatural overtones.  Vampire priests!  Woot!

Ugh.

That's not what I got.

First off, the female lead, the heroine, Erin... well, she spent half her time hiding behind the big, strong, blond, soldier protector guy who could make her warm with just a faint touch in the midst of all the danger of the damned world.  Every time something remotely dangerous approached, there was the big dumb hero thrusting her behind him. 

Speaking of big dumb hero, his name was Jordan, which is fine.  Jordan is a unisex name.  The only problem with this is that Jordan is a name I have used in my own writing for years as a woman's name.  So that bugged me from beginning to end.  *LOL*  Most people probably won't have this problem though.

Overall, this book had a really sexist vibe to it. Not only was Jordan 'protecting' Erin every chance he got and not only were the both of them getting turned on by the slightest of things in the midst of great danger or focus, the whole plot of the book hinged on sex it seemed.  Now I know that vampires are supposed to be sexy and all, but neither author is very good at writing sexy to prove it for one thing - and for another it all read like the downfall of all the good and holy came at the hands of the woman and her seduction of the defenseless priest.

I also felt that some of the ideas were really good and could have been expounded upon more but the authors maybe didn't have the facility to go deeper?  I dunno... I felt they missed the mark on a lot of the historical stuff.  And there was A LOT of historical stuff in this book - maybe too much.  Masada, Christ's Life, Saint Peter, Hitler, Rasputin, the siege of St. Petersburg, medieval Hungary.... just so so so much and alot of it just glossed over. 

But of course we have the improbable love story of Erin and Jordan - oh, did I mention that I think the story takes place over 2 days - 3 max?   Yeah, well, the number of times that we were treated to adolescent reactions from both of these characters was really over the top. 

I could go on because so much of this book left me unsatisfied.  And in the end... well... we don't really get much closure at all.  Oh... Erin and Jordan like each other.  *RME*  I don't know that I'll pick up the second book in this series.  Maybe, but I doubt it.  I think I'll probably stick to Rollins' Sigma Force novels instead for ridiculous, crazy action thrillers.