The Swordmaster

Coming September 2026 (the exact dates within that month vary slightly by country.) 304 pages. Published by Rebellion, in ebook, paperback and audiobook narrated by Maria Nicola Johnson. Edited by Amanda Raybould. Cover by Sam Gretton.

This is the second book in a series called The Vampires of Dumas; the first is The Vengeance by Emma Newman. But while the books are set in the same world, they don't follow the same characters and are not in the same time period, so can be read in any order.

Publisher page here.

From the Sunday Times bestselling author, Kate Heartfield, comes a swashbuckling Vampires of Dumas story, featuring a new story arc following Françoise de Montesquiou d’Artagnan, a minor nobleman's daughter who travels to Paris and becomes embroiled in a war between shapeshifters and vampires.

For two days and three nights, Françoise de Montesquiou d’Artagnan has slept, trapped in a strange dream of a shifting world of spirits. Everyone in the dream is clad in the forms of animals, including Françoise herself, and they are discussing secret affairs of monsters and princes – until a host of vampires attacks them in the dream. A man with a beautiful voice faces them down, telling her to run.

Françoise wakes in her grave, buried by her grieving parents and abandoned by her fiancé – and determined to find the man who’d saved her life, identifiable only by his voice. She flees to Paris and finds people like her: the Benandanti, born in their cauls, and blessed with the gift to enter the spirit realm in dreams. She learns that the vampires who attacked her in spirit are a threat in the waking world – and that they sit in the highest positions in the land. Only she and her new brothers and sisters can bring them down.

Totally fresh and unusual, and the underlying Three Musketeers notes are just perfect. —Violette Malan, author of The Mirror Prince

This gorgeously detailed historical fantasy begins when a young lady is buried alive in Gascony, but she escapes to seek adventure in Paris. After that, the tale grows more enthralling. If you like swashbuckling, magic, and vampires, along with a great deal of court intrigue, do not miss this book. —Rosemary Jones, author of The Arcane Adventures of Harvey Walters 

A riveting mélange of bloody intrigue, supernatural alternate history, dynamic action, and heartbreak. A dark delight. —Sandra SG Wong, bestselling Anthony and Crime Writers of Canada Awards finalist, and author of the alt-history Lola Starke series.