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The Brides
Before Dracula, there were The Brides. . .
Come to me, and be mine for eternity
1903. Sir John Seward, survivor of Count Dracula’s murderous campaign ten years before, takes up a post as a psychiatric doctor at an Oxford public asylum. There, a new patient arrives whose traumatic experiences resurrect horrors John has spent a decade trying to forget.
1884. Mafalda Lowell journeys from London to Budapest to care for her recently widowed aunt Reka. She uncovers the chilling truth about her uncle’s death, and writes to her secret love Lucy North for comfort. Chaperoned by former schoolfriend Eliza and lady’s maid Alice, Lucy travels across the continent to be with her beloved.
Only Alice, beset by nightmares and terrifying visions, notices the strange black-clad man who seems to follow them wherever they go. When Eliza is struck down with a mysterious wasting illness, her doctor orders her to take the healing waters of Transylvania, a journey with devastating consequences.
Four women. Three Brides. Which one escaped . . . ?
A dual timeline novel, told through letters, diary entries, psychiatric reports, that places women at the centre of literature's most famous vampire story.
Come to me, and be mine for eternity
1903. Sir John Seward, survivor of Count Dracula’s murderous campaign ten years before, takes up a post as a psychiatric doctor at an Oxford public asylum. There, a new patient arrives whose traumatic experiences resurrect horrors John has spent a decade trying to forget.
1884. Mafalda Lowell journeys from London to Budapest to care for her recently widowed aunt Reka. She uncovers the chilling truth about her uncle’s death, and writes to her secret love Lucy North for comfort. Chaperoned by former schoolfriend Eliza and lady’s maid Alice, Lucy travels across the continent to be with her beloved.
Only Alice, beset by nightmares and terrifying visions, notices the strange black-clad man who seems to follow them wherever they go. When Eliza is struck down with a mysterious wasting illness, her doctor orders her to take the healing waters of Transylvania, a journey with devastating consequences.
Four women. Three Brides. Which one escaped . . . ?
A dual timeline novel, told through letters, diary entries, psychiatric reports, that places women at the centre of literature's most famous vampire story.
371 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 7, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 307 reviews
April 17, 2026
I am so enraged by these f(I'm trying not to swear)ing pestilential authors having their moment reviving f*ing DEAD LESBIAN SYNDROME right now.
This is the worst kind of cluttered, messy, hatefully heteronormative queerbaiting - that epilogue?! I can't fucking stand it.
Read the book, attempt to hunt down this click-baited Sapphic 'love story' (what - they hold one another's hands once?!), realise that it's the weakest kind of self-enfranchisement into the Carmilla canon, and boil it all down to the simpering "Oh Darling, we must take husbands to be historically accurate", then try - just try to see it from a lesbian woman's point of view that this is the most vile tokenistic use of our sexuality. That fucking epilogue! That fucking heterocentric over-glazing queer-eradication, and redemptive straightening-out of all that was Sapphic.
Do I have to write EVERY TIME the same review as The Night Stairs (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) over and over and over? I'm not able for it.
This is the worst kind of cluttered, messy, hatefully heteronormative queerbaiting - that epilogue?! I can't fucking stand it.
Read the book, attempt to hunt down this click-baited Sapphic 'love story' (what - they hold one another's hands once?!), realise that it's the weakest kind of self-enfranchisement into the Carmilla canon, and boil it all down to the simpering "Oh Darling, we must take husbands to be historically accurate", then try - just try to see it from a lesbian woman's point of view that this is the most vile tokenistic use of our sexuality. That fucking epilogue! That fucking heterocentric over-glazing queer-eradication, and redemptive straightening-out of all that was Sapphic.
Do I have to write EVERY TIME the same review as The Night Stairs (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) over and over and over? I'm not able for it.
Want to Read
September 26, 2025when am i never gonna devour a retelling of dracula's brides honestly
January 28, 2026
Official-ish blurbage: THE BRIDES is an astonishing literary magic trick, managing to sew itself seamlessly into Dracula in a way that wholly honours the original while forging new ground with vibrant compelling characters and a story that held me rapt.
Unofficial review: LORD this was addictive but also classy? Felt like actual 19th century lit. Incredibly well done.
Unofficial review: LORD this was addictive but also classy? Felt like actual 19th century lit. Incredibly well done.
Read
March 5, 2026I blurbed this one!
"The Brides is Dracula's worthy successor: a gothic, sapphic epistolary novel that thrills, chills, and delights in equal measure. I loved every page!"
"The Brides is Dracula's worthy successor: a gothic, sapphic epistolary novel that thrills, chills, and delights in equal measure. I loved every page!"
Want to Read
May 31, 2026ARC received. Thank you, Hanover Square Press!
December 14, 2025
The Brides slides into the Dracula corpus as if it's always been there - a prequel and a sequel all at once - while at the same time feeling new and fresh and wholly, entirely its own. A must-read for anyone who loves Dracula, or vampires, or nuanced, meticulously researched explorations of the women living in the shadows of well-known narratives.
I absolutely adored it.
I absolutely adored it.
Did Not Finish
January 18, 2026DNF 😏
May 13, 2026
Was it easy to understand?
No.
But did I enjoy reading it?
Also no.
No.
But did I enjoy reading it?
Also no.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Through letters and journal entries, the story of Lucy, Malfalda, Alice, and Eliza unfolds. In the face of illness and turmoil they make their way to Castle Dracula, but what promises to aid them soon becomes a living nightmare and their secrets and fears might just come back to bite them.
There's something to be said about a retelling being faithful to the original, but I think this may be a case of being a little too faithful to the original. By that I mean that this reads like a classic gothic novel in the sense that it's very slow-paced and it's about 90% people falling ill or having nightmares and 10% actual plot events. That being said, the epistolary format is pretty solid and it's more engaging than I would have expected considering that it is so slow, but unfortunately there are some other issues I have with this.
I got sold a queer Dracula retelling and unfortunately the queer aspect of this book is like...completely forgettable. It's not about queerness, and usually I think that's a good thing because I don't want every book that has queer characters to be *about* queerness, but in this case...that's kind of why I picked up the book. I wanted lesbian wives of Dracula and I got an extremely minor romantic relationship between two women that is either profoundly repressed or profoundly lacking in chemistry to the point of reading as platonic. Additionally, as another review mentions without spoiling the ending too much this is a "bury your gays" situation so even the slightest thing that make this book feel fresh and compelling gets unceremoniously killed off.
I don't think this book is terrible, in fact the writing is pretty great and the author is clearly passionate, but I don't really know who to recommend it to. I don't think you'll be happy with it if you're a huge fan of Dracula and I don't think you'll be happy with it if you're in it for lesbians and vampires because there's very little of each.
Thank you to Charlotte Cross and Hanover Square Press for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
There's something to be said about a retelling being faithful to the original, but I think this may be a case of being a little too faithful to the original. By that I mean that this reads like a classic gothic novel in the sense that it's very slow-paced and it's about 90% people falling ill or having nightmares and 10% actual plot events. That being said, the epistolary format is pretty solid and it's more engaging than I would have expected considering that it is so slow, but unfortunately there are some other issues I have with this.
I got sold a queer Dracula retelling and unfortunately the queer aspect of this book is like...completely forgettable. It's not about queerness, and usually I think that's a good thing because I don't want every book that has queer characters to be *about* queerness, but in this case...that's kind of why I picked up the book. I wanted lesbian wives of Dracula and I got an extremely minor romantic relationship between two women that is either profoundly repressed or profoundly lacking in chemistry to the point of reading as platonic. Additionally, as another review mentions without spoiling the ending too much this is a "bury your gays" situation so even the slightest thing that make this book feel fresh and compelling gets unceremoniously killed off.
I don't think this book is terrible, in fact the writing is pretty great and the author is clearly passionate, but I don't really know who to recommend it to. I don't think you'll be happy with it if you're a huge fan of Dracula and I don't think you'll be happy with it if you're in it for lesbians and vampires because there's very little of each.
Thank you to Charlotte Cross and Hanover Square Press for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!
Happy reading!
November 18, 2025
I am so sad to admit that I really struggled to engage with this one. On paper, this should have been immaculate. I adore multiple works of classical literature, grandeur gothicism and of course, the delectable darkness that is Bram Stokers masterpiece, Dracula. The concept of doing an inspired piece from the perspective of Count Draculas wives was an immediate sell to me. However, for me personally, I believe the concept was more engaging than its actual execution.
For me this was entirely a pacing issue, and I can only attribute this to the format in which the tale was presented. I do largely enjoy unconventional presentations of texts, be it diary entries, letters, or snippets of news. But in this particular instance, there were a number of differing povs, a series of unreliable narrators, scewed time-lines, and of course the epistolary written formats. It became incredibly confusing and particularly jarring to attempt to follow the plot.
This jarring and particularly slow pacing (especially for the first few hundred pages!) further damaged my relationship with the characters due to oftentimes being confused as to whose pov I was reading, and as such damaged the levels of empathy I had been attempting to build with this novel.
Whilst I realise this is an attempt at mimicking the original Stoker text, for whatever reason I truly struggled to engage with it. Perhaps I struggled with it being an e-arc as it was not simple to flick back constantly to see who was speaking and at what time.
I am sad to say I struggled with this one, but I would still urge others to read it and form their own opinions on it.
Thanks again to Tor Books/ Pan Macmillan for granting me the opportunity to read this novel as an arc and I look forward to working together again in future!
For me this was entirely a pacing issue, and I can only attribute this to the format in which the tale was presented. I do largely enjoy unconventional presentations of texts, be it diary entries, letters, or snippets of news. But in this particular instance, there were a number of differing povs, a series of unreliable narrators, scewed time-lines, and of course the epistolary written formats. It became incredibly confusing and particularly jarring to attempt to follow the plot.
This jarring and particularly slow pacing (especially for the first few hundred pages!) further damaged my relationship with the characters due to oftentimes being confused as to whose pov I was reading, and as such damaged the levels of empathy I had been attempting to build with this novel.
Whilst I realise this is an attempt at mimicking the original Stoker text, for whatever reason I truly struggled to engage with it. Perhaps I struggled with it being an e-arc as it was not simple to flick back constantly to see who was speaking and at what time.
I am sad to say I struggled with this one, but I would still urge others to read it and form their own opinions on it.
Thanks again to Tor Books/ Pan Macmillan for granting me the opportunity to read this novel as an arc and I look forward to working together again in future!
July 8, 2026
The Brides is a prequel/sequel to Dracula, giving us insight into his three Brides and the one who escaped. It is told in an epistolary format, much like Dracula. I listened to the audiobook, and the narration was superb. The problem I found was the changing timelines and becoming confused about which timeline I was listening to, particularly early on in the novel. I believe this would work just fine on the page, but it's easy to become lost in the audio. The sapphic love story left me a little cold, feeling as though everything between them was kept at arms length. Perhaps this was by design, but it deemed the relationship as hollow to me. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the story of the gathering of the Brides themselves, and I'm sure that was influenced by my love for the original Dracula. It was entertaining.
In short, if you enjoyed the story format of Dracula and have ever wanted a little background into the women in the book, this will likely be a fun read.
3.5 stars rounded up
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the audiobook.
In short, if you enjoyed the story format of Dracula and have ever wanted a little background into the women in the book, this will likely be a fun read.
3.5 stars rounded up
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the audiobook.
March 16, 2026
The Brides expands upon the much beloved Dracula story in a refreshing yet familiar way. It honours the original while creating a new story that will suck you in (pun intended), bring you to the verge of insanity like the women who become Dracula’s brides and leave you enthralled with the world of the dark one. This story feels like it was written at the time of Bram Stoker and Sheridan Le Fanu. It fits so seamlessly into the 19th century style of gothic literature which just adds to experience of reading this book.
Told in the form of diary entries and letters, The Brides gives us multiple points of views and timelines. We meet Sir John Seward who survived Dracula’s deadly campaign, a young servant girl called Alice writing to her mother and sister, and Malfada Lowell who is travelling to Budapest to care for her aunt who is recently widowed and writes to her secret love Lucy about her heartbreaking discoveries.
The way Charlotte has weaved this story together, stringing the multiple timelines, the lives of the various characters and bridging the gap between the orignal story we all know and the emergence of the Brides who terrorise Van Helsing and his companions is so well done. And at its heart is a devastating sapphic love story that will leave you in pieces as the tale unfolds.
It’s an addictive read, haunting and thrilling from the opening lines to the final words. The women of this story are outstanding characters, the skill of the author lies in how she brings them to vivid life on the pages, makes you thoroughly invested in each of their stories. A must for Dracula and vampire enthusiasts. A worthy successor to the original tale and an author who I’m going to be keeping an eye on for future releases.
The Brides will be released on March 19th. Thanks to Pan MacMillan and Tor Nightfire for the arc. 4.5 ⭐️
Told in the form of diary entries and letters, The Brides gives us multiple points of views and timelines. We meet Sir John Seward who survived Dracula’s deadly campaign, a young servant girl called Alice writing to her mother and sister, and Malfada Lowell who is travelling to Budapest to care for her aunt who is recently widowed and writes to her secret love Lucy about her heartbreaking discoveries.
The way Charlotte has weaved this story together, stringing the multiple timelines, the lives of the various characters and bridging the gap between the orignal story we all know and the emergence of the Brides who terrorise Van Helsing and his companions is so well done. And at its heart is a devastating sapphic love story that will leave you in pieces as the tale unfolds.
It’s an addictive read, haunting and thrilling from the opening lines to the final words. The women of this story are outstanding characters, the skill of the author lies in how she brings them to vivid life on the pages, makes you thoroughly invested in each of their stories. A must for Dracula and vampire enthusiasts. A worthy successor to the original tale and an author who I’m going to be keeping an eye on for future releases.
The Brides will be released on March 19th. Thanks to Pan MacMillan and Tor Nightfire for the arc. 4.5 ⭐️
March 1, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley, HarperCollins and the author
for an ARC of The Brides!
This was ALMOST a DNF. And I NEVER dnf. I trudged through it though.
The Brides is a feminist gothic horror about the three women who became the brides of Dracula - and the fourth who managed to escape ...
(This blurb snippet is what made me want to read this)
It’s very obvious that a ton of research went into this book. I enjoyed the history aspect and the vampire lore. But other than that, I found the story a bit bland and hard to follow. The characters were difficult to connect with. I feel like this was written for late Victorian readers… And maybe people who like books written in that kind of dense language (like the original Dracula) may be able to follow and enjoy this a little more than me. And while I loved the concept of a story told entirely through letters, documentation and diary entries, I don’t think it worked here. It just made an already confusing story/timeline/pov even more confusing. It was a slow read with, in my opinion, wayyyy too many characters that were unnecessary to the story and a timeline that jumps back and forth through too many pov’s and timelines that it made it so hard to keep track of who’s who.
I think this was a great tribute to the Dracula lore and a reimagining of things that we have yet to experience when it comes to his wives. I also think you NEED some familiarity with the original Dracula works in order to get the full scope of The Brides considering it’s written completely around the original story.
for an ARC of The Brides!
This was ALMOST a DNF. And I NEVER dnf. I trudged through it though.
The Brides is a feminist gothic horror about the three women who became the brides of Dracula - and the fourth who managed to escape ...
(This blurb snippet is what made me want to read this)
It’s very obvious that a ton of research went into this book. I enjoyed the history aspect and the vampire lore. But other than that, I found the story a bit bland and hard to follow. The characters were difficult to connect with. I feel like this was written for late Victorian readers… And maybe people who like books written in that kind of dense language (like the original Dracula) may be able to follow and enjoy this a little more than me. And while I loved the concept of a story told entirely through letters, documentation and diary entries, I don’t think it worked here. It just made an already confusing story/timeline/pov even more confusing. It was a slow read with, in my opinion, wayyyy too many characters that were unnecessary to the story and a timeline that jumps back and forth through too many pov’s and timelines that it made it so hard to keep track of who’s who.
I think this was a great tribute to the Dracula lore and a reimagining of things that we have yet to experience when it comes to his wives. I also think you NEED some familiarity with the original Dracula works in order to get the full scope of The Brides considering it’s written completely around the original story.
October 29, 2025
4.5 stars!
A sapphic epistolary gothic novel that is also (and I mean this in the best way) Dracula fanfic? Sign me up! This is a wonderful homage to Dracula (you can tell Cross loves that book deeply) whilst also managing to be its own thing. Very atmospheric for sure (definitely gave me some wild dreams). Perfect for all my vampire-loving girlies out there!
A sapphic epistolary gothic novel that is also (and I mean this in the best way) Dracula fanfic? Sign me up! This is a wonderful homage to Dracula (you can tell Cross loves that book deeply) whilst also managing to be its own thing. Very atmospheric for sure (definitely gave me some wild dreams). Perfect for all my vampire-loving girlies out there!
May 7, 2026
Absolutely loved it.
I will write more after our book club meet 😏
I will write more after our book club meet 😏
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
castle dracula, transylvania, austro-hungarian empire.
this sincerely felt like i received actual diary entries from the late 1800s to the early 1900s!
🕯️🥀・❤︎・ “𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓁𝓁 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒸𝑜𝓇𝓅𝓈𝑒. 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝓀𝒾𝓃 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒶𝓈𝒽𝑒𝓃, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝓌𝑜 𝒷𝓁𝑒𝑒𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓈 𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝒶𝓉. 𝒾 𝒸𝓇𝒾𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾 𝓈𝒶𝓌 𝒽𝑒𝓇. 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓋𝒶𝓂𝓅𝓎𝓇 𝓈𝓉𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒷𝑒𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝑒, 𝑔𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝒹𝓎 𝒸𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝒶𝓇𝓂 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹, 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝓎 𝑒𝓎𝑒𝓈.”
alright look, i softly dnf’d dracula last november (i know in my review i said i wasn’t going back to it, i just wasn’t in a good mood at that time) but the brides honestly motivated me to go back and finish it someday after this!
i believe this could be literatures most famous reimagined dracula tale!
this is slow evenly paced that requires a lot of patience.
the structure & format this was written in expressed through various diary entries, letters, medical notes labeled to & from and location on a dual timeline is ∞ embedded in my soul
count draculas wives!
this lures you into an eerie world of four women as they weave across whitby - london - hungary - budapest - romania until they reach castle dracula, transylvania in 1884
🩸 eliza cartwright - a chaperone who accompanies mafalda & lucy
🩸 alice smith - a young lady’s maid that inherits haunting visions while writing to her mother & sister
🩸 mafalda lowell - journeying to care for her ill aunt and writing to her secret love lucy
🩸 lucy north - mafalda’s secret lover girl
i drank in mafalda & lucy’s devastating sapphic romance.
it left a sense of ever-deepening dread.
they all face a blood monstrous destiny when they meet the vampyr as he fades into a saturated hunger.
we also get to read over psychiatrist sir john sewards personal diary at littlemore hospital, oxfordshire.
he’s practicing medicine after the defeat of dracula and the arrival of his new patient miss. lowell in 1903
🕯️🥀・❤︎・”𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒷𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑒 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓉𝓎.”
what an astonishing debut novel from charlotte cross!
i’m so thankful i got approved early access for the chance to arc read this.
the late victorian historical era, the affectionate atmosphere felt like i were wandering through the fog.
i can’t wait to look out for what she has in store for us in the future.
whether you enjoy the original dracula or gothic vampires in general, i promise you’ll be curling your toes flipping through each page.
girls want flowers, women want to visit draculas castle and the gorgeous coastal town of whitby, yorkshire.
that’s seamlessly my goal!
🕯️🥀・❤︎・”𝒾 𝒶𝓂 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝓁𝑜𝓌, 𝒻𝓊𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝒻 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉𝓈. 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓉𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇, 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓀𝒾𝓈𝓈, 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓂𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝒹. 𝒾 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓈𝒾𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝒾𝓇 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉. 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒶𝓀𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓂𝒾𝓁𝑒𝓈 𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝑒, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓂𝓎 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒. 𝒾 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝑒𝓂𝑜𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒷𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾 𝓇𝑒𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓂 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒻𝓊𝓉𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝓂𝑒.
‘𝒾’𝓂 𝓈𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝑒’𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓋𝒶𝒾𝓃 𝑒𝓃𝑜𝓊𝑔𝒽,’ 𝒾 𝓈𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝒻𝓁𝒶𝓉𝓁𝓎, 𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓎.
thank you very much netgalley & harlequin trade publishing for the arc in exchange for my honest review!~
this sincerely felt like i received actual diary entries from the late 1800s to the early 1900s!
🕯️🥀・❤︎・ “𝓂𝒾𝓈𝓈 𝓁𝑜𝓌𝑒𝓁𝓁 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓁𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝒸𝑜𝓇𝓅𝓈𝑒. 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓈𝓀𝒾𝓃 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝒶𝓈𝒽𝑒𝓃, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓉𝓌𝑜 𝒷𝓁𝑒𝑒𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝒾𝓉𝑒𝓈 𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓀𝑒𝒹 𝒽𝑒𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝒶𝓉. 𝒾 𝒸𝓇𝒾𝑒𝒹 𝑜𝓊𝓉 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾 𝓈𝒶𝓌 𝒽𝑒𝓇. 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓋𝒶𝓂𝓅𝓎𝓇 𝓈𝓉𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝒷𝑒𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝓂𝑒, 𝑔𝓇𝒾𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝒷𝑜𝒹𝓎 𝒸𝓁𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝒶𝓇𝓂 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝓎 𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓃 𝒾𝓃 𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝑒 𝒽𝒶𝓃𝒹, 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝓎 𝑒𝓎𝑒𝓈.”
alright look, i softly dnf’d dracula last november (i know in my review i said i wasn’t going back to it, i just wasn’t in a good mood at that time) but the brides honestly motivated me to go back and finish it someday after this!
i believe this could be literatures most famous reimagined dracula tale!
this is slow evenly paced that requires a lot of patience.
the structure & format this was written in expressed through various diary entries, letters, medical notes labeled to & from and location on a dual timeline is ∞ embedded in my soul
count draculas wives!
this lures you into an eerie world of four women as they weave across whitby - london - hungary - budapest - romania until they reach castle dracula, transylvania in 1884
🩸 eliza cartwright - a chaperone who accompanies mafalda & lucy
🩸 alice smith - a young lady’s maid that inherits haunting visions while writing to her mother & sister
🩸 mafalda lowell - journeying to care for her ill aunt and writing to her secret love lucy
🩸 lucy north - mafalda’s secret lover girl
i drank in mafalda & lucy’s devastating sapphic romance.
it left a sense of ever-deepening dread.
they all face a blood monstrous destiny when they meet the vampyr as he fades into a saturated hunger.
we also get to read over psychiatrist sir john sewards personal diary at littlemore hospital, oxfordshire.
he’s practicing medicine after the defeat of dracula and the arrival of his new patient miss. lowell in 1903
🕯️🥀・❤︎・”𝒸𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒, 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒷𝑒 𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑒 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝑒𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓉𝓎.”
what an astonishing debut novel from charlotte cross!
i’m so thankful i got approved early access for the chance to arc read this.
the late victorian historical era, the affectionate atmosphere felt like i were wandering through the fog.
i can’t wait to look out for what she has in store for us in the future.
whether you enjoy the original dracula or gothic vampires in general, i promise you’ll be curling your toes flipping through each page.
girls want flowers, women want to visit draculas castle and the gorgeous coastal town of whitby, yorkshire.
that’s seamlessly my goal!
🕯️🥀・❤︎・”𝒾 𝒶𝓂 𝒽𝑜𝓁𝓁𝑜𝓌, 𝒻𝓊𝓁𝓁 𝑜𝒻 𝓃𝑜𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉𝓈. 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓉𝑜𝑔𝑒𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇, 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓀𝒾𝓈𝓈, 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓂𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝒹. 𝒾 𝓌𝒶𝓈 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓈𝒾𝒷𝓁𝑒 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝒾𝓇 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓎, 𝒷𝓊𝓉 𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎 𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒷𝑒 𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝑜𝓌𝓃 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉. 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓅𝑒𝒶𝓀𝓈 𝓉𝑜 𝓂𝑒, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓂𝒾𝓁𝑒𝓈 𝒶𝓉 𝓂𝑒, 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓁𝒶𝓊𝑔𝒽𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓂𝓎 𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓃𝒸𝑒. 𝒾 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝓂𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈 𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝑒𝓂𝑜𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓎 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒷𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝒾 𝓇𝑒𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃 𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓂 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝓌𝒽𝒶𝓉𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒻𝓊𝓉𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝒾𝓉𝓈 𝓂𝑒.
‘𝒾’𝓂 𝓈𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝓌𝑒’𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓋𝒶𝒾𝓃 𝑒𝓃𝑜𝓊𝑔𝒽,’ 𝒾 𝓈𝒶𝒾𝒹 𝒻𝓁𝒶𝓉𝓁𝓎, 𝓉𝓊𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓎.
thank you very much netgalley & harlequin trade publishing for the arc in exchange for my honest review!~
April 19, 2026
I picked up The Brides because the cover promised me gothic horror, Dracula, dread, atmosphere - the whole Victorian nightmare package. What I got was, well... a historical fiction novel about women writing letters to each other. Which is fine! That is a thing that exists and that people enjoy! It's just not quite what was on the tin.
Let me be clear: this book is not bad. It is ambitious, it has genuine heart, and the relationships between the women at its centre are, at times, genuinely compelling. But it is also a book that will make you feel like you've been handed a 1000-piece puzzle with no picture on the box, three pieces missing, and someone has helpfully scattered the rest across three different timelines. We open in the 1900s, then we're in 1893, then we're in 1883/84, and we're doing all of this through journal entries, letters, and notes from people we haven't been properly introduced to yet. I spent a genuinely embarrassing amount of time not knowing who anyone was. There is also a character whose identity is withheld until near the end - I understand the intended effect was eerie and unsettling, but the actual effect was me flipping back pages going "wait, who?"
