A Dowry of Blood: THE GOTHIC SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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Right and wrong don't exist, Laura. They're fairy tales made up by priests and parents. There is only art and ugliness, and I'm willing to suffer any indignity for the sake of art.” The force of your love nearly drove me to my knees. I was no woman; I was merely a supplement, a pilgrim who had stumbled across your dark altar and was doomed to worship at it forever. I don't know what I have been thinking, supposing I was strong enough to leave."

As her husband adds two more people to their dysfunctional group, Constanta gradually realizes how brutal and suffocating his love could be. Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things. Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away because I think this is the type of book you should go into blind and just know it plays into what you might be familiar with from her earlier book - A Dowry of Blood. This was the first viral book I've read from TikTok and I had high expectations due to the number of people raving about it. I think there was a lot of potential here. Don't get me wrong, it's not awful but if you're used to classics or more eloquently written novels: this probably isn't for you. ultimately, i think the plot was sidelined for the gothic, lustrous vibes. and, don't get me wrong, for me that's okay. i don't mind a book having a flimsy plot so long as i'm invested in the characters and the world. here, i sort of was? i loved the setting, the imagery, and i did like both laura and carmilla, at least in the beginning. i say this because i felt carmilla lost all personality halfway through the book. from this 'mean girl' archetype, boisterous, and cold to almost flat? nonexistent? You seemed to me a fire burning in the woods. I was drawn in by your enticing, smoky darkness, a darkness that still stirs memories of safety, of autumn, of home.” 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 🥰

content warnings: blood; violence; abusive relationships (emotional, verbal and a few instances of physical towards the end); gaslighting; war/plague/famine. Part love letter and part confession, A Dowry of Blood is an epistolary written by Dracula’s longest bride Constanta detailing her long life and relationship with him. Every detail that led to his murder; every detail that ever slowly pulled the wool from her eyes to show her the truth. But I'm absolutely OBSESSED with this book and its incredible characters, and will not be shutting up about it for quite some time. It contains so many literary rarities, some I knew I was starving for and others I didn't even know I was craving. S.T Gibson is out for blood with this story and she can have mine by the gallon.That she was bringing us deeper into her world not out of the goodness of her heart, but as some sort of punishment. The thought sent a shudder up my spine.' You taught us to never feel guilty, to revel when the world demands mourning. So we, your brides, will toast to your memory and drink deep of your legacy, taking our strength from the love we shared with you. We will not bend to despair, not even as the future stretches out hungry and unknown before us. And I, for my part, will keep a record. Not for you, or for any audience, but to quiet my own mind.

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. A Dowry of Blood is a sumptuous novel by S. T. Gibson, who asks us to raise an intoxicating glass to the vampire’s carnal nature and drink deep. Though it implies that that most famous vampire, Dracula, is one of its central cast, the true protagonist is Constanta, his vampire offspring and bride. Bram Stoker’s Dracula featured three such brides, nameless seductresses to terrify his Victorian audience; Gibson gives these brides voices and histories, turning them from objects of desire to characters with wills and desires of their own. 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.I heard you before I saw you, the clink of mail and crunch of debris underfoot. My grandmother always said creatures like you made no sound when they descended onto battlefields to sup on the fallen. You were supposed to be a night terror made of smoke, not a man of flesh and blood who left footsteps in the dirt. I rose on shaky knees into a new life, one of delirium and breathtaking power. Blood, yours and mine, dried into brown flakes on my fingers and mouth. I think it would be perfectly natural if Constanta were to struggle with polygamy or being in a polycule, but I also think it’s perfectly reasonable that she doesn’t. She slaughters humans like rabbits; even for an erstwhile churchgoer like her, what’s an open marriage to the toll of her dead? Her casual embrace of non-monogamy is refreshing, and I like very much that Gibson did away with the hand-wringing. Rice already did the tormented vampire, and the unrepentant one. We already know—oh, do we know—vampires under threat from hunters or from their own guilt. Here we see the vampire at home, at rest. Their natural habitat is luxury, and it turns out their natural inclination is to form groups, albeit rather dangerous ones.

A thrilling and seductive Gothic rife with spine-tingling tension and dark romance. A Dowry of Blood left me breathless’Alexis Henderson, author of The Year of the Witching 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. I will never lift a hand against you, Constanta,” you said quietly. “Never in anger, or in lust.” I can see what she saw in him because I would have folded 🥵💀 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. I love epistolary novels, but this one could very well be my favorite. This is a reimagining of dracula, but told from the pov of his first bride who is writing a letter to him about their story, and we learn from the very first letter that she became his downfall. But this is also a story about abusive relationships and how power dynamics, manipulation, gaslighting, are sometimes very difficult to see. We get to see their story unfold from the very first day he made her a vampire under the promise of saving her to the very end where promises of love could no longer be masked as unconditional.

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Stand up, my dark miracle,” you said, pulling yourself to your feet and holding your hand out to me. “Come and face the night.” Story of an old vampire, I won't call him Dracula because he was never given a name throughout the book, and his brides that he takes over the time. Story was told from the perspective of one his bride, Constanta. She started with how she was turned and how it was love, devotion, and adoration for a long time until he decided to take another into his family. His new bride, Magdelena. It was jealousy at first but soon she too come to love Magdelena and life was again roses for sometime until the consequences of having a long life hit Magdelena and to some extent it effected Constanta too but she suppressed it. Soon it was depression, fear, insecurities, and melancholy surrounded the brides. But things hit a low point as Alexi entered the family.