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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
Polyamorous bisexual vampires and a gothic tale of obsession and controlling relationships; this book was right up my alley. Despite the sensuous matter, everything was written beautifully. I quickly attached myself to Dracula’s partners and found myself truly celebrating their victories and mourning their losses. My only complaint is that there is not yet a sequel.
“If you can still hear me wherever you are, my love, my tormentor, hear this:
It was never my intention to murder you.
Not in the beginning, anyway.”
A Dowry of Blood is a gothic wonder of immortality through an epistle of a queer vampire named Constanta. This book was absolutely stunning. The writing was magnificent and I was literally waltzing through a dark melody in a haunted castle as I flip through the pages
fast-paced
Some of the language was repetitious but I enjoyed the story.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 2/5 🌶️🌶️
“To those who escaped a love like death, and to those still caught in its grasp: you are the hero’s of this story”.
🧛🏻Gothic Dark Fantasy
🧛🏻 Dracula Retelling
🧛🏻 Lyrical Prose
🧛🏻 Found Family
🧛🏻 Standalone
🧛🏻 Dracula’s Bride Point of View
This book is a Dracula retelling but from his wives Constanta’s point of view. This story goes into details of her life after she turned into a vampire, through Dracula’s bringing home other partners: an aristocratic wife and artist husband. The more she learns about Dracula’s past, the more and more conflicted she starts to feel.
⚠️ Authors- Provided Warnings:
Emotional, verbal and physical inmate partner abuse, gaslighting, war, famine, and plague, blood and gore, consensual sexual content, sadomasochism, self harm, body horror, violence and murder, alcohol use, depression and mania.
✨My review:
Personally I absolutely loved this retelling and from a different point of view. I found it very hard to put this book down to be 100% honest. It really is extremely faced paced. Not overly spicy but does have some spicy just not a whole lot. Really actually and truthfully went into this book with a blind eye not really knowing much about it. But I’m really glad now that I read it. For sure a book that I’ll be recommending out a lot.
Spice: 2/5 🌶️🌶️
“To those who escaped a love like death, and to those still caught in its grasp: you are the hero’s of this story”.
🧛🏻Gothic Dark Fantasy
🧛🏻 Dracula Retelling
🧛🏻 Lyrical Prose
🧛🏻 Found Family
🧛🏻 Standalone
🧛🏻 Dracula’s Bride Point of View
This book is a Dracula retelling but from his wives Constanta’s point of view. This story goes into details of her life after she turned into a vampire, through Dracula’s bringing home other partners: an aristocratic wife and artist husband. The more she learns about Dracula’s past, the more and more conflicted she starts to feel.
⚠️ Authors- Provided Warnings:
Emotional, verbal and physical inmate partner abuse, gaslighting, war, famine, and plague, blood and gore, consensual sexual content, sadomasochism, self harm, body horror, violence and murder, alcohol use, depression and mania.
✨My review:
Personally I absolutely loved this retelling and from a different point of view. I found it very hard to put this book down to be 100% honest. It really is extremely faced paced. Not overly spicy but does have some spicy just not a whole lot. Really actually and truthfully went into this book with a blind eye not really knowing much about it. But I’m really glad now that I read it. For sure a book that I’ll be recommending out a lot.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The way the entire book is written as a letter and you can see the evolution of the relationships and worldviews over time!! Would 100% suggest!!
This was more of a pretty painting than a story with any substance. A meandering plot with nothing exciting brought to fruition, as if the author planned around an aesthetic and not a storyline.
There was nothing definitive about any of these characters; not 'Dracula', our protagonist Constance, Magdalena or Alexei. They all felt rather hollow, as if meant to enhance the gothic finery and the beautiful halls they resided in rather than to stand on their own. I've seen so many people rave about the gorgeous writing in this book, but even that didn't live up to the hype for me, since there was hardly any world-building given the vast amount of world travelling our main characters partake in. All that was well described were the characters or the interiors of the homes they stayed in, which didn't make for a very immersive novel.
Even the romance fell flat. Constance, Magdalena and Alexei are all victims of their overbearing and emotionally abusive vampire sire, and find some solace in each other, but considering none of them had much going on outside of their entanglements with each other (and I understand that that's the point of the book), I couldn't bring myself to care for any of it. The narrative choice of having Constance recount her life in the form of a letter to her unnamed vampire keeper was in my opinion a disservice to the story; I think dual POVs would have at least given Alexei and Magdalena a little bit more of a distinct personality.
I'm honestly surprised at how much hype this novel has received, especially considering how much better her character development is in her later book Evocation. My first mistake may have been reading that first, since I know how great her character work is when she writes multiple-POVs. Either way, this was a real let down.
There was nothing definitive about any of these characters; not 'Dracula', our protagonist Constance, Magdalena or Alexei. They all felt rather hollow, as if meant to enhance the gothic finery and the beautiful halls they resided in rather than to stand on their own. I've seen so many people rave about the gorgeous writing in this book, but even that didn't live up to the hype for me, since there was hardly any world-building given the vast amount of world travelling our main characters partake in. All that was well described were the characters or the interiors of the homes they stayed in, which didn't make for a very immersive novel.
Even the romance fell flat. Constance, Magdalena and Alexei are all victims of their overbearing and emotionally abusive vampire sire, and find some solace in each other, but considering none of them had much going on outside of their entanglements with each other (and I understand that that's the point of the book), I couldn't bring myself to care for any of it. The narrative choice of having Constance recount her life in the form of a letter to her unnamed vampire keeper was in my opinion a disservice to the story; I think dual POVs would have at least given Alexei and Magdalena a little bit more of a distinct personality.
I'm honestly surprised at how much hype this novel has received, especially considering how much better her character development is in her later book Evocation. My first mistake may have been reading that first, since I know how great her character work is when she writes multiple-POVs. Either way, this was a real let down.
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes