Years ago, I discovered a copy of ‘Dracula’ in my local library. I remember doing virtually nothing for the rest of that day – just curled up on the sofa, engrossed in one of the most enduring tales in English literature.
I’ve loved vampire tales ever since. This was in the days before it was a trend, and what was published had to perform as a novel first, a sub-genre second. So it was that I found Anne Rice, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Fred Saberhagen and others. Adult vampires, not teen dreams.
Years later, Kim Newman published ‘Anno Dracula’, one of his super-meta books that references virtually everything in its field, fictional or historical. Dracula rubs shoulders with Oscar Wilde, Lestat and Jack the Ripper. Everything swirls together in a marvellous characterful universe.
This books feels as if it is naturally part of that world.
As the book opens, we are being addressed by the narrator as she tells her history. She is one of several ‘brides’, to a long-lived warrior vampire lord whose name she vows never to mention.
We follow the little vampire family through the streets of European cities and beyond, exploring anew what it feels like to witness the world changing around you, while remaining stuck, frozen in time exactly as you were when you changed into an almost-immortal night hunter.
The writing is beautiful. I found myself absolutely captivated, swept up in the tale as I was with the original story back in my own past. I felt the same wish for the characters to grow beyond their immortal lives, while knowing they never could. I felt traces of the different versions of the same characters (although to my knowledge, only Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has specifically tackled the Brides themselves before).
We, the reader, know who this is, of course. But it’s one perspective, and somehow a voice we’ve never heard before, despite its familiarity. I became as emotionally involved with the protagonist as I had with those well-told vampire tales gone by, and I realized all over again what was missing from the mass-marketed iterations flooding the bookshops these days.
Please do pick up this book and see for yourself. I’m already looking to buy the physical version of the ebook I have, and will absolutely be reading it again, as well as looking out for whatever this author writes in future.
A huge recommend.
‘A Dowry of Blood’ will be released on January 31 as paperback and ebook. I was kindly provided with an ebook version of this title by the author, in exchange for a fair review.
The Catbox 