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Carmilla #3
Carmilla Volume 3: The Eternal
The final chapter of this Bram Stoker Award-winning graphic novel reimagination of Sheridan LeFanu's classic Carmilla!
Athena's daughter Ella journeys to Oxford, England where a mysterious university benefactor hires her for what seems like a simple research position, but leads her straight into the heart of danger...and the Lo family back into the complicated web of Carmilla herself. As deaths begin to pile up on campus, Ella becomes entangled with a secret supernatural society of hard partying immortals. And just as Athena once did, Ella is about to discover some family secrets of her own...
A seductive, supernatural thriller about mortality and mother/daughter relationships.
Athena's daughter Ella journeys to Oxford, England where a mysterious university benefactor hires her for what seems like a simple research position, but leads her straight into the heart of danger...and the Lo family back into the complicated web of Carmilla herself. As deaths begin to pile up on campus, Ella becomes entangled with a secret supernatural society of hard partying immortals. And just as Athena once did, Ella is about to discover some family secrets of her own...
A seductive, supernatural thriller about mortality and mother/daughter relationships.
112 pages, Paperback
First published October 7, 2025
About the author
Amy Chu
326 books196 followersWinner Bram Stoker Award, Gold Anthem Award. Writer for DC, Vertigo, Marvel, IDW and more, including: Poison Ivy, Ant-Man, Deadpool, Red Sonja, Green Hornet, Sensation Comics Wonder Woman, X-Files. KISS and DMC Comics. Cofounded Alpha Girl Comics, publisher of Girls Night Out and other comics. Frequent comic-con panel speaker and moderator.
Follow me on amychu.bluesky.social, @theamychu tiktok, @amy_chu instagram
Follow me on amychu.bluesky.social, @theamychu tiktok, @amy_chu instagram
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
November 20, 2025
3.5
2025 reads: 313/300
in this third volume of carmilla, athena’s daughter, ella, journeys to oxford after a mysterious benefactor offers her a job fresh out of college. what seems like a simple research position takes a turn for the worse as the lo family is once again thrust into carmilla’s complicated, and dangerous, web.
i didn’t read the description before diving into this one, so i had no idea what to expect. i thought the decision to follow athena’s daughter in this volume was a good one. the mother/daughter relationship dynamic was explored very well. highly recommend this to those who enjoyed the previous two volumes!
2025 reads: 313/300
in this third volume of carmilla, athena’s daughter, ella, journeys to oxford after a mysterious benefactor offers her a job fresh out of college. what seems like a simple research position takes a turn for the worse as the lo family is once again thrust into carmilla’s complicated, and dangerous, web.
i didn’t read the description before diving into this one, so i had no idea what to expect. i thought the decision to follow athena’s daughter in this volume was a good one. the mother/daughter relationship dynamic was explored very well. highly recommend this to those who enjoyed the previous two volumes!
October 24, 2025
Just a wonderful way to end the series with lots of surprises and really great illustrations.
For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:
https://youtube.com/shorts/mzrZ4fkjFL...
Enjoy!
For the rest of the review, visit my Vlog at:
https://youtube.com/shorts/mzrZ4fkjFL...
Enjoy!
February 15, 2026
The final book in the Carmilla trilogy jumps ahead in time to focus on Athena’s daughter (and some other “legacy” characters). Somewhat less focused than the first two but still an excellent read with a mysterious yet satisfying ending.
October 31, 2025
Souvenirs From the Empire🩸🧳
When Carmilla enters, the book remembers what beauty feels like. Soo Lee’s art wakes up: lines melt, shadows bloom, everything moves as if seen through breath. Then she’s gone, and the style tightens—clean, efficient, sterile. That shift says everything. In The Eternal, horror doesn’t vanish; it’s managed.
Amy Chu builds the illusion of depth—bloodlines, empire, contamination—but it’s mythological tourism again, just grander. Bathory, Barbarossa, Oxford: souvenirs from someone else’s nightmare. Where volume two flirted with real expansion—the folklore of Asian demons, ancestral hunger, other ways to be undead—this one rinses it all out. What’s left are the residues of meaning, the pop-cultural aftertaste of something that once mattered.
What hurts is how close it gets. You can see the ghost of a sharper story haunting the edges—the one where women devour their daughters, where rebirth is indistinguishable from consumption. But instead of tragedy, we get translation. Carmilla isn’t reborn; she’s absorbed. Neutered, declawed, content-ready. Every thread of inheritance tied into neat, marketable closure.
By the endMaybe it’s a joke: the female gothic ending where it all began, among mirrors, water, and reflection. Or maybe it’s just what pop culture does best—turn danger into décor. Either way, the myth survives only as wallpaper.
The tragedy isn’t that Carmilla died. It’s that she stopped meaning anything.
Verdict: 2.5 / 5. A vampire saga that confuses circulation for immortality—beautifully embalmed, spiritually vacant.
Read next for stories that still remember how to bleed:
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Mariana Enriquez) — inheritance that festers.
• Tell Me I’m Worthless (Alison Rumfitt) — mythology eaten alive.
• My Darling Dreadful Thing (Johanna van Veen) — because this one remembers how to bleed.
#MythologicalTourism #NoOneBleedsAnymore #DeadButDecorative #GlobalGothic #VampireAsContent
When Carmilla enters, the book remembers what beauty feels like. Soo Lee’s art wakes up: lines melt, shadows bloom, everything moves as if seen through breath. Then she’s gone, and the style tightens—clean, efficient, sterile. That shift says everything. In The Eternal, horror doesn’t vanish; it’s managed.