Once it clicks, it clicks. The atmosphere does build. There are stretches where you're properly in it, genuinely gripped, feeling the walls close in. And then there are other stretches where you remember you've been reading for two hours and Dracula has not shown up yet and probably won't for a while. The horror, when it arrives, is largely... explained to you. Verbally. Towards the end. Like a villain monologue, but for the entire plot. I did not find this terrifying so much as I found it a little deflating.
The romance is where things get complicated for me.
Would I recommend it? Yes, but only to a very specific person: someone who loves slow-burn historical fiction, isn't too precious about the horror label, and has the patience of someone who genuinely enjoys the journey over the destination. If you're picking this up because the cover made you think you were in for gothic terror - manage those expectations aggressively, or you will spend half the book waiting for something that arrives much later than advertised, and much quieter.
Three stars. It tried. I respect the ambition even when the execution made me want to lie down.
Let me be clear: this book is not bad. It is ambitious, it has genuine heart, and the relationships between the women at its centre are, at times, genuinely compelling. But it is also a book that will make you feel like you've been handed a 1000-piece puzzle with no picture on the box, three pieces missing, and someone has helpfully scattered the rest across three different timelines. We open in the 1900s, then we're in 1893, then we're in 1883/84, and we're doing all of this through journal entries, letters, and notes from people we haven't been properly introduced to yet. I spent a genuinely embarrassing amount of time not knowing who anyone was. There is also a character whose identity is withheld until near the end - I understand the intended effect was eerie and unsettling, but the actual effect was me flipping back pages going "wait, who?"
Once it clicks, it clicks. The atmosphere does build. There are stretches where you're properly in it, genuinely gripped, feeling the walls close in. And then there are other stretches where you remember you've been reading for two hours and Dracula has not shown up yet and probably won't for a while. The horror, when it arrives, is largely... explained to you. Verbally. Towards the end. Like a villain monologue, but for the entire plot. I did not find this terrifying so much as I found it a little deflating.
The romance is where things get complicated for me.
Would I recommend it? Yes, but only to a very specific person: someone who loves slow-burn historical fiction, isn't too precious about the horror label, and has the patience of someone who genuinely enjoys the journey over the destination. If you're picking this up because the cover made you think you were in for gothic terror - manage those expectations aggressively, or you will spend half the book waiting for something that arrives much later than advertised, and much quieter.
Three stars. It tried. I respect the ambition even when the execution made me want to lie down.
March 27, 2026
3.5 ⭐️
May 13, 2026
✨✨✨DNF shame 🫣 ✨✨✨
I love anything Dracula, gothic, victorian, vampire related and I was fully expecting that I’d really enjoy this book! I was HIGHLY anticipating this one! I hate DNFing arc books, but sadly I had to with this one. Dnf @ about 20%. 🫣
I honestly really struggled to get into the story. The amount of POVs and the dual timeline made it hard to keep up and connect to the characters and the story. It was way too much going on with the POVS, but also nothing was happening in the story at the same time. ⁉️ I enjoyed the format of journal entries and letters the book is written in. I could see a bit of the gothic atmosphere that I really love. I just wish I could have gotten invested in the story! I don’t mind a slow book, but this one was just too slow for my personal taste.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is expected to be released July 7, 2026 .
I love anything Dracula, gothic, victorian, vampire related and I was fully expecting that I’d really enjoy this book! I was HIGHLY anticipating this one! I hate DNFing arc books, but sadly I had to with this one. Dnf @ about 20%. 🫣
I honestly really struggled to get into the story. The amount of POVs and the dual timeline made it hard to keep up and connect to the characters and the story. It was way too much going on with the POVS, but also nothing was happening in the story at the same time. ⁉️ I enjoyed the format of journal entries and letters the book is written in. I could see a bit of the gothic atmosphere that I really love. I just wish I could have gotten invested in the story! I don’t mind a slow book, but this one was just too slow for my personal taste.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is expected to be released July 7, 2026 .
May 25, 2026
Many thanks to the publisher for sending me the arc.
Ahh how I loved this one. “Dracula” is one of my favourites and I was so happy when I saw this book comes out. I loved the concept and, while in the beginning it’s hard to understand how everything will connect, throughout the story all comes together in a marvellous way.
This book made me want to reread “Dracula” and I’ll probably do it with another feeling, now that I know a story behind his wives.
I loved the writing in the book and how similar is to the classic. I had some moments where I was feeling like I’m reading another classic, not a contemporary.
Ahh how I loved this one. “Dracula” is one of my favourites and I was so happy when I saw this book comes out. I loved the concept and, while in the beginning it’s hard to understand how everything will connect, throughout the story all comes together in a marvellous way.
This book made me want to reread “Dracula” and I’ll probably do it with another feeling, now that I know a story behind his wives.
I loved the writing in the book and how similar is to the classic. I had some moments where I was feeling like I’m reading another classic, not a contemporary.
July 10, 2026
I was absolutely ready to throw myself dramatically into this book. Dracula's brides? Gothic horror? Creepy castles? Secret sapphic longing? Hand me the black lace and point me toward Transylvania immediately.
Instead I spent a surprising amount of time trying to remember whose diary I was reading, what year it was, and whether someone was currently writing a letter, remembering a letter, or reading a psychiatric report about the letter. It really commits to the whole Dracula experience, right down to making you piece the story together one journal entry at a time.
The women, though, deserved better than the universe kept handing them. Mafalda is trying to help her grieving aunt while quietly carrying around feelings she can't safely talk about. Lucy packs herself up and crosses half of Europe because that's apparently what you do when the love of your life sends an emotionally devastating letter. Alice is over there having terrifying visions every five minutes, which should have earned her at least one person saying, "Maybe we should listen to the woman predicting doom." Instead everyone politely ignores the walking supernatural smoke alarm.
Then poor Eliza starts wasting away, and somehow the solution becomes, "Let's all travel deeper into Transylvania." I know hindsight is twenty-twenty, but if a mysterious illness sends me toward Castle Dracula, I'm suddenly discovering a passionate commitment to staying home and drinking soup.
I really did love the old-fashioned letters and journal entries. They made it feel like I had stumbled into a forgotten box of documents in some dusty attic where every page smelled faintly of candle wax and terrible decisions. When that style clicked, it was honestly wonderful. It felt like a respectful nod to the original story without simply copying it.
I just kept waiting for the emotional punch to hit harder than it did. Lucy and Mafalda had moments where I wanted to completely buy into them, but I never quite reached the point where I was clutching my chest and whispering, "These poor women." I wanted more time just letting them exist together before everything went spectacularly wrong.
The audiobook definitely helped. Anna Popplewell and Sam Woolf carried so much of the mood that I think I would've struggled even more in print. Every eerie letter, every unsettling report, every creeping sense that something terrible was waiting just beyond the next page came alive because of their performances. They did a lot of heavy lifting while my brain occasionally waved a tiny white flag trying to keep the timelines straight.
By the end I was glad I'd taken the journey, even if it wasn't quite the gothic obsession I'd convinced myself it was going to become. I wanted to absolutely lose my mind over this story. Instead I finished it thinking, "That was good...I just wish I'd connected with it the way I wanted to." Sometimes that's almost more disappointing than outright disliking a book.
This settles comfortably at three stars for me. I admired what it was trying to do, I genuinely enjoyed the audiobook, and I loved the commitment to classic gothic storytelling. I just never quite fell under Dracula's spell.
And thank you to Harlequin Audio and NetGalley for the ALC. You invited me to Castle Dracula with two fantastic narrators, a stack of haunted journal entries, and enough ominous foreshadowing to make me suspicious of literally every carriage ride. Honestly, I'd still accept the invitation again...I'd just pack more garlic.
Instead I spent a surprising amount of time trying to remember whose diary I was reading, what year it was, and whether someone was currently writing a letter, remembering a letter, or reading a psychiatric report about the letter. It really commits to the whole Dracula experience, right down to making you piece the story together one journal entry at a time.
The women, though, deserved better than the universe kept handing them. Mafalda is trying to help her grieving aunt while quietly carrying around feelings she can't safely talk about. Lucy packs herself up and crosses half of Europe because that's apparently what you do when the love of your life sends an emotionally devastating letter. Alice is over there having terrifying visions every five minutes, which should have earned her at least one person saying, "Maybe we should listen to the woman predicting doom." Instead everyone politely ignores the walking supernatural smoke alarm.
Then poor Eliza starts wasting away, and somehow the solution becomes, "Let's all travel deeper into Transylvania." I know hindsight is twenty-twenty, but if a mysterious illness sends me toward Castle Dracula, I'm suddenly discovering a passionate commitment to staying home and drinking soup.
