First Impressions Review: Triad Blood, by ‘Nathan Burgoine
“A vampire, a demon, and a wizard walk into a bar,”
Anders said. “If that’s a joke,” Curtis said, “please tell me the punchline is
‘and they lived happily ever after, okay?”
“That wouldn’t be very funny.”
I was looking forward to reading this book because I like stories about vampires, demons, and wizards individually and this combines them with a unique premise: All magical beings have to form groups of 3 or more in order to maximize their powers - loners have a rough time. However, the main characters have done something unheard of, forming a “triad” made up of Luc the vampire, Anders the incubus, and Curtis the wizard. Neat! As the presence of an incubus would suggest, this bond has a sexual component to it…and since I’d been resolving to include more books with gay relationships that are actually written by men1, this ticked that box too. And it didn’t disappoint – ‘Triad Blood’ is a really entertaining read, with cool worldbuilding, an exciting plot, and fun character dynamics as well as a bit of spice.
1. Seriously, it’s crazy how many popular books with gay romance plots or sub-plots were written by (often straight) women. Not necessarily a bad thing – ‘Heaven official’s blessing’, one of my favorites, falls into this category, as does the popular but (IMO) over-rated ‘Song of Achilles’ – but some can feel as exploitative as the “lesbian” porn clearly made for men. As for the sex scenes in an earlier work by the author of HEB …just OW! So more “own voices” stuff is clearly needed!
For a moment here and there at the beginning I worried I’d made a mistake and that this was going to turn into one of those romance novels where the plot just exists to get the characters into bed as often as possible2, mainly because there were so many hot dudes being introduced in quick succession. But no, quite the opposite, actually! The few sex scenes serve the plot and character-building rather than the other way around, being well-written and appropriately spicy but not so long or awkwardly placed that they slow down the story. And this was quite the fast-paced story!
Within the first ten pages a cozily domestic evening scene - which is effectively morning to vampires, of course, so picture coffee in the kitchen - is interrupted by a “letter bomb” full of balefire and (separately) an invitation to present themselves at an official vampire gathering. When Curtis objects to the Duc of Ottowa, Renard, being ready to drain a human dry in front of them, Luc is forced to officially challenge him – which ends, unexpectedly, in a draw. They make a powerful enemy and have an unconscious human “gifted” to them, but also discover that no one else likes Renard much either, particularly Lady Catharine and her coterie of vampire women. The human is Eli, a Metís man who can see and talk to spirits3 and who really wants Renard dead for killing his cousin. The attacks don’t stop, either: Curtis has to fight off a group of demons in the university library – though he does make a new female wizard friend in the process4 – Luc and Anders have their coats laced with yet another fire spell when they check them at a bar, and so on. Simply by existing as a triad they are a threat to the status quo, and whoever is out to get them is big into fire magic – but vampires don’t use that kind of magic…or do they?
2. No shade if that’s what you like, of course. I just (also) wanted well-thought-out magical/vampire shenanigans!
3. Which makes him a potential vampire hunter, since if you can track a spirit returning to an apparently dead body at dusk, that’s what they are.
4. She uses a pair of wands disguised as hair “chopsticks”, which I love - although I’m sure that’s not actually the right term. I can’t recall if there IS a snappier term than “ornamental hair sticks,” though.
I really liked all of the main trio. Curtis is an endearingly nerdy dude in his 20s who is secretly pretty darn badass. He has some insecurities about his magic, since he’s basically self-taught. The reason for that is that he was born to a non-magical family…and then wizards killed his parents! But he’s very clever and, even if his knowledge is lacking in some areas, he’s come up with some ingenious ideas for using what he does know, like a pair of glasses enchanted to let him spot vampires and demons more easily, or a spinning circle of holy water used like a shield. Anders is the “bit of rough”: masculine in a highly muscled, slightly scruffy, working-class kind of way. He’s well-intentioned, for a demon, though his methods of helping can be a bit insensitive, and he’s rather cheeky, too, frequently making off-color jokes. Luc, being a vampire, is of course elegant, a bit snooty, and considerably more subtle. I loved his reaction to Anders’ favorite bar: “None of these people seemed to have any sense of the sartorial, Luc thought. While he understood himself the allure of the occasional lapse of style for comfort, the jeans-and-a-hoodie look was for home…The same for jeans-and-a-hockey-jersey. And jeans-and-a-sweatshirt. Frankly, he was fairly certain he was the only person in the pub who wasn’t wearing jeans, with the exception of the bartender who was – unfortunately – wearing leather pants.”
