Review: A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

Disclaimer: Thank you to Nyx Publishing for providing me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Left for dead by the soldiers who pillaged her village, a peasant girl is given the gift of eternal life by consuming the blood of a stranger. Raised from near death and renamed Constanta, she becomes the bride of an immortal king, the unnamed Dracula.

In the ensuing centuries together, Constanta becomes jaded and bored with their life as aristocrats. Tired of all of the time alone while her husband studies both the living and undead for answers to their very being. Traipsing throughout Europe and fleeing wars, he seeks to add more brides to their relationship, the beautiful aristocrat Magdalena and the gorgeous and fiery Alexei, much to the initial dismay of Constanta. What starts out as anger and jealousy, quickly turns to love and passion and a sense of family between the four characters.

Still not sated with his brides, the never named Dracula becomes increasingly violent and cruel to those he professes to love. That cruelty creates consequences that force Constanta to chose between love and devotion to her husband or to protect lives of those who she has also grown to love.

The novel is told in first person point of view from Constanta's viewpoint. It is clear that the story itself is being told to the never-named Dracula.

This is a gorgeous piece of gothic horror- it is dark, tortured, blood drenched, and has steamy sex scenes between all four characters. Each character was well fleshed out and interesting in their own right. I would love to read this story from the point of view of the other characters.  A lush retelling of the brides of Dracula story with a polyamorous relationship, A Dowry of Blood is the spiritual successor to Anne Rice's Vampire series, in my opinion. 

With the blessing of the author, I am adding the trigger warnings that she included for the novel. A Dowry of Blood contains depictions of  and/or references to: emotional, verbal, and physical intimate partner abuse, gaslighting, war, famine, and plague, blood and gore, consensual sexual content, sadomasochism, self harm, body horror, violence and murder, alcohol use, depression and mania, sexual assault, drug use, and drowning.

 5/5 Stars