I really did love the old-fashioned letters and journal entries. They made it feel like I had stumbled into a forgotten box of documents in some dusty attic where every page smelled faintly of candle wax and terrible decisions. When that style clicked, it was honestly wonderful. It felt like a respectful nod to the original story without simply copying it.
I just kept waiting for the emotional punch to hit harder than it did. Lucy and Mafalda had moments where I wanted to completely buy into them, but I never quite reached the point where I was clutching my chest and whispering, "These poor women." I wanted more time just letting them exist together before everything went spectacularly wrong.
The audiobook definitely helped. Anna Popplewell and Sam Woolf carried so much of the mood that I think I would've struggled even more in print. Every eerie letter, every unsettling report, every creeping sense that something terrible was waiting just beyond the next page came alive because of their performances. They did a lot of heavy lifting while my brain occasionally waved a tiny white flag trying to keep the timelines straight.
By the end I was glad I'd taken the journey, even if it wasn't quite the gothic obsession I'd convinced myself it was going to become. I wanted to absolutely lose my mind over this story. Instead I finished it thinking, "That was good...I just wish I'd connected with it the way I wanted to." Sometimes that's almost more disappointing than outright disliking a book.
This settles comfortably at three stars for me. I admired what it was trying to do, I genuinely enjoyed the audiobook, and I loved the commitment to classic gothic storytelling. I just never quite fell under Dracula's spell.
And thank you to Harlequin Audio and NetGalley for the ALC. You invited me to Castle Dracula with two fantastic narrators, a stack of haunted journal entries, and enough ominous foreshadowing to make me suspicious of literally every carriage ride. Honestly, I'd still accept the invitation again...I'd just pack more garlic.
July 11, 2026
This one just didn't work for me. While I don't mind a slow-burn story, this felt more sluggish than engaging, and I struggled to stay invested from beginning to end. It's disappointing because the writing itself was good, but the story never quite grabbed my attention.
I also found myself getting lost fairly often. There were a lot of characters and details to keep track of, and I wasn't always sure what was happening or where the story was headed. In the end, it wasn't the reading experience I had hoped for.
That said, I can definitely see this finding the right audience. If you're planning to pick it up, I'd recommend reading a physical copy if possible. I think being able to flip back and reference earlier sections would make the story much easier to follow and more enjoyable.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!
I also found myself getting lost fairly often. There were a lot of characters and details to keep track of, and I wasn't always sure what was happening or where the story was headed. In the end, it wasn't the reading experience I had hoped for.
That said, I can definitely see this finding the right audience. If you're planning to pick it up, I'd recommend reading a physical copy if possible. I think being able to flip back and reference earlier sections would make the story much easier to follow and more enjoyable.
Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!
June 14, 2026
I’ve been exciting to this for months now!
The cover is stunning. We’ve all heard Dracula’s story so many times that it’s about dang time we hear about the women!
The story is told through a series of journal entries and letters between the women and Dr. Seward. I enjoyed how the story was woven with what we already know about Dracula.
This isn’t really a spoiler but I wish we had more time with Dracula and the women. Instead of near the end. I was hoping to see more of their change.
It’s fun and something a little different!
Thank you to NetGalley, Charlotte Cross and Harlequin Trade Publishing | Hanover Square Press for the opportunity to read The Brides. I have written this review voluntarily and honestly.
The cover is stunning. We’ve all heard Dracula’s story so many times that it’s about dang time we hear about the women!
The story is told through a series of journal entries and letters between the women and Dr. Seward. I enjoyed how the story was woven with what we already know about Dracula.
This isn’t really a spoiler but I wish we had more time with Dracula and the women. Instead of near the end. I was hoping to see more of their change.
It’s fun and something a little different!
Thank you to NetGalley, Charlotte Cross and Harlequin Trade Publishing | Hanover Square Press for the opportunity to read The Brides. I have written this review voluntarily and honestly.
July 7, 2026
The Brides is a gothic horror about the three women who became the brides of Dracula – and the fourth who managed to escape…
It’s very atmospheric and a great reimagined tale of Dracula, told through journal entries and letters. I definitely recommend this book if you’re a fan of Dracula and vampires overall.
It’s very atmospheric and a great reimagined tale of Dracula, told through journal entries and letters. I definitely recommend this book if you’re a fan of Dracula and vampires overall.
Want to Read
January 17, 2026Thanks to Hanover Square Press and HarperCollins for my review copy!
July 12, 2026
The Archive Has Teeth
How Charlotte Cross’s “The Brides” turns Dracula’s forgotten women into witnesses, lovers, patients, monsters, and survivors
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | July 11th, 2026
Documents are the true haunted house in Charlotte Cross’s “The Brides.” Letters arrive too late. Journals confess what polite society cannot name. Medical files mistake endurance for illness, while a maid’s commonplace book quietly becomes more useful than any gentleman’s certainty. The vampire, of course, has his castle; that is expected of him, like teeth and aristocratic bad manners. But Cross’s deeper chamber is the record itself: who is allowed into it, who is left outside, and what changes when women once reduced to appetite and atmosphere are returned to handwriting, fear, wit, vanity, devotion, and damage.
Even the premise arrives wearing an old cloak with fresh blood stitched into the lining. “The Brides” re-enters the house of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” but moves the lamp toward the women left lingering as the Count’s undead household ornaments. In 1884, Mafalda Lowell travels to Buda-Pesth to comfort her grieving aunt, Reka, after her husband’s death. Lucy North, Mafalda’s secret beloved, follows from England with Eliza Cartwright as chaperone and Alice Smith as lady’s maid. Alice is burdened with the Sight; Eliza begins to suffer a wasting illness; family secrets and small incriminating wounds gather around the party until the route toward healing becomes the road to Castle Dracula. Three women will become brides. One will escape.
Mafalda and Lucy give the novel its emotional puncture. Their love is not a decorative scandal but a fact with no respectable furniture and very real domestic, financial, and bodily consequences. Mafalda, proud, brilliant, and dangerously susceptible to fantasies of command, thinks Joseph Lowell’s proposal might provide cover, money, safety, and a respectable arrangement in which Lucy can remain near her forever. Lucy hears something else. Not clever protection, but erasure furnished with a guest room and a leash of gratitude. Cross is especially good at the pain that comes from two people using the same word – love – while imagining entirely different rooms inside it.
Every return to an overvisited vampire has to answer the little cough from the balcony: why this story again? “The Brides” earns its return by refusing the easy work of rescue-by-renaming. Cross does not hand the brides names as if names alone could save them; she gives Eliza, Reka, and Mafalda histories, tempers, habits, and only then their fangs. Their later monstrosity is allowed to be frightening in its own right. Eliza’s tenderness curdles into ghastly maternity; Reka’s grief and grievance harden into predation; Mafalda’s desire for freedom and command turns imperial under Dracula’s hand. A monster becomes more disturbing, not less, when the reader can still see the woman inside the curse.
The 1903 timeline shows Lucy’s catastrophe after society has renamed it illness. Sir John Seward arrives at Littlemore Hospital and meets Dr Beatrice Knight, his capable deputy, just as a high-born female patient presents with nightmares, hallucinations, insomnia, weeping fits, and zoophagy – in her case, eating ants. The patient is Lady Lowell, once Lucy North, whose mind has sealed itself around a useful lie that later hardens: the public story of a carriage accident abroad. Seward and Knight’s inquiry brings the old papers into contact with the older horror. The asylum frame occasionally files dread too neatly, but its injury is precise: Lucy becomes believable only after pain is translated into symptoms, testimony, and case notes.
Rather than sprinting toward the castle, Cross lets dread file itself into place by domestic and clerical means. A letter is translated. A photograph is studied. A symptom is noticed. Garlic flowers appear not as quaint stage dressing but as working protection. A rosary, a shutter, a cup of lemon beebrush tea, a servant’s suspicious glance – these become the survival kit. Labor becomes detection. Dresses must be unfastened, trays brought, rooms prepared, bodies washed, fevers watched, lies managed. Evil may enter by moonlight, but someone still has to keep the household ledger of terror.
In that respect, Alice is the book’s quiet center of gravity. She is not simply the maid who sees visions whenever the plot requires a barometric shiver. Cross gives her a morality of attention: she records instructions, notices disturbances, understands the danger of rank, prays when prayer is needed, doubts herself when doubt is honest, and keeps moving when almost anyone else would collapse. The Sight matters, but the gift itself is less persuasive than the discipline surrounding it.
