Review: ‘A Dowry of Blood’ by ST Gibson (TikTok favourite LGBT+ fantasy horror)
Ever since I learned that ‘A Dowry of Blood’ existed, I decided I needed it asap. It called to me for weeks and weeks until I finally succumbed to it as my second read of 2023 and I enjoyed it SO much.
I actually didn’t even know a huge amount about the plot, just that it’s queer and the tale of one of the brides of Dracula. I honestly didn’t need to know anything else and I was sold, but just in case you need a little convincing:
This is my last love letter to you, though some would call it a confession. . .
S.T. Gibson's sensational novel is the darkly seductive tale of Dracula's first bride, Constanta.
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. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.
Sounds fun, right? And that’s exactly what it is: campy, delicious fun. But it’s more than that.
Constanta takes us through the centuries she spends as Dracula’s wife, detailing her becoming a vampire and learning a new life, as well as their travels across Europe and the history they witness across hundreds of years. While it’s ostensibly a letter to Dracula, it’s not an epistolary novel in the traditional sense and more like an extended journal entry. I did worry that the constant address of ‘you’ would bother me, but it didn’t at all; it was just part of the narrative.
Considering we traverse at least 700 years and most of Europe in the novel, the anchoring in place and time is very wishy washy. The year or period is mentioned infrequently and the settings aren’t described very thoroughly and I felt the lacking in the atmosphere and setting for a novel set in such vivid locations and times. I think it could have done with an extra 50 pages of just bulking out the atmosphere and descriptions throughout the novel.
The real strength in this novel is the examination of Constanta’s relationship with Dracula, and with Alexi and Magdalena, in a way that differs from every other vampire novel I’ve ever read. Vampire romances paint pictures of adoration and glamour, excess and endless love, without exploring the other side of the coin of vampiric obsession and possessiveness. Gibson charts Constanta’s oppression until her husband’s power really tenderly and expertly; Constanta is a victim of Dracula, but she’s more than that, and we know that throughout her narration.
While we know that Constanta is a bride of Dracula, the legendary vampire is never actually named and no other allusions to the pop culture and literature around him are sited - except for a passing comment about the Harkers which made me cackle. I loved this nod to tacking the power away from the abuser by not naming or acknowledging him, and instead giving Constanta back the control she lost for nearly a millennia. It’s a subtle touch, but one I loved and it really made me think of how the withholding of a name was used to the complete opposite effect in Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’.
There was very little in the way of new or expanded vampire mythology, but it wasn’t really needed or really part of the story. The point of ‘A Dowry of Blood’ is Constanta breaking free of her oppression and enacting revenge on those who’ve wronged her; the vampire aspect is almost secondary in a way. Gibson has written a really unique vampire novel and I loved it.
‘A Dowry of Blood’ is a sensual and addictive vampire novel, with a real depth to it in examining relationships in a way unusual for vampire novels. I really loved this novel and I can’t wait to see what ST Gibson has in store for us next.
Published in the UK by Orbit, October 2022, 304pp.
Written by Sophie
