Bride of Lady Blueheart: A Sapphic Retelling of Bluebeard

by Edie Marr

I must marry Lady Blueheart. And being her wife is death.

I have no choice in the matter. Lady Blueheart chose me and her word is law in her lands.

And, I soon discover, in her bedchamber too.

I will be taken to her castle, high on the Mountains, surrounded by dangerous forests. I’m wife number nine. No one else seems to think it suspicious that Blueheart has been widowed eight times, but I am certain her wives suffer a terrible fate.

Is this fate connected to the mysteries I uncover in the castle? Why are there no guests at our wedding? Why is the castle so dusty and covered in cobwebs? Why are the maids all mute? And what’s in the room at the top of the High Tower?

And most importantly, will I escape handsome, demanding Lady Blueheart, or does the future have something even stranger in store for me?

A dark sapphic fairy tale romance. Arranged marriage, age gap, enemies to lovers, touch her and die, a gothic fantasy mystery to unravel and, naturally, a HEA.

This is a dark romance and contains dark themes and scenes.

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Lesbian, Adult, Queer, LGBT, Dark Romance

222 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 3, 2024

Reviews

[Ciru · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I read cunny One. More. Time.

I always love a smutty fairytale retelling. I was not familiar with Bluebeard's tale, a quick search gave me the gist of the story.

My problem with the book is there is no growth on Lady Blueheart's part. None. Then she spends so much time whipping and punishing Seri that when she declares her love I was booing because it didn't feel genuine and was more of a get out of the cage free card.

The book is in love with the S in BDSM. Seri was 98% TSTL and comes of as a genuine naïve chambermaid, which in some ways does fit her characterization, but it mostly made me mad. And pet peeve of miscommunication os utilized to the max and that's why I am not a fan of Lady Blueheart, because the witch is who actually tells us wtf is actually going on. LBH is all cunny stuffing and whipping.

[lupine · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first part was rough, so much so that I almost stopped. The tale of Bluebeard always walks that edge for me already, anyway. But the book redeemed itself in the edge. I liked Marr's Prisoner of the Witch Queen novel much better (although they clearly exist in the same world and in fact there is mention in this story of locations that feature in Prisoner of the Witch Queen). If I could give partial-star ratings I would rate this between 2 and 3, because the beginning was so akin to SA that I almost put it down, and even though the rest of story-and especially the resolution-redeemed the story I feel like the fact that the first few chapters are so traumatic should factor more heavily into the rating than how decent (not great) the story turned out to be. I would not recommend this to any survivor of SA.

[Anne Hartley Pfohl · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author warns the actions featured in this book should not be tried at home.

My understanding is this author writes a lot of BDSM fiction. What is featured in this book is actually abusive, so I agree with the author's warning. Another reader mentioned Anna Stone as an example of an author who writes BDSM well. I would also recommend Natalie Debrabandere's The Doc. Edie Marr doesn't compare to them very well at all.

[L A Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dark Love

I enjoy reading dark romance books. This book is an excellent read. Lady Blueheart is a hard sadistic female. Every time a wife of hers dies. She picks another from her village. This time, it is Suri. And the story begins. Enjoy.

[The Wild Weary Cow Reads Sapphic]

Errrmmm a little bit too dark for me. The story was interesting.

[Kendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it!

This book was fantastic! It is definitely dark and has some dubious consent. Very well written book! I felt like it had a little bit of everything going for it. Romance, mystery, and the sex scenes! Whoo

[Holly Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

TW: Very dubious consensual sex scenes and what can only be construed as domestic abuse.

Even with the above this was an enjoyable read. I liked the characters and the end of story wrap up worked really well. It was a well thought through story and for a dark fairy tale believable. If you have read her other dark fairy tale Prisoner of the Witch Queen I would say this one was better. There was more interaction between the two main characters and it feels more thought out. If you like your fairy tales dark give this a read.

I was given a copy of this as an ARC in return for an honest review.

[Kiahna Eve Esquea · Rating 2 out of 5]

it’s a no for me

This book was either not edited or just poorly written. There were so many grammatical errors. Words spelled incorrectly, quotation or punctuation marks in the wrong place, etc.
I also particularly disliked that this book claimed to be BDSM. BDSM is about consent and mutual trust. That’s not what this was and I’m honestly exhausted of authors equating abuse with BDSM THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!!! I cannot stress this enough. Blueheart is not a domme she is an abuser.
*SPOILERS*
YES I KNOW ITS A DARK ROMANCE BUT…
Cruelty for the sake of cruelty will never work for me In a dark romance. Blueheart has 0 redeemable qualities. Typically in a dark romance yes the MC can be cruel but there are other things that they do that suck you in and at least make you willing to learn more about why they are how they are and for the majority of this book I really hated Blueheart. Typically in a dark romance at the half way mark you’re rooting for them! I’m a big dark romance fan but this just didn’t do it for me. When Seri “fell in love” with her it was so confusing. Other than straight up Stockholm syndrome, she had no reason to love her. There weren’t sweet moments in their relationship where Blueheart tried to make her feel comfortable or wanted in any way other than sex. Blueheart was good in bed so that was enough to make Seri fall in love with her? Odd. Made the story feel out of place or disjointed. And then when Seri was almost raped she was victim blamed? She called her a sl*t multiple times because she was almost assaulted?Like were we as the reader supposed to be okay with that because she killed the man? I was just overwhelmingly disappointed by this story. I feel like it had a lot of potential. I feel like if the characters and their relationship was fleshed out more, honestly adding a good 100 pages, building the romance aside from the cruelty, and the book was thoroughly reviewed and edited, it could have been much better.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

BDSM meets fairytale

Quick colourful read, thoroughly enjoyed the heat and spice.
Could have been longer and more in-depth but for a quick read well done.

[Hope Freed · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried to like this; I really did, but in fairly short order the casual cruelty meted out to the Bride of the title, Seri, became just too much for me. She’s a bit mouthy but from the start this was unpalatable. Seri is whipped for failing to attend an event when the only reason she wasn’t there was because someone had locked her in a cupboard. And we’re not talking about some gentle playful whipping; instead it’s a thorough whipping given by the very woman she is forced marry. Then she’s bound and gagged and generally abused. Her wife/owner seems to be entirely without any redeeming feature. I skimmed through this hoping to see some tenderness grow but was largely disappointed…just absolutely not for me…

[Moriah Venable · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for something short to read while at work.

The premise of a Lady taking wives and them dying only for the main character to become the ninth wife sounded interesting and it would have been if not for a better plot and not using the word 'cunny'. A word I have never heard used before and I hope I never do.

This is a retelling of Bluebeard which I know nothing about but I love retelling so I gave it a try. The twist would have been good.

I wanted to read the second book so I decided to read the first one. I don't know if I want to read the next book now. I don't want to read the word cunny.

Edit: I checked out the second book, did a word search for the word and found it 11 times. So i returned it.

[Jamie (TheRebelliousReader) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. This was my kind of dark and sexy. I really liked this. The beginning had me hooked and pulled me in immediately. I liked the writing and the main character Seri was strong willed even though I do think she folded for Blueheart a bit quickly. But the chemistry between them was great and even though it was unhealthy and toxic. Blueheart is a monster. Abusive, manipulative and everything else but I found her character to be captivating. The curse aspect that comes in at the end was interesting but felt a bit rushed. I wish it would’ve been expanded upon but whatever. I still enjoyed this. I love a good toxic relationship.

[Tegan Cory · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved Marr's book 'Prisoner of the Witch Queen' and gave it five stars with ease. However, with this one I was disappointed, it was still good and certainly interesting at points and I loved a lot of the plot details like the mute maids but I really disliked the amount of sadism in this, to be honesty it left me uneasy and desperate to see Lady Blueheart be remorseful and cradle and heal Seri, at one point this emotion was to overwhelming for me. I would like to state that I am not a soft reader and have read many dark romances with ease but this was too much. I loved all the nods to the original Bluebeard tale as that is one of my favourites.

[Eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

wasn’t my fav but I enjoyed the writing style and was able to become immersed in the book. Can’t wait to pick up prisoner of the witch queen tho.

New word unlocked: Cunny
- can’t lie I hated the amount of time I read that word. I initially thought Edie made the word up until I searched it on google and found out it was used in the late 1500s.

[Jes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok first of all, CUNNY? Absolutely not. My brain refused to even consider it and was constantly reading it as cunt and unfortunately for me the author used ‘cunny’ so. many. times. Second, there was lowkey a ton of grammar errors so -1 point for those things. Otherwise 10/10. I’d never heard of the Bluebeard folk tale before but I’m a huge fan now

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story started off interesting but it got boring midway. I couldn't feel any connection to the characters nor did it make sense that they would even fall in love with each other. The intimate scenes were also lacking; just a lot of fingering.

[Zureena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woe 😮...

I could not put the book down. Captivating with rollercoaster emotions and heavy angs. A 5🌟 for the retelling and a ending with HEA. 🔥 steamy scenes that puts smile on your face.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantasy filled

curses, magic and lust only to find your HEA. Love found in the least likely places, in the harshest conditions of pleasure and pain. Breaking the curse to find unconditional love.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Darkest tale

This is the darkest, and raciest tale I have read. I am not sure how I feel considering the consent issue, with so much sadism present in the story. It borders on too far. That said, it was an interesting read.

[Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not great. A couple grammatical errors. The pacing was okay, right up until the end. Everything just sorta...happened. a random twist at the end really fell flat.

It's giving 1st draft for a smut 101 course. It has potential. I liked enough to read another title by this author.

[Vanclaise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth the time.

It’s not terrible, it can be read, but don’t deserve the time.

The characters are completely flat inside a box. That’s it. The plot twist is not a plot twist actually, you see it coming, it’s almost boring.

I expected more.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of S&M. But I liked the twist in the story.

[Alecto · Rating 3 out of 5]

good story, although the denouement is a bit rushed.
(Buena historia de barba zul con tetas, aun que quede con ganas de que recibiera un palazo)

[Emma Bowl · Rating 1 out of 5]

If i could give this 0 starts i would

[Diabolical Duckling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is this terrible smut? Yes. Did I find this book entertaining? Also yes. What does that say about me? I’d rather not think about it too much.

[Christine Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow what a gripping retelling I loved it the way it all fitted perfectly in a way that kept you hooked it had so much depth to the characters and their journey through it all was exceptionally written a must-read congratulations

[Emma Thingsted · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, but why the word “cunny”…