The author includes a list of trigger warnings right up front, including abuse, gaslighting and sadomasochism, to name a few. She conveys so much emotion through Constanta’s voice and her fierce love for her husband, Magdalena and Alexi. Gibson’s lyrical writing style is perfect for this epic story, and it reminded me a lot of Anne Rice’s books. But despite their seemingly idyllic life, Constanta, Magdalena and Alexi are being controlled and manipulated, and once they realize their charismatic husband has cut them off from the world, they take steps to change their fate. Later in Russia, they meet Alexi, a young artist’s model who completely changes the dynamic of the group and agrees to join them without hesitation.
Thus Constanta becomes a vampire, and over the coming decades and centuries, she learns how to survive, falls in love, travels the world and lives through many important events in history.Įventually, he introduces Constanta to a long time correspondent of his in Spain, a vivacious woman named Magdalena, and the three form a tight family unit for many years. But before she can take her last breath, he steps out of the darkness and offers her eternal life.
We meet Constanta as she lies dying on a battlefield, her family already dead. The story is told in second person epistolary format, as Constanta recounts her long history with “my lord” (the name “Dracula” is never mentioned in the book), how they met, how she became a vampire, and how their little family grew to include two others over the years. And it was exactly what I had hoped for: a lush, dark reimagining of the Dracula story, told from the perspective of Dracula’s beloved wife Constanta, who is writing a letter to her husband. Luckily, Orbit is publishing this new edition in a few weeks, and I had a chance to read an early copy of the book. I’ve been eyeing A Dowry of Blood ever since the self-published edition made a splash on social media, but it went out of print before I could snag a copy.
“Love makes monsters of us, Constanta, and not everyone is cut out for monstrosity.” The nitty-gritty: A lush, bloody, sweeping saga of an unusual relationship that spans centuries. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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