Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire fantasy trilogy follows Gabriel de León, a former vampire hunter of the silversaint order fighting to restore the sunrise in a world overrun by vampires. Kristoff’s series belongs to the grimdark subgenre of fiction, which features bleak settings, graphic violence, and deeply flawed, morally gray characters. Kristoff notes that his goal in writing the trilogy was “to make vampires monstrous again […]. I wanted to make vampires feel old school. Medieval. […] I wanted to make them frightening. Alien. Things that look at people with the same dispassion that you look at the steak you’re about to eat for dinner” (“A Q&A with Jay Kristoff on Empire of the Vampire.” Waterstones, 2026). His series sits alongside other pillars of the grimdark subgenre, including Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy and George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series.

Empire of the Vampire, the first book in the series, establishes a world after “daysdeath,” a supernatural cataclysm caused by vampire Fabian Voss, called The Forever King, who performed a ritual, spilling blood from each of the original five vampire bloodlines and opening a chasm into hell. The ritual blotted out the sun, plunged the world into perpetual twilight, and allowed vampires to hunt freely and rule the former Empire of Elidean—five separate kingdoms united by a shared religion—The One Faith—that worships a divine creator and his son, the holy Redeemer. 

Twenty-seven years after daysdeath, Gabriel de León, the last of the silversaints, is held captive by his enemies and forced to give an account of his life to a vampire historian named Jean-Francois. Gabriel details his childhood, his abusive upbringing as a pale-blood (half-human, half-vampire), his recruitment to the silversaints, and his quest to protect Dior Lachance, a young woman believed to be the Holy Grail whose divine blood can end the eternal night. After a brutal conflict with his former brethren, who wished to sacrifice Dior’s life in a deadly ritual, Gabriel rescues her with the help of his long-lost sister, Celene, now an Esani vampire herself.

Empire of the Damned, the second volume of the trilogy, escalates the conflict, moving beyond the immediate threat of one vampire king to involve the complex, warring politics of multiple ancient bloodlines: Blood Voss, a line of vampires with hardened skin and mind-reading abilities ruled by the Forever King; Blood Chastain, founded by Margot Chastain, the Empress of Wolves and Men, whose members live in the wilderness and commune with animals; Blood Dyvok, ruled by Priori Nikita, are known for their raw brute strength and their ability to bend others to their will; Blood Ilon, capable of exercising control over humans using whispers and shadows; and Blood Esani, who refer to themselves as Esana or the Faithful, are the rarest and most mysterious bloodline—a religious sect that practices the ritual of communion in which the Faithful cannibalize other vampires to save their souls, causing other bloodlines to refer to them as the Faithless.

Empire of the Damned builds upon the foundation of its predecessor, as Gabriel's tale picks up where the previous book left off: in the wake of the battle at San Michon in which Gabriel and his vampire sister, Celene, rescued Dior from the other members of the Silver Order. The novel follows their journey to restore the sun to the world without sacrificing Dior’s life. Along the way, they encounter numerous threats and obstacles as the various vampire bloodlines hunt Dior to secure their power and sovereignty.

The third volume, Empire of the Dawn, recounts his final journey to an enemy historian. Believing Dior dead, a grieving Gabriel sets out on a final, vengeful mission to kill the Forever King, who murdered his wife and daughter. Unbeknownst to him, Dior is alive and leading a holy crusade toward the Empire’s besieged capital to end the perpetual darkness. The climax pits Gabriel, Dior, and their allies in a final battle against the Forever King to determine the fate of the world.