Roman Dusk: A Novel of the Count Saint-Germain by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (historical fiction 2006)

I couldn't get halfway through this book in a vampire series.  It's set in Heliogabalus' Rome in the early 200s.  Every scene is a paragraph too long, every aspect of Roman life is explained a little too much.  The dreaded "letter from someone offstage" shows up too many times, and each is drawn out. A sex scene is just creepy and dumb.