This Is My Blood

By: David Niall Wilson

Narrated by: Skye Stafford

Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

First published in 1999, This is My Blood is David Niall Wilson’s first and most important novel. It is a retelling of the gospel from a very different perspective. When Jesus goes into the desert and is tempted by the devil, there is one temptation added. One of the fallen is raised as a woman to tempt him with the flesh. Instead, the woman, named Mary of Magdalene, falls in love with Jesus and his promise of returning her to Heaven.

Cursed to follow him and drink the blood of his followers, Mary walks a fine line between her desire to love and support the Christ, and her burning need to return to Heaven. This novel takes the world of faith, which was the world of men, and of the apostles, and shows it through the eyes of a fallen angel - one who has, in her own words, walked the roads of both Heaven and Hell. She doesn’t believe there is a God...she knows.

Faithful to the story line of the original gospels, only weaving in new things when there are gaps in the old, this is a novel of faith, redemption, and ultimate sacrifice.

©1999 David N. Wilson (P)2020 David N. Wilson

A new perspective- until the end

I really enjoyed this! The narration is consistent and relaxing without being monotone or monotonous. And the story is interesting in the creativity shown by the author’s new perspective on a story that has already been told. However, the last third of the story fell flat for me, the descriptions were pretty lifeless and definitely feeling rushed in comparison to the rest of the story. Overall I enjoyed it but without spoiling anything the ending fell flat like I was told “THE END” out of no where.

Christ vs. vampires - that's a new one

Jesus gets a lot of vampire jokes made about him. I say this with dead seriousness. "JESUS THE VAMPIRE: Jesus gave his blood, now he wants it back - coming to a theater near you" is a T-shirt I've seen before. This is a in part because the 19th century vampire (and later Hammer Horror's depictions) is a creature which incorporates many elements designed to exist in blasphemous opposition to God. They rise three days after death, they are repulsed by the cross, they drink and share blood to provide immortality, and so on. The vampire is the ultimate enemy of Christ beyond sin itself because it is living death versus eternal life. This is a great book about Mary Magdalene being created by the Devil as a vampire to tempt Christ and how she actively resents this role as she Forest Gumps through the Ministry of Rabbi Joshua Ben Joseph. It shouldn't work but it does. Indeed, I rank it as one of my all time favorite vampire novels (but I liked Memnoch the Devil too).

Narration-wise, Skye Stafford does an excellent job with the narration. Her Mary Magdalene manages to infuse the words with a slightly sarcastic quality that affects the narration and leaves a pleasing quality. Her Devil has a cackling supervillain quality that's a bit grating at first but isn't necessarily a bad choice overall. She does a great job and I think its better listened to than read.

So, if you're feeling in the mood for something artsy and love Christian mythology as a sufficiently open-minded believer or as a jaded but fascinated by religion disbeliever then I suspect this will definitely appeal to you. It definitely has inspired me to read David Niall Wilson's Ashen Grail trilogy about an order of vampire Templars--though that is set in the World of Darkness.

A great story touching on some Gnostic threads.

This was moving and it used the mythos of the vampire well. I would love to hear more as to this Theocosmology.

The introduction of characters from ancient Mesopotamian mythology and the vampire hook.

It was interesting but a little too preachy for my taste. It started to feel really predictable at the end.