Jess’s Reviews > A Dowry of Blood > Status Update

-So much of this book has been stuff like “Magdalena is smart & cunning. She’s good at deceiving politicians & elites to derive info from them.” But where is the evidence of her doing so? Our protagonist in particular feels more like a hollow shell, rather than her own character. What are her personality traits? Couldn’t tell you. This novel has been a recounting of info, a listing of details. Not a story…

I’m not surprised Dracula’s abuse eventually turned more physical. There are parts of this novel that I like, however, I do think there’s been a lot of telling instead of showing. Authors, please trust your audience to be able to form revelations themselves! Believe it or not, we can understand things! Reading is designed to spike your imagination.—

I’m interested to see how S. T. Gibson portrays the relationship between Dracula & his wives, although it ofc is being shown as toxic thus far. Occasionally, I’ve been thrown off by the meta/1st person POV where she keeps referring to Dracula as “you.” She’s addressing us, the audience, as Dracula, which took me some getting used to. But I’ve been reading this pretty quickly!