Placed beside its ancestors, “The Brides” knows exactly which shelves it comes from and refuses to curtsy too low. “Dracula” by Bram Stoker supplies the machinery: diaries, letters, medical notes, delayed testimony, travel, illness, male investigation. “Carmilla” by Sheridan Le Fanu hovers behind the book’s sapphic voltage, with desire, dream, and illness braided together. “A Dowry of Blood” by S. T. Gibson is the obvious modern cousin in its bride-centered reimagining of vampire mythology. Cross is less compressed than Gibson, less insinuating than Le Fanu, and more interested than Stoker in aftercare; her book wants not only seduction and terror, but paperwork, tending, and the right to amend the record.
And yet the novel is not a thesis in a cape. Its strongest pages are alive to daily frictions: Lucy’s jealous tenderness, Mafalda’s proud impatience, Alice’s homesickness, Eliza’s fussing care before it curdles, Seward’s melancholy professionalism, Knight’s dry competence. The book’s feminism is most persuasive when embedded in behavior rather than announcement. Cross lets her women be vain, brave, foolish, devout, possessive, frightened, clever, and wrong. Nobody here is improved by being made exemplary. Even the saintlier figures have enough earth on their hems to be believed.
Prose, here, is better at weather, rooms, and dread than at surprise. Cross writes in an accessible Victorian-inflected register: medium-to-long sentences, formal turns of phrase, drawing-room manners, train compartments, sickrooms, old-world geography, and that excellent habit of making weather feel personally involved. Lucy’s voice is heightened and romantic, sometimes nearly operatic in its devotion to Mafalda. Alice’s letters are plainer, steadier, more plainly useful. Seward’s diary has the careful moral pressure of a doctor trying not to betray either reason or recollection. The diction signals period without becoming taxidermy.
Atmosphere is well furnished without feeling over-furnished. Green fabric, white teeth, garlic, rosaries, wolves, rain, forests, photographs, candlelight, misted windows, locked rooms, and absent reflections recur with satisfying insistence. Cross likes a charged object, but usually gives it work to do. The green dress, especially, becomes more than costume: first glamour, then inheritance, then corruption, then the awful theater in which Lucy must decide whether the woman she loves is still present inside the creature asking for eternity. The image fulfills the gothic contract: entirely too much, and therefore exactly enough.
Dracula himself is both effective and, at moments, too eager to explain himself. Cross’s Count does not merely bite; he interprets. He reads the women’s longings and assigns them monstrous offices: Eliza as mother, Reka as enforcer, Mafalda as general. The nasty little brilliance is conscription: he does not invent their desires so much as draft them into his service. But the scene also reveals one of the book’s costs. At times Dracula sounds too ready to caption his own symbolism, as if he has read the discussion guide and found it broadly accurate. The horror is strongest when it seeps through illness, touch, and delay; it is less uncanny when the monster explains his management structure.
In the papers themselves, the book most fully justifies its return. The epistolary design is not mere homage. It is the method by which Cross asks what counts as knowledge. Lucy’s journal knows desire before danger. Alice’s commonplace book knows danger before authority. Seward’s casework knows symptoms before causes. Translated letters know family shame before public fact. The form insists that truth is not a thunderclap but an arrangement – gathered, sorted, doubted, misfiled, recovered. The novel’s papers are not antiquarian furniture. They are the room where judgment finally changes hands.
More complicated is the 1903 frame: it gives the book architecture and occasionally starches the curtains. Seward and Knight are humane company, and their inquiry allows Cross to treat the vampire story as something that continues after the castle has been left behind: in the body, in marriage, in motherhood, in sleep, in what a woman can and cannot remember without breaking. Necessary, yes; a little over-orderly, also yes. The later diagnosis, however compassionate, can make the earlier nightmare feel too neatly indexed. One wants, now and then, for a few bats to remain uncatalogued.
Its pacing bears the same cost. “The Brides” is not built for knife-edge speed. It sprawls through family correspondence, travel, illness, history, translation, flirtation, domestic observation, and retrospective explanation. Some of that sprawl is productive: the record must feel assembled, not delivered by courier in one convenient packet. Some of it lets pressure leak. The middle passages can circle meanings the reader has already caught, particularly around foreboding, late-arriving letters, and the slow recognition that polite explanations are no match for puncture wounds. The book rarely stalls, but it sometimes takes the scenic route to the cemetery.
The brides matter before they are lost. That is Cross’s best stroke. When Van Helsing later destroys them, the act is not allowed the uncomplicated glow of masculine housekeeping after the fact. It is release, yes, but also brutality, sorrow, and belated mercy. The shift chills the inherited story from a different direction. The brides are not symbols waiting to be dispatched; they are recent women, loved women, women whose hungers were touched by a monster and made into instruments.
Romance, in this book, is neither cure nor infection. Lucy and Mafalda’s love is real, sustaining, and beautiful; it is also vulnerable to secrecy, pride, possession, and catastrophic imagination. Cross is careful not to equate queer desire with vampiric appetite, but she is equally careful not to pretend that love becomes harmless simply because it has been oppressed. Mafalda’s fatal mistake is not loving Lucy too much; it is believing that eternity under Dracula can solve the problem of a world that gives their love no publicly livable form. The Count’s genius is to make a cage look like an exit.
Old pressures move through the book by way of concrete arrangements: who is believed, who is diagnosed, who does the tending, which love can be named, which sorrow must be disguised as something else. Lucy’s testimony has to be gathered, translated, and medically reframed before it can be heard. Her trauma is treated as madness when the truth is socially impossible. Alice’s care work is easy to overlook until it becomes the only thing standing between life and ruin. Cross does not need to point toward the present with a trembling finger. The old machinery is still humming.
Perhaps the ending works because it knows restoration is not repair. Lucy survives. She becomes Lady Lowell, marries Joseph, has children, and recovers memories with Seward’s help. She loves Joseph with gratitude and tenderness, but Mafalda remains the great wound and the great measure. This is one of Cross’s finer acts of proportion: the later domestic life is not treated as false, and it is not treated as sufficient. Lucy’s future is real because it contains compromise, affection, motherhood, dread, and a love that has not obediently died just because the beloved has.
One can hear the possible refusals. Readers wanting rapid vampire spectacle may find the documentary patience elaborate. Readers tired of retellings may grumble at another visit to the Count’s address book. Readers seeking a purely triumphant reclamation may be unsettled by Mafalda’s disastrous choice and by the genuine horror of the brides themselves. But those who like gothic fiction that keeps fog in one hand and a filing system in the other will find much to admire. I would rate “The Brides” 85/100, which corresponds to 4/5 stars: not flawless, but exact in its chosen weather, far more than a tasteful exercise in revision.
Under Cross’s additions, “Dracula” becomes less satisfied with itself. She adds rooms behind the known rooms, pages to the file, witnesses to the scene, grief inside the victory. What had been a masculine record of pursuit and extermination is complicated by women who dressed one another, loved one another, misread one another, saved one another, and, in some cases, failed one another terribly.
Lucy’s final posture gives the novel its truest image: not triumph, not collapse, but vigilance. Garlic flowers grow. Beebrush tea is drunk. A rosary remains near the bed. The survivor has children, a husband, memories, scars, and a private theology of waiting. Horror has not ended; it has steeped into habits of care. That is where “The Brides” leaves us – not at the castle door, but in a room with flowers, tea, children, and a locked memory, while one woman still listens for wolves.
How Charlotte Cross’s “The Brides” turns Dracula’s forgotten women into witnesses, lovers, patients, monsters, and survivors
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | July 11th, 2026
Documents are the true haunted house in Charlotte Cross’s “The Brides.” Letters arrive too late. Journals confess what polite society cannot name. Medical files mistake endurance for illness, while a maid’s commonplace book quietly becomes more useful than any gentleman’s certainty. The vampire, of course, has his castle; that is expected of him, like teeth and aristocratic bad manners. But Cross’s deeper chamber is the record itself: who is allowed into it, who is left outside, and what changes when women once reduced to appetite and atmosphere are returned to handwriting, fear, wit, vanity, devotion, and damage.
Even the premise arrives wearing an old cloak with fresh blood stitched into the lining. “The Brides” re-enters the house of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” but moves the lamp toward the women left lingering as the Count’s undead household ornaments. In 1884, Mafalda Lowell travels to Buda-Pesth to comfort her grieving aunt, Reka, after her husband’s death. Lucy North, Mafalda’s secret beloved, follows from England with Eliza Cartwright as chaperone and Alice Smith as lady’s maid. Alice is burdened with the Sight; Eliza begins to suffer a wasting illness; family secrets and small incriminating wounds gather around the party until the route toward healing becomes the road to Castle Dracula. Three women will become brides. One will escape.
Mafalda and Lucy give the novel its emotional puncture. Their love is not a decorative scandal but a fact with no respectable furniture and very real domestic, financial, and bodily consequences. Mafalda, proud, brilliant, and dangerously susceptible to fantasies of command, thinks Joseph Lowell’s proposal might provide cover, money, safety, and a respectable arrangement in which Lucy can remain near her forever. Lucy hears something else. Not clever protection, but erasure furnished with a guest room and a leash of gratitude. Cross is especially good at the pain that comes from two people using the same word – love – while imagining entirely different rooms inside it.
Every return to an overvisited vampire has to answer the little cough from the balcony: why this story again? “The Brides” earns its return by refusing the easy work of rescue-by-renaming. Cross does not hand the brides names as if names alone could save them; she gives Eliza, Reka, and Mafalda histories, tempers, habits, and only then their fangs. Their later monstrosity is allowed to be frightening in its own right. Eliza’s tenderness curdles into ghastly maternity; Reka’s grief and grievance harden into predation; Mafalda’s desire for freedom and command turns imperial under Dracula’s hand. A monster becomes more disturbing, not less, when the reader can still see the woman inside the curse.
The 1903 timeline shows Lucy’s catastrophe after society has renamed it illness. Sir John Seward arrives at Littlemore Hospital and meets Dr Beatrice Knight, his capable deputy, just as a high-born female patient presents with nightmares, hallucinations, insomnia, weeping fits, and zoophagy – in her case, eating ants. The patient is Lady Lowell, once Lucy North, whose mind has sealed itself around a useful lie that later hardens: the public story of a carriage accident abroad. Seward and Knight’s inquiry brings the old papers into contact with the older horror. The asylum frame occasionally files dread too neatly, but its injury is precise: Lucy becomes believable only after pain is translated into symptoms, testimony, and case notes.
Rather than sprinting toward the castle, Cross lets dread file itself into place by domestic and clerical means. A letter is translated. A photograph is studied. A symptom is noticed. Garlic flowers appear not as quaint stage dressing but as working protection. A rosary, a shutter, a cup of lemon beebrush tea, a servant’s suspicious glance – these become the survival kit. Labor becomes detection. Dresses must be unfastened, trays brought, rooms prepared, bodies washed, fevers watched, lies managed. Evil may enter by moonlight, but someone still has to keep the household ledger of terror.
In that respect, Alice is the book’s quiet center of gravity. She is not simply the maid who sees visions whenever the plot requires a barometric shiver. Cross gives her a morality of attention: she records instructions, notices disturbances, understands the danger of rank, prays when prayer is needed, doubts herself when doubt is honest, and keeps moving when almost anyone else would collapse. The Sight matters, but the gift itself is less persuasive than the discipline surrounding it.
Placed beside its ancestors, “The Brides” knows exactly which shelves it comes from and refuses to curtsy too low. “Dracula” by Bram Stoker supplies the machinery: diaries, letters, medical notes, delayed testimony, travel, illness, male investigation. “Carmilla” by Sheridan Le Fanu hovers behind the book’s sapphic voltage, with desire, dream, and illness braided together. “A Dowry of Blood” by S. T. Gibson is the obvious modern cousin in its bride-centered reimagining of vampire mythology. Cross is less compressed than Gibson, less insinuating than Le Fanu, and more interested than Stoker in aftercare; her book wants not only seduction and terror, but paperwork, tending, and the right to amend the record.
And yet the novel is not a thesis in a cape. Its strongest pages are alive to daily frictions: Lucy’s jealous tenderness, Mafalda’s proud impatience, Alice’s homesickness, Eliza’s fussing care before it curdles, Seward’s melancholy professionalism, Knight’s dry competence. The book’s feminism is most persuasive when embedded in behavior rather than announcement. Cross lets her women be vain, brave, foolish, devout, possessive, frightened, clever, and wrong. Nobody here is improved by being made exemplary. Even the saintlier figures have enough earth on their hems to be believed.
Prose, here, is better at weather, rooms, and dread than at surprise. Cross writes in an accessible Victorian-inflected register: medium-to-long sentences, formal turns of phrase, drawing-room manners, train compartments, sickrooms, old-world geography, and that excellent habit of making weather feel personally involved. Lucy’s voice is heightened and romantic, sometimes nearly operatic in its devotion to Mafalda. Alice’s letters are plainer, steadier, more plainly useful. Seward’s diary has the careful moral pressure of a doctor trying not to betray either reason or recollection. The diction signals period without becoming taxidermy.
Atmosphere is well furnished without feeling over-furnished. Green fabric, white teeth, garlic, rosaries, wolves, rain, forests, photographs, candlelight, misted windows, locked rooms, and absent reflections recur with satisfying insistence. Cross likes a charged object, but usually gives it work to do. The green dress, especially, becomes more than costume: first glamour, then inheritance, then corruption, then the awful theater in which Lucy must decide whether the woman she loves is still present inside the creature asking for eternity. The image fulfills the gothic contract: entirely too much, and therefore exactly enough.
Dracula himself is both effective and, at moments, too eager to explain himself. Cross’s Count does not merely bite; he interprets. He reads the women’s longings and assigns them monstrous offices: Eliza as mother, Reka as enforcer, Mafalda as general. The nasty little brilliance is conscription: he does not invent their desires so much as draft them into his service. But the scene also reveals one of the book’s costs. At times Dracula sounds too ready to caption his own symbolism, as if he has read the discussion guide and found it broadly accurate. The horror is strongest when it seeps through illness, touch, and delay; it is less uncanny when the monster explains his management structure.
In the papers themselves, the book most fully justifies its return. The epistolary design is not mere homage. It is the method by which Cross asks what counts as knowledge. Lucy’s journal knows desire before danger. Alice’s commonplace book knows danger before authority. Seward’s casework knows symptoms before causes. Translated letters know family shame before public fact. The form insists that truth is not a thunderclap but an arrangement – gathered, sorted, doubted, misfiled, recovered. The novel’s papers are not antiquarian furniture. They are the room where judgment finally changes hands.
More complicated is the 1903 frame: it gives the book architecture and occasionally starches the curtains. Seward and Knight are humane company, and their inquiry allows Cross to treat the vampire story as something that continues after the castle has been left behind: in the body, in marriage, in motherhood, in sleep, in what a woman can and cannot remember without breaking. Necessary, yes; a little over-orderly, also yes. The later diagnosis, however compassionate, can make the earlier nightmare feel too neatly indexed. One wants, now and then, for a few bats to remain uncatalogued.
Its pacing bears the same cost. “The Brides” is not built for knife-edge speed. It sprawls through family correspondence, travel, illness, history, translation, flirtation, domestic observation, and retrospective explanation. Some of that sprawl is productive: the record must feel assembled, not delivered by courier in one convenient packet. Some of it lets pressure leak. The middle passages can circle meanings the reader has already caught, particularly around foreboding, late-arriving letters, and the slow recognition that polite explanations are no match for puncture wounds. The book rarely stalls, but it sometimes takes the scenic route to the cemetery.
The brides matter before they are lost. That is Cross’s best stroke. When Van Helsing later destroys them, the act is not allowed the uncomplicated glow of masculine housekeeping after the fact. It is release, yes, but also brutality, sorrow, and belated mercy. The shift chills the inherited story from a different direction. The brides are not symbols waiting to be dispatched; they are recent women, loved women, women whose hungers were touched by a monster and made into instruments.
Romance, in this book, is neither cure nor infection. Lucy and Mafalda’s love is real, sustaining, and beautiful; it is also vulnerable to secrecy, pride, possession, and catastrophic imagination. Cross is careful not to equate queer desire with vampiric appetite, but she is equally careful not to pretend that love becomes harmless simply because it has been oppressed. Mafalda’s fatal mistake is not loving Lucy too much; it is believing that eternity under Dracula can solve the problem of a world that gives their love no publicly livable form. The Count’s genius is to make a cage look like an exit.
Old pressures move through the book by way of concrete arrangements: who is believed, who is diagnosed, who does the tending, which love can be named, which sorrow must be disguised as something else. Lucy’s testimony has to be gathered, translated, and medically reframed before it can be heard. Her trauma is treated as madness when the truth is socially impossible. Alice’s care work is easy to overlook until it becomes the only thing standing between life and ruin. Cross does not need to point toward the present with a trembling finger. The old machinery is still humming.
Perhaps the ending works because it knows restoration is not repair. Lucy survives. She becomes Lady Lowell, marries Joseph, has children, and recovers memories with Seward’s help. She loves Joseph with gratitude and tenderness, but Mafalda remains the great wound and the great measure. This is one of Cross’s finer acts of proportion: the later domestic life is not treated as false, and it is not treated as sufficient. Lucy’s future is real because it contains compromise, affection, motherhood, dread, and a love that has not obediently died just because the beloved has.
