A Dowry of Blood Paperback – 31 Jan. 2021

Highlights~not even a little bit Stoker’s Dracula~vampires being hella queer~Venetian Carnivale with your sister-wife~pretty boys are for rescuing~let’s be honest, we all like a little blood-playOrnate. Delicious. Hedonistic. Bloodied and bejewelled. This isn’t a book; this is a feast.Take a moment to savour the title. Just the title. Dowry of Blood. Doesn’t it conjure to mind rich velvets and ancient secrets, gowns and jewels and intoxicating danger? Doesn’t it make you think of lips parted as if for a kiss, or a snarl? Power, yearning, darkly delicious sensuality. Bloodstained loving and loving bloodshed.I’m here to assure you that Dowry has all those things and more.And yet, from the start this book subverts your expectations. To start with, Gibson has taken characters who had no voice at all – Dracula’s wives – and decided to tell their story, to give them the stage for once. So even the premise of the book flips the narrative around, bares sharp, bloody teeth at the establishment that thinks this is a man’s story.And then, we have this–)I never dreamed it would end like this, my lord: your blood splashing hot flecks onto my nightgown and pouring in rivulets onto our bedchamber floor.(This is the first line of the book. That lord, whose name is inextricably tied to the idea of vampire, who defined the modern mythology of the monster? The great and powerful vampire prince who struck terror into generations of those who learned his story?Oh, he’s dead.Constanta, our narrator – her story begins where the stories of so many women have ended throughout history; beaten down in the dirt, her loved ones dead, her village afire. And when offered the choice, she chooses what women, what good girls are not supposed to choose: to become a monster rather than die quietly. She wreaks her vengeance on the men who destroyed her human life with a fiercely joyful savagery, as if she has become the avatar of female rage, acting for all the women who have ever been unable to fight back.)I wanted to break them, even more slowly and painfully than they had broken me, leave them bleeding out and begging for mercy.(It’s a powerful moment.But Constanta doesn’t quite hold on to her power. Once her almost-murderers are dead she surrenders, happily, to the man who made her a vampire.)In that moment, my life was not my own any longer. I felt it slipping away from me the way girlhoods must slip from women who are given proper church marriages and cups of communion wine, not bruising kisses and battlefields full of blood.(And maybe that would give the book a very different feel – if we didn’t already know that she is writing this story after having murdered him.But we do know.So.)In this world, you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night’s fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of debts being wiped clean.I say you do not have a name.(The story Constanta tells us paints her as someone to be pitied; a young woman who was swept up into a toxic relationship, too naive to know better. A victim. And she is a victim – or was – but reading about how her lord manipulates her, gaslights her, emotionally abuses her – all along, we know how it ends. We know she doesn’t stay this way. We know the tables are going to turn.)My lord. My liege. Beloved. King. My darling. My defender.I had so many names for you in those days, my cup of devotion overflowing with titles worthy of your station.(But those days are over, and the reader knows it.That knowing colours the ‘main’ story; the recounting, the record of what has passed. We can feel immense sympathy for Constanta; we can despise what her husband does to her; but we cannot see her as weak. And really, we shouldn’t need to know that she overcomes him to believe in her strength; in a perfect world, we wouldn’t attach any kind of stigma to victimhood. We would understand that surviving is strength, too. And I think that’s what Gibson manages to get across, manages to teach us without ever once putting it into words; we read Constanta’s story knowing that she will pay back everything done to her, and therefore we see her strength even during her victimhood, her abuse. On a quiet, unconscious level, we absorb the fact that being a victim does not make you weak. Because we know she survived – and survived to turn the tables.I hope I’m putting this into words well.This makes Dowry of Blood sound terribly depressing and grim, which misrepresents it terribly. It’s not depressing. It’s the opposite of depressing; it’s full of the hunger for life, for experiences, for living. It is jewel-tones, it is velvet, it is opera music and gloried-in sexuality and stringing the cities of the world on a string like pearls. It’s monstrous. It’s glorious.)You taught us to never feel guilty, to revel when the world demands mourning.(Dowry of Blood is not a polite, conventional vampire story. This isn’t a book where a dewy-eyed virgin makes a man out of a monster, taming and gentling him as she might a heraldic unicorn. It is not a human fantasy, the oft-repeated, slightly illicit daydream of being adored so wholly that a monster will give up monstrousness for you.This is a fantasy for those who want to be the monster. It’s a dream for those who hunger. Every page is imbued in a rich, dark sensuality that hearkens back to an older generation of the vampire mythos – and celebrates something fanged and fierce and primal within ourselves.)“Water your mother’s flowers with their blood.”(I nodded, my breath coming shallow and hot. “Yes, my lord.”Better essayists than I have written at length about how the myth of the vampire is all tangled up with human sexuality, and sexual freedom is definitely one of the many ways in which Gibson’s vampires are free – no longer human, no longer bound by human laws, so does Constanta’s lord encourage her to also cast off human convention. Constanta blithely tells the reader of the human lovers – at least some of whom likely didn’t survive the experience – she and her husband share over the centuries, and there’s no drama about the fact that plenty of them are women. Constanta’s queerness is treated so blithely by her own narrative that a reader who only skims could be forgiven for missing it – at least until Constanta’s husband takes another wife, one who immediately becomes wife and lover to Constanta too.A lesser writer could easily have made a sordid mess out of all of this, or at least left the reader with the impression that the polyamory is a manifestation of the vampires’ monstrousness, not something good and decent people should ever seriously consider. But Gibson is better than that; even as other aspects of their lives break down or are made questionable, the love at the heart of the novel shines darkly and perfect. Constanta’s husband is controlling and emotionally abusive, but the love is still very real, as is the love Constanta and her sister-wife feel for each other. If the marriage breaks down, it’s not because there’s something intrinsically flawed in the idea of a polyamorous relationship; it’s because one member of it is intrinsically flawed as a person. Gibson never leaves the reader in any doubt about that.)I craved you like maidens crave the grave, the way Death burns for human touch: inconsolably, unrelentingly, aching for the annihilation in your kiss.(And as must be clear from all the quotes I’ve included in this review, Gibson’s prose is simply breathtaking. The passion and exhilaration emanates from every page like physical heat, and the joys and sorrows alike make the reader’s heart ache. I can’t imagine anyone else doing this tale justice; nor have I ever seen the complex and yet primally simple motivations and emotions and story of it all executed so well. Gibson wields her pen like a sword and runs you through with it – but oh, you’ll thank her for it.Constanta’s story is not one of redemption, because she doesn’t need it. Instead, Dowry of Blood is a story about claiming, embracing, and celebrating your own power, your own strength. It’s about the beauty that can be found everywhere, even when things get very dark indeed. It’s about how small we can make ourselves before we break. It’s about choosing to be monstrous rather than be made less, and in that, it’s a story for so many of us.Dowry of Blood is unique in being a story no one else would think to tell – or tell so well – but it’s also unique in who it’s being told to. This is a book for those of us who have monsters inside us; for those of us who need or want to let those monsters out… And it’s a book that is a celebration of those parts of us.If you embrace those shadows inside you, this is the book for you. And if you are searching for a way to step out of a different kind of shadow and into your own strength, Dowry of Blood is for you too.Or if you’re just looking for an exquisitely beautiful story about queer vampires. That’s more than reason enough to pick up this book.