Is it accurate to call this a romance? Well, Curtis is clearly starting to ask himself that question. His arrangement with Luc and Anders started as a kind of “safety in numbers, with benefits”. But he’s starting to feel like he actually is dating both of them – though Luc and Anders would emphatically state that they were NOT dating each other – and is not sure if that’s a dangerous feeling to have. It’s not a question that is fully answered, but Luc and Anders do seem to have a lot of affection for Curtis; Luc calls him lapin (“rabbit/bunny”), which is adorable. Their protectiveness of their human is subtle – they don’t want to insult his magical abilities – but clearly coming from a place that isn’t just “if you die, I’ll be vulnerable again”. Anders is a bit possessive of Curtis too – fortunately expressed merely in grumpy looks when Curtis admires some other guy, not by slamming the other guy into a wall or something - which the latter points out is hypocritical given that incubi literally can’t be monogamous. Since Anders doesn’t treat Curtis like a possession or a pet in any other way, one suspects that he may want to feel like this isn’t just a business arrangement for Curtis, even if he can’t quite admit it. Luc and Anders bicker constantly, but there is clearly a growing respect and affection between them as well. Eli is able to spot that they are literally sharing spirit. This freaks Curtis out a bit, since it is his soul, but Eli notes that he doesn’t have any less spirit than a human should, there’s just extra spilling over into his companions. And the ending! I won’t spoil it, but Curtis has an idea that is practical, but only if they are planning to be together for decades…and the other two are down with it immediately.
The native-dude-who’s-in-tune-with-spirits thing felt a little clichéd and possibly a bit racist initially, but it IS at least revealed that this is a special gift of Eli’s family specifically (not something all native people can do), which is similar to the way wizard magic is usually inherited. He and Curtis butt heads a bit over the different philosophical approaches involved – collaboration vs. control – before figure out how to work together in a really cool way. There are also a fair number of nods to the historical and ongoing conflicts between native people, the French, and the English in Canada. The bit where Renard implies that he had no worries about killing Eli’s cousin because First Nations women go missing all the time – oof! I’m not in a position to say Eli’s portrayal is just fine, but he does at least feel like a person, and I was happier with his part of the story than I thought I was going to be. This bit at the end was both funny and sad:
Luc smiled, showing a hint of fang. “A more formal declaration will come. Maybe you could explain it to your mother as a treaty.” Eli laughed. “That really wouldn’t help.” “I suppose not.”
Now, I mentioned being pleased that this book actually had a good plot, not just sex, but…you’d think there would be a threesome scene, given the setup and title, right? While it is implied that that is indeed part of their monthly magic bond renewal thing, during the full moon that occurs in the book they have to do something different because there is a fourth temporary member of the group who isn’t into that. It is a good opportunity to show Anders being creative and actually sensitive to someone’s feelings in finding a work-around, but the choice to totally skip something readers would logically be expecting seemed odd. Then I remembered the author’s note that said that he’d come up with the triad in a previous short story, and that people said they wanted to see more of these characters, particularly Anders. So I was like: “Ah. He probably figures readers already got that scene. And maybe the story also explains how demons work in this universe.”
So I bought a PDF of the short story, ‘Three’, for a dollar. First: I’m glad the book got a cover-design upgrade, as I probably would never have read the summary if the thumbnail had also featured a half-naked dude who looks stoically bored despite apparently being on fire. Second: DAAAMN! (Fans self). Yes, if you want to see what these three getting together all at once looks like, this is the place. Also, kudos to Mr. Burgoine for, in both works, including proper consent check-ins and condom and lube usage in a sexy way. I mean, even if vampires and demons can’t pass on STDs, their human “prey” doesn’t know that, right? If they are stressed about mundane concerns it would be much harder to surreptitiously take a sip of their blood/soul. Third: Wait, why did everyone like Anders best5? I mean, he’s funny as usual, but the story is told from Luc’s point of view, and the star of the story to me is Curtis. Luc and Anders think they’re collaborating to bag an innocent, tasty-smelling snack, only to end up magically hog-tied with Curtis going: “Sorry about this, but I needed you to sit still and hear me out. I have a proposition…” That’s my boy!
5. I mean, I have a hypothesis: A lot of people of various genders would think he’s super hot. I couldn’t help thinking of a video I saw recently about how Harold Ashman wrote ‘Gaston’ (in ‘Beauty and the Beast’) about the type of guy he thought was attractive. And there’s also enough ladies into that look/persona to make the “dominated by an alpha werewolf” type of romance novels a whole successful genre. It’s just that I happen to find that brand of hyper-masculinity actively off-putting. With that element eliminated, Anders is only the third most interesting character in the short story.
The story didn’t answer my questions about demons, though, the most pressing one being…why are other demons homophobic? The reason Anders is on his own is that incubi are supposed to prefer women. But that doesn’t make any logical sense: If you’re an incubus who prefers ladies, then surely sharing your territory with one who prefers men is no problem – he presents zero competition! Now, it is established that demons used to be human, so maybe they just carry their prejudices with them. But A) that doesn’t seem to be an issue for vampires and B) how exactly does someone get turned into a demon? Because if, as with vampires, another demon does it deliberately…how could they not be aware that the person keeps their original sexual preferences? And if people just spontaneously turn into demons – how does that happen? Perhaps those are questions that could be addressed in a sequel. I’d certainly like to see more of the triad’s adventures, and there are some other unresolved questions that are begging to be answered as well – like “Who’s the person living in the basement of Curtis’ witch friend?” or “How will Luc’s new place in the vampire hierarchy affect their lives?” or “How would Curtis react to Lady Catharine ‘Dexter-ing’ creepy human dudes…or the fact that Luc actually did kill the one she offered him?” So yes: Please write another one of these, Mr. Burgoine!
Overall recommendation: This is a fun, fresh take on all three types of magical beings. You’ll probably like it more if you are at least sometimes attracted to men, and if you like smut better when the plot and characters aren’t an after-thought.
