Synopsis
Creepy, sumptuous and incredibly gripping, The Brides is a feminist gothic horror about the three women who became the brides of Dracula – and the fourth who managed to escape . . .
“Come to me, and be mine for eternity.”
1884. When Mafalda journeys to Budapest to care for her grieving aunt, her secret love, Lucy, hurries from London to comfort her, with chaperone and lady’s maid in tow.
But lady’s maid Alice, blessed and cursed with the Sight, is tormented by terrifying visions. When chaperone Eliza falls prey to a disturbing wasting illness, the women hope to seek the healing waters of Transylvania. At a nobleman’s invitation, they set out for Castle Dracula.
In the depths of the forest, miles from civilization, their host reveals his true intentions; a monstrous ambition which will tear the women apart.
And not all of them will survive.
Review
Huge thanks to Tor Nightfire/Hanover Square Press, Harlequin Audio, and Netgalley for the audio ARC. This cover sold me immediately. I find that I am often thrown off by multiple narrators, however the work done by Anna Popplewell and Sam Woolf was well done and the change in voiceover marked perspective shifts that were really helpful.
The Brides is a prequel of sorts to Dracula. A dual timeline narrative that presents a collection of letters, medical reports, and diary entries. Young lovers, aunts and uncles in far away lands, unwanted suitors, a psychiatric clinic, kind servants, and of course, the Count. A deeply intricate story that brings together characters new and old.
Now I happened to start this one the same day I began reading a physical copy of The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley. Both are vampire novels, gothic in style, and are set in the 1800s. While Hinkley wrote a sumptuous period piece, I’m so glad that this was a different direction as a prequel, so the two never crossed over in my mind. The Brides originality also came across as one of its toughest hurdles. By its structure alone, I knew right from the beginning there would be a lot of names, a multitude of storylines, and that I was going to struggle without the ability of flipping back and forth as I had the audio. It was a harder adjustment at the start, and the stylistic choice is one I ended up quite enjoying, but I could see it putting others off. There is of course a small thread that I thought of pretty early on, where several of the cast members are young ladies pre-marriage, meaning there could also be additional name changes for the flash forwards. For me, this was a neat little trick, and I very much enjoyed it.
Now I know this is blasphemous, but I’ve never finished reading Dracula. I made it around 90 pages or so through a Signet Classic edition, where the font was so small it was giving me headaches (and I felt a vague, foreboding paranoia at that time—which is seriously perfect actually), so I had to set it aside. Still, I have seen several adaptations of the work (perhaps too many) and I was pleasantly surprised in how much this differed. The Brides feels very much so of the same world as Dracula, with even a similar style, but it doesn’t try too hard to be or embody it. And that feels important. The author even addresses this in the acknowledgments, the idea of starting something that will somehow be an accompaniment to something as illustrious as Dracula, and how insane that is, in and of itself, which I greatly appreciated. I personally think they’ve done well.
So yes, this is a prequel, and yes, it features Dracula, but as the title and tagline suggest, this is not his story. Personally, the choice to take readers through so much of the wives’ journey made the inevitable turn hit so much harder. Between the opening and the close, there are of course many things that transpire, but for me, the buildup is what this was all about, and the author showcased some skillful writing to get us there. There is love, kindness, innocence displayed, and yet there is deep-rooted greed, lust, need, and hunger. It’s soft in much of its delivery, but it’s also exactly what you should want and expect from a vampire story.
I could see this one’s film rights getting scooped up pretty quickly. The chance to show Count Dracula on screen with fresh ideas is probably too much to ignore.
Leave a Reply