Vampire Empire: The Greyfriar

In 1870, vampires arose in the northern climes and attacked, driving humans out of Europe; the survivors fled to the equatorial regions, because vampires couldn't tolerate heat. Princess Adele is heir to the Equatorial Empire. Her airship is attacked, and she is captured by a notorious vampire war leader. Senator Clark, the pushy and obnoxious American war hero, plans an attack on the London vampires to rescue Adele. Rival factions of the vampire court jockey for power with Adele as a bargaining chip. And the masked swashbuckler Greyfriar hunts through vampire-occupied England.

I got this out of the library because it was marked as "steampunk". The main thing that bothered me about it is that a key vampire figure is inexplicably sympathetic with humans. I understand that the authors wanted to make this particular character sympathetic and interesting, but according to their own view of vampires, this is like having a wolf who really wants to be a sheep. I might be able to swallow it if the authors gave a reason for this vampire's unique interest, but they don't seem to have realized quite what degree of anomaly this is. Perhaps they're planning to explain it all in a later book, but it really weakens this one. Other than that, it was okay; something to check out of the library but not to buy.