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dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was such an interesting read! Definitely a spiritual successor to Anne Rice, it was moody, dark and gothic, following a lonely Vampire murdering her way through the centuries. It races by, and I struggled to grasp the significance of the very few people she chooses to focus on in her hundreds of years of gleeful vampirism. The classic vampire issue with Christianity was explored, but there were also symbolic murders (and sparings) that went over my head. At one point she says "none of my actions make sense", and I decided to take that as gospel and just go with the flow of the story, rather than trying to impose logic on her actions. As others have said, there is a dramatic shift half-way through where we turn to Alma's POV in the 21st Century. Although a little abrupt, I actually loved it for the new angle it gave to a tension-building mystery. The reader knows that Alma is inevitably going to be drawn into the dark world of the Vampire, but she thinks she is just exploring a (creepy) family secret. I think the tension of waiting for the Vampire to show up was some of the most fun in the second half of the book. I also liked seeing the spell the Vampire cast over humans from a human point of view, her self-assuredness and stillness working as a kind of mesmerisiation.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Blood, Murder