A Dowry of Blood: THE GOTHIC SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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I shuddered as the rain began to pool around us, streaking through my hair and filling my gasping mouth. I know I had a name before that moment. It was a sturdy name, warm and wholesome like a loaf of dark bread fresh out of the oven. But the girl I had been disappeared the instant you pronounced me yours. I loved that near the end Constanta wasn’t manipulated by Dracula the hate she had and the way she saw past his begging made my eyes swell up with tears of joy because remember she’s spent centuries with this man who had initially saved her from dying and in his weird and twisted way he did love her so pushing all of them feeling aside and to kill him must have taken everything especially when he’s begging her and telling her that he loved her and will forgive her for trying to kill him so I’m proud of her 🥰 Constanta tells her story in the form of a letter to her husband, although she never once utters his name. It is her first and last love letter to him because in her own words: they lived in various places, but how come they never ever referenced anything from their cultures? Never felt influenced or shaped by their country of origin and upbringing, like a real person would be? US-centrism never rests, and why even try to put yourself in the shoes or your Eastern European characters I suppose. I'm only bothered by it because I'm Polish, anyway. The story is told in two povs. The pace is even, the plot kept me involved in the story, I simply enjoyed reading a very well written book. The setting is sufficient, there is attention to the fashion and make-up details of that time.

This definitely seems like a book produced in 2020, not just because of descriptions of plague (they’re not overwhelming, don’t be deterred) but because of descriptions of a megalomaniacal narcissist who wants control at the cost of everyone else’s life and joy. There is a passage late in the book that really hit the nail on the head about the thousand violations of abuse, the ones that go unremarked as they grind you down or make you finally rise up. Writing that is purely aesthetic and distances your reader from everything that is happening in your story is bad writing, period. I love me some pretty prose—when it has actual meaning and isn't a surface level attempt to sound poetic and literary. It's just bad, y'all, like please keep the superfluous metaphors. It's at best irritating and really just embarrassing. In the words of the amazing Ocean Vuong: metaphors should amplify meaning—and when they are there merely to sound cool, well. You get exactly what this is. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death. Two young poetry students are rivals, the obsession isn’t just academic rivalry, but it is also about love, and attention, which makes the story even more compelling. I delighted at how perfectly S.T.Gibson mixes cultured, art-loving characters with their primal feelings of bloodlust and love, while also going through relevant themes as well. It‘s masterful.

Fully-Embraced Fiend: Dracula enjoys being a vampire and killing his victims, having embraced being a beast. Notably his harem indicate he could feed off the guilty or not kill his victims, but he chooses not to and preys on innocents because he likes it.

It's dual p.o.v. with alternating chapters, and maybe it was just me, but I kept forgetting whose p.o.v. it was, because the voices seemed so similar. They also sounded quite young. If it weren't for some of the content, I would easily say this is YA, although I've been feeling this way about a lot of books lately. Maybe it's just me getting old XD Thank you so much, NetGalley and Orbit for the eARC. I loved A Dowry of Blood, so I was so excited to get approved for this! A sister novel to A Dowry of Blood, An Education in Malice is a retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla. Much like the original, we have Laura and Carmilla, both rotating around each other, unable to stay away from the connection that draws them both in. However, in Gibson's novel, the added character of De Lafontaine, someone much closer to the original Carmilla from Le Fanu's piece, brings in the interesting commentary around power dynamics and manipulative relationships. As this is a dark vampire story, the author has a list of possible triggers at the beginning of the book and on Goodreads (in her review).Just as she was about to die, Constanta was saved – or cursed. No longer a medieval peasant, she is transformed into a bride fit for a vampire lord. Content at first, she soon realizes that she has no say in her husband’s activities. She’s soon joined by a politically savvy aristocrat and a starving artist, all who do their best to please their savior and creator. But as Constanta becomes more discontent, she begins to uncover secrets that will cause her to question her reliance on her husband and if she truly has escaped death. That said, An Education In Malice is another brilliant twist out of ST Gibson's pen and to quote the author: 'Everything she says sounds slightly conspirational'.