Amy Chu builds the illusion of depth—bloodlines, empire, contamination—but it’s mythological tourism again, just grander. Bathory, Barbarossa, Oxford: souvenirs from someone else’s nightmare. Where volume two flirted with real expansion—the folklore of Asian demons, ancestral hunger, other ways to be undead—this one rinses it all out. What’s left are the residues of meaning, the pop-cultural aftertaste of something that once mattered.
What hurts is how close it gets. You can see the ghost of a sharper story haunting the edges—the one where women devour their daughters, where rebirth is indistinguishable from consumption. But instead of tragedy, we get translation. Carmilla isn’t reborn; she’s absorbed. Neutered, declawed, content-ready. Every thread of inheritance tied into neat, marketable closure.
By the endMaybe it’s a joke: the female gothic ending where it all began, among mirrors, water, and reflection. Or maybe it’s just what pop culture does best—turn danger into décor. Either way, the myth survives only as wallpaper.
The tragedy isn’t that Carmilla died. It’s that she stopped meaning anything.
Verdict: 2.5 / 5. A vampire saga that confuses circulation for immortality—beautifully embalmed, spiritually vacant.
Read next for stories that still remember how to bleed:
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Mariana Enriquez) — inheritance that festers.
• Tell Me I’m Worthless (Alison Rumfitt) — mythology eaten alive.
• My Darling Dreadful Thing (Johanna van Veen) — because this one remembers how to bleed.
#MythologicalTourism #NoOneBleedsAnymore #DeadButDecorative #GlobalGothic #VampireAsContent
October 30, 2025
I read the whole trilogy, so I'm reviewing all 3 books but giving essentially the same review for the entire series. This was a very creative twist on the vampire narrative, and I really enjoyed the multicultural aspect along with the theme of identity. This trilogy is more of its own story though with new characters, and doesn't have to do much with the original Carmilla story, although that story is mentioned many times.
I also enjoyed how each book takes place mainly in a different location:
Book one is set in NYC, book two in San Francisco, and book three in London. The art was fantastic for all of them.
The only negative thing:
Like some other reviews said, the pacing is a bit strange to me, as some things are revealed very suddenly. I felt like each book in this trilogy should have been slightly longer to accommodate this. I understand sometimes conveying pacing in graphic novels is quite different than in a novel, but I've read many, and I felt that things were rushed throughout.
I feel that the author is incredibly talented but was trying to talk about many different issues all in the same series/book.
Overall I'd recommend this to fans of graphic novels and the vampire genre, and I see why the first book won an award.
I also enjoyed how each book takes place mainly in a different location:
Book one is set in NYC, book two in San Francisco, and book three in London. The art was fantastic for all of them.
The only negative thing:
Like some other reviews said, the pacing is a bit strange to me, as some things are revealed very suddenly. I felt like each book in this trilogy should have been slightly longer to accommodate this. I understand sometimes conveying pacing in graphic novels is quite different than in a novel, but I've read many, and I felt that things were rushed throughout.
I feel that the author is incredibly talented but was trying to talk about many different issues all in the same series/book.
Overall I'd recommend this to fans of graphic novels and the vampire genre, and I see why the first book won an award.
February 1, 2026
I struggle to give this anything but a full rating...clearly it's a work of passion, and the art and character designs are stellar as always.
So when I don't, it's in the slight contrived-ness, the comic logic of it all, the 'Your grandpa does Wuxia and that's why I can strike down evil', and the cartoonish evil of the villains consolidating the entire narrative into a simple black-and-grey-and-white, pleasant and simple but also mono-dimensional. And really, is it right, to hate something for what it is? I think so, because there could be more.
Carmilla is cool as hell. But she deserves a better narrative, something transcendent. I won't be mad at this comic series though, it has its merits for sure.
So when I don't, it's in the slight contrived-ness, the comic logic of it all, the 'Your grandpa does Wuxia and that's why I can strike down evil', and the cartoonish evil of the villains consolidating the entire narrative into a simple black-and-grey-and-white, pleasant and simple but also mono-dimensional. And really, is it right, to hate something for what it is? I think so, because there could be more.
Carmilla is cool as hell. But she deserves a better narrative, something transcendent. I won't be mad at this comic series though, it has its merits for sure.
November 15, 2025
The art is beautiful.
Lesbian Vampires. What's not to love?
I do wish the story were more drawn out. Maybe I'm selfish, but I wanted it to last longer. I would love an old school novel - with pictures! Not disappointed though. Ill take whatever I can get from these two creatives.
Lesbian Vampires. What's not to love?
I do wish the story were more drawn out. Maybe I'm selfish, but I wanted it to last longer. I would love an old school novel - with pictures! Not disappointed though. Ill take whatever I can get from these two creatives.
March 8, 2026
In the third part of the trilogy, we jump 30 years ahead to see the main character's daughter falling into the orbits of a few of the minor characters from the original novella, letting the author really play with themes of relationship and legacy.
October 12, 2025
Now that it is all said and done what are we supposed to do now???
October 31, 2025
Love this series!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 11, 2025
This was a nice way to end the series
January 17, 2026
The artwork is always STUNNING, and I enjoyed this final installment!
February 6, 2026
I removed a star, because I’m not quite sure what to make of the ending, especially because it’s the ending of the series
February 21, 2026
81/100
November 26, 2025
This was weaker than the previous two volumes but still a beautifully written and illustrated story. There are not as many creatures and mythology, it is more focused on tying in the original novel. It felt a little shoe-horned in some ways.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews