In Hide Me Among the Graves, Tim Powers returns to the fantasy-infused 19th-century England of his 1989 novel The Stress of Her Regard, where he transformed Byron and Shelley into vampire hunters. This time around, he turns to the Victorian era and the famous Rossetti siblings, Christina (the title comes from one of her poems) and Dante Gabriel. There are some key callbacks to the first book; chief among them is protagonist John Crawford, who was born in the final pages of The Stress of Her Regard and is now a London veterinarian, mourning the recent loss of his wife and children.
As the book opens, Christina Rossetti and her sister, Maria, bury a family heirloom, a strange "little black stone figure" that seems to have dark, magical power. Then, Crawford is walking along the Thames at night when a woman approaches, and suddenly something rushes "at the two of them out of the charcoal sky, something alive and churning and savage." The woman is Adelaide McKee; years earlier, as a prostitute, she had a liaison with Crawford that led to the birth of their daughter, Johanna. No sooner has Crawford discovered the existence of this child than Adelaide informs him that Johanna has been pledged to the ghost of John Polidori--the former physician to Lord Byron, and the uncle of the Rossettis--and he must help save her.
Powers unwinds the elaborate narrative that follows beautifully, as the Rossettis join with Crawford and McKee to defeat Polidori, who is plotting with ancient vampiric forces, the Nephilim, to destroy the families involved. Even though Powers's prose is contemporary rather than Victorian pastiche, the novel is steeped in period detail and foggy Victorian London atmosphere. One can't help but savor the lush and dark fictional world Powers creates. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher