Information

• Goodreads: 1,814 ratings, average of 3.94.
• Series: Technically standalone, companion to A Dowry of Blood
• Age Category: Adult
• Genre: Fantasy, Dark Academia, Gothic, Horror

Summary

This is a retelling/reimagining of Carmilla that acts as a companion novel to S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood. That being said, you can absolutely read each without reading the other first. I personally haven’t read her A Dowry of Blood as of yet, but I didn’t feel put by this in the slightest. We’re following Laura and Carmilla, two students who write poetry, as they each compete for the attention of their eccentric and alluring teacher, De Lafontaine, and combat their intense feelings regarding one another. It’s a sexy, dark, vampiric, dark academia delving into intense teacher-student obsession and full of alluring and intriguing characters.

Review – Spoilers

I read Carmilla for the first time in 2022. For such a short a short novel written in 1871, I thought it was hot and interesting. Carmilla is a vampire who is slowly working to seduce and feed from Laura throughout the story. Since that’s the original relationship, that’s what I expected to be going into. However, Carmilla is a bratty human in the beginning. Laura starts off as shy girl, hiding the fact that she’s a lesbian whose into being a Dom, and begins a writing course that she fought hard to get into. This is De Lafontaine’s class, which is held exclusively in the evening. Laura is immediately pitted against Carmilla, as they are the star students, and it’s noted very quickly that Carmilla is De Lafontaine’s favorite. De Lafontaine is the vampire, whose feeding off of Carmilla and their relationship is a strange one. On one hand, she refuses to sleep with Carmilla even though she’s feeding from her and knows that Carmilla definitely wants to. Then, towards the end, their relationship turns into a mother-daughter relationship? It was strange and confusing. Carmilla and Laura waste no time fantasizing over one another, so it’s not exactly a slow burn. They don’t sleep together right away, but it’s pretty hot and steamy immediately. De Lafontaine is still in love with her maker, who is actually buried under the school, and she takes the girls to see her corpse so that she can feed Carmilla’s blood to her lover. Her lover immediately wakes up and slashes Carmilla’s throat, leading De Lafontaine to feed Carmilla some of her blood – which is what turns Carmilla in this story. De Lafontaine’s lover begins slaughtering students, demanding that De Lafontaine kill Carmilla for her. De Lafontaine refuses, struggling with both her feelings for Carmilla and her own maker. I think the atmosphere and intensity of this book is amazing. I devoured it in a single day. However, there are a few things that I just simply don’t like. One, the relationship between the girls feels like it was rushed. I wanted more time seeing them get to know one another and really pick at each other in their competition. I wanted to be able to see the tension grow and swell. Secondly, this book felt like it was 98% aesthetic and 2% substance. Don’t get me wrong, I think there are definitely conversation starters about being so intrigued by a person it entirely consumes you, student- teacher relationships, power dynamics in relationships, obsession with multiple people, and so on. I just don’t think it ever really delves into it and I wish it would have. Still, the aesthetic was spot on and I clearly fell in love, as it’s a 4 star (7.57). It’s worth a read, just keep in mind what you’re getting into.