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Home / Series / James Asher Vampire Novels

Series

James Asher Vampire Novels

Former British spy and Oxford philologist James Asher is forced into an uneasy alliance with the ancient Spanish vampire Don Simon Ysidro. With James’s wife Lydia, a physician and scientific investigator, they pursue murders, disappearances and political schemes that connect the hidden societies of the undead with European espionage.

The novels move from Edwardian London to Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St Petersburg, China and the battlefields of the First World War. Gothic horror is grounded in historical politics and medicine, while the continuing relationship between the Ashers and Ysidro tests the boundary between cooperation, manipulation and predation.

Reading order

Books in this series (8 books)

Traveling with the Dead cover

#2 – Traveling with the Dead

Barbara Hambly

James Asher follows a former colleague whose secret journey east suggests an alliance between human intelligence services and powerful vampires. His pursuit takes him from London through Vienna towards Constantinople, where imperial rivalry and undead politics are becoming inseparable. Lydia Asher and Don Simon Ysidro begin…

Blood Maidens cover

#3 – Blood Maidens

Barbara Hambly

In 1911, rumours reach James Asher that Wilhelm II’s agents are trying to recruit vampires as weapons for the coming European war. He and Don Simon Ysidro travel to St Petersburg, where experiments involving vampire blood may have produced an undead woman able to appear in…

Magistrates of Hell cover

#4 – Magistrates of Hell

Barbara Hambly

In October 1912, James and Lydia Asher travel to the new Republic of China with vampire hunter Solomon Karlebach. Reports suggest that the mindless revenants known as the Others are multiplying in caves west of Peking and spreading an infection dangerous to humans and vampires alike.…

The Kindred of Darkness cover

#5 – The Kindred of Darkness

Barbara Hambly

The Master Vampire of London kidnaps James and Lydia Asher’s infant daughter, forcing the couple into a search where ordinary police assistance is impossible. The abduction is intended to control the Ashers and exploit Lydia’s scientific knowledge. Don Simon Ysidro joins them despite his hostility towards…

Pale Guardian cover

#7 – Pale Guardian

Barbara Hambly

During the First World War, Lydia Asher serves as a nurse near the front and discovers that someone has learned to control revenants, the mindless undead feared even by vampires. Military authorities see the creatures as soldiers who obey orders, survive wounds and require no ordinary…

Prisoner of Midnight cover

#8 – Prisoner of Midnight

Barbara Hambly

In March 1917, industrialist Spenser Cochran transports Don Simon Ysidro across the Atlantic aboard a luxury liner after using drugs to enslave the vampire. Lydia Asher secures passage to rescue Ysidro before Cochran reaches the United States and demonstrates that vampires can be chemically controlled. James…