‘Queen of the Slayers’ by Nancy Holder: Vampires, Romance and Buffy Tie-ins

If you’re a true die-hard Buffy devotee, then you’ll need little little explanation regarding the bloodthirsty pop culture phenomenon that this diminutive blonde kick-started, pre-dating (and effortlessly outclassing) the likes of Vampire Diaries and Twilight. If not, then perhaps a brief outline might be in order. Buffy is the Slayer, one of a chronological series of teenage girls throughout the ages, destined to kill vampires, monsters and things that go bump in the night. Except… from the end of Season Seven the whole game has changed. Instead of there being just one Slayer in the whole world, after a little bit of magical jiggery-pokery on the part of Buffy’s best bud, Willow, then every single lass who has the capacity to become a Slayer in fact becomes one.

So that’s the world we enter at the beginning of this Buffy tie-in novelization, ‘Queen of the Slayers’. Unfortunately, we’re not entering some kind of heaven on earth. The new army of Slayers experience conflicts and internal division, with two factions emerging. And a sinister character from previously televised episodes of the show makes a reappearance: the Immortal, a vampire who seems ambiguous in his philosophy and relationship to good and evil.

Nancy Holder has a long and distinguished history regarding producing Whedon-related TV novelizations and her name will be familiar to any true devotee of the show beyond casual viewing when it happens to be repeated on air. This particular tome is well up to her usual excellent standard. If you are already building a library of Buffy books, then don't leave a hole in your collection, ensure you locate yourself a copy!

How will Buffy and the Slayerettes cope? Will Willow’s fledgling new relationship with girlfriend Kennedy thrive and survive? Will they fight and face down evil – or be crushed by the wave of an overwhelming new Big Bad?