A Dowry of Blood: THE GOTHIC SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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You tipped my face and pressed your thumb down against my tongue, peering into my mouth. An urge to bite swelled up within me, but I smothered it. 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. But you found me alone, my lord. Beaten down to a shadow of my former self and very near death. It was as though fate had laid me out for you, an irresistible banquet. We are delighted to announce that we’ve acquired S. T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood, a deliciously dark retelling of Dracula; a story of desire, obsession and the lengths to which we’ll go to protect the ones we love. It was previously published by independent press Nyx Publishing and has already established a dedicated fan base; Orbit plans to build on the novel’s cult success and break it out to a wide commercial fiction readership. 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.

At its core, A Dowry of Blood is an exploration of abusive relationships. The narrative style carries both the naivete of youth and the knowledge of hindsight as Constanta documents their life together and the slow realization of all the little things one easily brushes off but together paints a picture of abuse. Dracula’s insidious power plays, manufacturing consent, and gaslighting control every aspect of the polycule’s life without them even noticing. How abuse masquerades as love. Though Gibson can occasionally stray toward the purple with her prose, it’s more in a “first novel” sort of way. She’s just so excited for and by her characters that it’s hard to critique any little instances of faux pas. They’re elegant, savage, and above all, grandiose. She doesn’t tie them to the minutia of time or place because they are so very out of time and place, creatures who defy mortality—and conventional morality. Dracula's immortal harem, which consist of two women named Constanta and Magdalena and a young man named Alexei, are lovers not just with him but with each other.Drops of grey rain tumbled from the empty sky, splattering across my cheeks. I could barely feel them. I tightened my fingers into a fist, willing my heart to keep beating. I had no words for it then, the way we take our strength from the veins of the living. But I knew I was being subjected to some unspeakable horror, something not meant to be carried out in the unforgiving light of day. A fragment of one of my grandmother's stories flashed through my mind. Left bleeding, a Romanian peasant, awaits her new life. An undying king rebirths Constanta. This is the end of her human life and the birth of her vampire life. Draping her in his arms, Dracula takes her to his gothic castle as his bride. Throughout the decades and centuries, they travel to romantic destinations all over europe. Diseases and war surround them but they live on no matter what fatalities meet the mortals. S.T. Gibson is the author of A Dowry of Blood. She works as a literary agent and she holds a bachelor's in creative writing from the University of North Carolina Asheville and a master's in theological studies from Princeton Theological Seminary. She currently lives in Boston with her partner and spoiled Persian cat.

Revival" in The Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror edited by David T. Neal and Christine M. Scott (Nosetouch Press) 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 Bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death. A Dowry of Blood is a 2022 erotic horror vampire novel by S. T. Gibson.

You filled me with your loving guidance, stitched up my seams with thread in your favorite color, taught me how to walk and talk and smile in whatever way pleased you best. I was so happy to be your marionette, at first. So happy to be chosen. It was only then I saw your face, while you leaned over me and gauged how long I had left to live. Sharp, dark eyes, a Romanesque nose, and a severe mouth. There was no shadow of malnutrition or disease on your face, no childhood scar gone white with age. Just smooth, impassable perfection, so beautiful it hurt to look at.

I’m not only talking about the incestuous undertones of calling lovers “sister” and “father” and so on. This book is also about power dynamics and abuse of those dynamics. The unnamed “father” wields his power with a veneer of elegance, but he’s really a common variety opportunist and manipulator. “We feast on the ruins of empire,” he declares with a grand flourish, forgetting that it makes him a scavenger, not a sovereign.

Hachette Book Group is a leading book publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the third-largest publisher in the world. Social Media Vampire's Harem: Dracula keeps three vampiric spouses that he sired personally. These are two women named Constanta and Magdalena and a young man named Alexei. Evil Genius: Dracula is fascinated with learning more about not just his own vampirism but human intellect. He has, over his long immortal life, carefully sought to learn and improve as much as he can and now is a genuine genius. He intentionally surrounds himself with intellectual minds in a search for more and more knowledge. Liquid rage pooled in my stomach and lit up my face. It made me strong, that rage, hardening to solid iron in my limbs. All of a sudden, I wanted to destroy every man who had beat my father until he stopped moving, held torches to our home while my brother screamed for them to spare the children inside. I wanted to break them, even more slowly and painfully than they had broken me, leave them bleeding out and begging for mercy.

I will render you as you really were, neither cast in pristine stained glass or unholy fire. I will make you into nothing more than a man, tender and brutal in equal measure, and perhaps in doing so I will justify myself to you. To my own haunted conscience. A lyrical and dreamy reimagining of Dracula’s brides, A DOWRY OF BLOOD is a story of desire, obsession, and emancipation. God," I rasped, coughing up bubbles of blood. Tears sprang to my eyes, half horror, half reverence. I hardly knew who I was talking to. "God, help me." A Dowry of Blood is an intoxicating perfume that lingers – an undying love story where beauty and horror clasp hands’Rachel Gillig, author of One Dark Window Seductive, lyrical, and rich with period detail, this daring retelling casts the Harkers' story aside to follow Dracula's medieval bride and her tangled romance with his consorts over the centuries. The horror—pulsing and beautiful—comes as much from Constanta’s insights into her husband’s psychology as it does from bloodlust. A dark triumph.”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. Asshole Victim: As a vampire, Constanta only targets the most odious of victims to feed on, including general jerkasses like guys who will spit on a beggar or sexually harass a woman by grabbing her arm. Orbit UK and US will publish simultaneously in October 2022, with a further book from S. T. Gibson set in the same world as A Dowry of Blood following in 2023. This stunning cover was designed by Duncan Spilling.