A review by irene_addler
A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

 "I wandered the halls during the days, sleepless as a mad woman from a Gothic novel."

An exquisite story revolving around the horrors of abuse and it's complicated nature. A Dowry Of Blood caught me instantly. 

It's a book after my own heart, dark yet tantalizing at times and showing the complex nature of abuse well. Dracula and his brides are the perfect characters to tell this story with too. 

This book isn't faithful to the original, and very much a fresh reimagining, speaking openly about queer relationships we could only ever speculate about in Bram Stoker's original.

The cast is small and the story short, making this easy to read and focusing in on what's important, the relationship. And the prose are eloquent and flowing, perfect for a Gothic, but clipping along well. 

The narrator is very much telling the story too, but not to us. We're only peering in, and it feels like that. 

The audiobook narrator was not my favorite, but that couldn't deter me. I'm also notoriously hard to please with narrators. Luckily my library also had the ebook, so I picked that up and found I REALLY loved the writing. Also it seems that reading it may have more value than listening, for example I saw a line crossed out that I didn't recall in the audiobook, truly like a written account.

This is another easy recommendation for me.
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