Sometimes it truly amazes me how far we've come in representation and what books can be about and what stories authors can tell. I certainly never thought I would get to read a book about poly vampires that discusses toxic relationships and emotional abuse.Vampire novels often portray relationships that are... Less than ideal from perspective of our reality, but that fantastical element of undead creatures usually absolves them from discussions of all the ways in which the kind of relationships portrayed on the pages are unhealthy. This book doesn't side step that question but rather delves deep into it. Let's the relationship be filled with love and suffering and pain.This book somehow manages to be beautiful and brutal at the same time. A love letter, and explanation and a goodbye that feels extremely tender. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, from the story itself, to the characters and the writing, it all created such an atmospheric read. It's the perfect book for autumn (even if we are a little early for that just yet).

A love letter of a twisted romance written many years later with hindsight, maturity and contemplation, thousands of years of adventures yet we read about the part the world didn't see. That's how I would describe what this book was, written in third person which I'm personally not a massive fan of but here it added to the romantic description and beauty Constanta found in her relationships. Though we are told about their lives throughout the years, the adventures in the world are brushed over focusing on the characters personal lives behind closed doors and outer masks, leaving not a lot of plot but highlighting character development.If you like third person and a romantic description of human nature over time you should read this.

This book is a love story in a sense. Finding love through trauma and neglect, breaking the cycle and embracing all types of relationships.I really loved Constanta and Magdalena's relationship, the addition of Alexi was perfect.It's a story that makes vampires feel sexy and human. I absolutely loved it.

This book is spicy!The story of Dracula’s wives reimagined into three different personalities joined by the love for their master.But love can hurt… even kill.I just wished that the details were more focused on other aspects of the story rather than heavily on the boudoir , but hey, I still read that pretty fast 😅

Have you ever thought I wish I knew then what I know now? This was a beautifully written story of just that, but if you were a vampire over hundreds of years. I loved how it was written almost as a love letter but the story of your life together from your prospective.A beautiful story of love, loss, life, growth, and vengeance.

La calidad de la impresión del libro deja mucho que desear en relación al precio.

Livro chegou rápido e a história é muito boa!

First of all: the audiobook of this is exquisite. One of my all-time favorite performances. Melodramatic, breathless, emotional. Perfectly matched the story and really brings out the poetic prose.This is pretty exactly what it says on the tin. Written in an open letter format from Constanza to Dracula, chronicling the entirety of the turning of her as a vampire to the conclusion of their relationship. It’s got Bluebeard’s Bride vibes with a dash of queer relationships as their marriage grows to include others and Dracula controls his family by putting them under his thumb with sex, violence, and mercurial attentions that feels in line with his character, but also expanded upon for this more intimate setting.Had the structure had more points of conflict or interest to interrupt the overlong brooding and one-track, predictable denouement, it would have been an easy 5-star read for me. I started with reading it on the page but when I switched to audio when cooking, I never went back. I highly recommend the audio experience.

I wanted this book because someone was always posting about how great this book is and she was definitely right!! This book was so good! I started it this morning and just finished it.The MC in the book is telling you her life story through writing in letters and it reads so easy that you fly through the book and don't want to stop reading. It takes you through all kinds of different stages in the MC's life and how she had to navigate through everything that happens to her and the people she comes to love.I'm really glad I finally read this book and I will definitely be looking for more from this author!