Jasper Kent is een schrijver wiens werk zich verdiept in de complexiteit van de menselijke ervaring, vaak historische en fantastische rijken verkennend. Zijn wetenschappelijke achtergrond heeft geleid tot een nauwgezette benadering van zijn ambacht, waarbij hij ingewikkelde verhalen weeft die lezers uitdagen en boeien. Kents proza staat bekend om zijn diepgang en meeslepende kwaliteit, en trekt publiek naar zorgvuldig opgebouwde werelden en tot nadenken stemmende scenario's. Hij is een boeiende verhalenverteller wiens onderscheidende stem resoneert met degenen die op zoek zijn naar intellectueel stimulerende en emotioneel meeslepende fictie.
. . Neither has he felt the sun on his face for more than fifty . . . Not to release him, but to return him to St Petersburg - to deliver him into the hands of an old, old enemy who would visit damnation upon the ruling family of Russia: the great vampire Zmyeevich. They call themselves The People's Will .
Russia - 1917.Mihail Konstantinovich Danilov - who himself carries Romanov blood - welcomes the prospect of a new regime.But the curse that infects the blood of the Romanovs cannot be so easily forgotten and Mihail soon discovers that it - that he - may become the means by which a terror once thought eradicated might be resurrected .
But in Moscow there is one who needs only to sit and wait - wait for the death of an aging tsar, and for the curse upon his blood to be passed to a new generation.
God would deliver him - would deliver Russia - and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. The French have been defeated, as have the twelve monstrous creatures he once fought alongside - and then against - all those years before. Aleksandr cannot forget a promise: a promise sealed in blood ...
The voordalak—a creature of legend, the tales of which have terrified Russian children for generations. But for Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov—a child of more enlightened times—it is a legend that has long been forgotten. Besides, in the autumn of 1812, he faces a more tangible enemy: the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte. City after city has fallen to the advancing French, and it now seems that only a miracle will keep them from Moscow itself. In desperation, Aleksei and his comrades enlist the help of the Oprichniki—a group of twelve mercenaries from the furthest reaches of Christian Europe, who claim that they can turn the tide of the war. It seems an idle boast, but the Russians soon discover that the Oprichniki are indeed quite capable of fulfilling their promise … and much more. Unnerved by the fact that so few can accomplish so much, Aleksei remembers those childhood stories of the voordalak. And as he comes to understand the true, horrific nature of these twelve strangers, he wonders at the nightmare they’ve unleashed in their midst.... Full of historical detail, thrilling action, and heart-stopping supernatural moments, Twelve is storytelling at its most original and exciting.