One can hear the possible refusals. Readers wanting rapid vampire spectacle may find the documentary patience elaborate. Readers tired of retellings may grumble at another visit to the Count’s address book. Readers seeking a purely triumphant reclamation may be unsettled by Mafalda’s disastrous choice and by the genuine horror of the brides themselves. But those who like gothic fiction that keeps fog in one hand and a filing system in the other will find much to admire. I would rate “The Brides” 85/100, which corresponds to 4/5 stars: not flawless, but exact in its chosen weather, far more than a tasteful exercise in revision.
Under Cross’s additions, “Dracula” becomes less satisfied with itself. She adds rooms behind the known rooms, pages to the file, witnesses to the scene, grief inside the victory. What had been a masculine record of pursuit and extermination is complicated by women who dressed one another, loved one another, misread one another, saved one another, and, in some cases, failed one another terribly.
Lucy’s final posture gives the novel its truest image: not triumph, not collapse, but vigilance. Garlic flowers grow. Beebrush tea is drunk. A rosary remains near the bed. The survivor has children, a husband, memories, scars, and a private theology of waiting. Horror has not ended; it has steeped into habits of care. That is where “The Brides” leaves us – not at the castle door, but in a room with flowers, tea, children, and a locked memory, while one woman still listens for wolves.
April 4, 2026
Loved the format of this book.
Took me some time to get into it but for me I really started getting into it about 60% in.
I did get a little confused on some of the names and timeline but it made the ending worth it!
I think its a really great edition to Dracula, I did always wonder how The Brides came to be and this is the story i'm going with!
Eliza was by far my favorite to read about!
Also to add in, the cover is so incredibly beautiful!
Took me some time to get into it but for me I really started getting into it about 60% in.
I did get a little confused on some of the names and timeline but it made the ending worth it!
I think its a really great edition to Dracula, I did always wonder how The Brides came to be and this is the story i'm going with!
Eliza was by far my favorite to read about!
Also to add in, the cover is so incredibly beautiful!
May 7, 2026
ARC provided by NetGalley.
Full disclosure - I have not read Dracula (yet) but still found this easy to follow and very enjoyable. This book is told through a series of diary entries and letters. Dr. Seward is a new psychiatric physician in Oxford in 1903. He begins to suspect that his patient, Lady Lowell, was traumatized by Count Dracula just as he was. The dual timeline in this novel goes back and forth between Seward uncovering the truths about his patient, and accounts from Dracula’s brides 20 years prior. One of my favorite parts of this book was the forbidden romance between two of the brides. This story was gripping, heartbreaking, and eerie as hell. If you are a fan of gothic fiction and/or vampire stories, especially those of the sapphic variety, this is the book for you! I can’t wait to read more from this author in the future.
Full disclosure - I have not read Dracula (yet) but still found this easy to follow and very enjoyable. This book is told through a series of diary entries and letters. Dr. Seward is a new psychiatric physician in Oxford in 1903. He begins to suspect that his patient, Lady Lowell, was traumatized by Count Dracula just as he was. The dual timeline in this novel goes back and forth between Seward uncovering the truths about his patient, and accounts from Dracula’s brides 20 years prior. One of my favorite parts of this book was the forbidden romance between two of the brides. This story was gripping, heartbreaking, and eerie as hell. If you are a fan of gothic fiction and/or vampire stories, especially those of the sapphic variety, this is the book for you! I can’t wait to read more from this author in the future.
February 17, 2026
Thank you Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
When I first heard about a book about Dracula but focused on his Brides, and there was ALSO a lesbian relationship throughout it I was like “sign me up.”
It had an interesting format, with letters and correspondences collated together to set the stage and show how the women cross paths with Dracula and what in their lives led them to this point. Since I really liked The Appeal by Janice Hallett, I thought this would be another book of a similar format, so I’d enjoy it, but make it gothic (even better!).
I do think it suffered from a too-big cast of characters, but combine that with the letters etc. not being in chronological order and I was lost… a lot.
I kept forgetting who was who, who knew whom, and whether we had jumped back or forward in time. It created quite a ball of confusing notes and it was hard to keep everything on track.
I did love the relationship between Lucy and Mafalda and their correspondence was wha really kept me going with this book, they were clearly devoted to each other in a time when it was nearly impossible to be as two women without a husband to give them financial independence and freedom. Their little comments back and forth and worry when their letters get stuck in customs were adorable.
Dracula is really a background character till quite a way into the book but his presence is certainly felt in the effects on the people around him. The book is very much not about him, but about the women impacted by him.
I really liked the build up to the final confrontation scene, it felt appropriately spooky and gothic and you could really feel the terror in the characters as they recounted their ordeal.
Overall I found this book to be a nice gothic and nostalgic Dracula book with an adorable romance, but it was quite difficult to follow who was who and therefore jumping back in was harder than it usually is for a book for me.
When I first heard about a book about Dracula but focused on his Brides, and there was ALSO a lesbian relationship throughout it I was like “sign me up.”
It had an interesting format, with letters and correspondences collated together to set the stage and show how the women cross paths with Dracula and what in their lives led them to this point. Since I really liked The Appeal by Janice Hallett, I thought this would be another book of a similar format, so I’d enjoy it, but make it gothic (even better!).
I do think it suffered from a too-big cast of characters, but combine that with the letters etc. not being in chronological order and I was lost… a lot.
I kept forgetting who was who, who knew whom, and whether we had jumped back or forward in time. It created quite a ball of confusing notes and it was hard to keep everything on track.
I did love the relationship between Lucy and Mafalda and their correspondence was wha really kept me going with this book, they were clearly devoted to each other in a time when it was nearly impossible to be as two women without a husband to give them financial independence and freedom. Their little comments back and forth and worry when their letters get stuck in customs were adorable.
Dracula is really a background character till quite a way into the book but his presence is certainly felt in the effects on the people around him. The book is very much not about him, but about the women impacted by him.
I really liked the build up to the final confrontation scene, it felt appropriately spooky and gothic and you could really feel the terror in the characters as they recounted their ordeal.
Overall I found this book to be a nice gothic and nostalgic Dracula book with an adorable romance, but it was quite difficult to follow who was who and therefore jumping back in was harder than it usually is for a book for me.
November 12, 2025
The Brides is an epistolary novel, much like its inspiration, that weaves the intersecting stories of four women as they eventually find themselves travelling to Dracula's castle, before the events of the original 1897 novel. Years on, John Seward (the psychiatrist who oversaw Renfield) will piece together letters and journal entries, whilst working at an asylum in 1903.
A familiarity with Bram Stoker's Dracula is crucial to The Brides, that acts as a prequel and continuation of the original novel. Characters from Dracula make appearances, and Cross' brides are skilfully written around the original narrative.
The Brides deals heavily with the themes of female autonomy, sapphic relationships in the late Victorian era, and the effects of living with trauma. It focuses largely on the backstories of its leads, though I also found myself looking forward to the chapters from John Seward's perspective throughout the novel.
Dracula himself is an ever-present, though rarely seen, terrifying force that permeates the text. As a character study, the bulk of story is spent learning about the brides before Dracula's castle, and at times I did find the plot to unfold more slowly than expected. Ultimately however, I found The Brides to be a very gratifying slow-burn read.
I can never get enough of these types of Dracula adjacent continuations/retellings/reimaginings, so I was ecstatic to be able to receive a proof copy to review. Fans of recent classic vampire novel retellings like Hungerstone will be equally eager to devour The Brides.
*Thank you to the publishers for providing a proof copy of this book for review*
A familiarity with Bram Stoker's Dracula is crucial to The Brides, that acts as a prequel and continuation of the original novel. Characters from Dracula make appearances, and Cross' brides are skilfully written around the original narrative.
The Brides deals heavily with the themes of female autonomy, sapphic relationships in the late Victorian era, and the effects of living with trauma. It focuses largely on the backstories of its leads, though I also found myself looking forward to the chapters from John Seward's perspective throughout the novel.
Dracula himself is an ever-present, though rarely seen, terrifying force that permeates the text. As a character study, the bulk of story is spent learning about the brides before Dracula's castle, and at times I did find the plot to unfold more slowly than expected. Ultimately however, I found The Brides to be a very gratifying slow-burn read.
I can never get enough of these types of Dracula adjacent continuations/retellings/reimaginings, so I was ecstatic to be able to receive a proof copy to review. Fans of recent classic vampire novel retellings like Hungerstone will be equally eager to devour The Brides.
*Thank you to the publishers for providing a proof copy of this book for review*
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