Audiobook Review – A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson, Narrated by Abby Craden (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Historical Fantasy/Paranormal
Length: 5 hours and 8 minutes
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Release Date: April 20, 2021
ASIN: B091SJKCJP
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed on Audiobook from Library
Rating: 3/5 stars
“Saved from the brink of death by a mysterious stranger, Constanta is transformed from a medieval peasant into a bride fit for an undying king. But when Dracula draws a cunning aristocrat and a starving artist into his web of passion and deceit, Constanta realizes that her beloved is capable of terrible things.
Finding comfort in the arms of her rival consorts, she begins to unravel their husband’s dark secrets. With the lives of everyone she loves on the line, Constanta will have to choose between her own freedom and her love for her husband. But bonds forged by blood can only be broken by death.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed this on audiobook from my library.
Thoughts: This was okay. It is written in a very flowery, literary type of style with lots of descriptive turns of phrase and some philosophical incites. Unfortunately, the prose takes over the story, which is honestly not all that interesting.
This is the story of Dracula and his initial bride (as the story continues he gains another bride and a husband as well). Over the years, Constanta (his first bride) figures out that Dracula is a controlling jerk. Why it takes her centuries to figure this out is anyone’s guess. The story wallows through the misery Dracula puts them all through, as he crushes the spirit of all of his spouses despite his supposed desperate love for them.
There were a lot of things in here that didn’t make sense. Foremost, why did Dracula’s three spouses deal with all of his torments for so long (the main torment employed here was boredom, not torture or anything like that). Additionally, Constanta’s surprise that this centuries old vampire had had other lovers and spouses before her was eye-rollingly naïve. I also had a lot of questions about why, if Dracula was so cunning, he spent all his time trying to find people to have sex with. I would think that at some point you’d start to seek out some other pastimes. Then there are the characters’ speech patterns. You think over the centuries they would change and adjust to the culture they live in, but they don’t really do that either.
This wasn’t awful and I listened to the whole thing (5 hrs on audiobook). If it had been much longer than that I would have probably DNF’d it. There just isn’t much point to the whole thing. The narrator was very good and I thought her narration did an excellent job of capturing the feel of the whole story.
If you like flowery vampire reads with a lot of talk about sex (there are some descriptions of the act itself but they aren’t all that detailed) and baby vamps sitting around whining for centuries, this might be for you. I just thought it was kind of boring, slow, and pointless. I have heard so much about this book and I am not sure what all the hype is about.
My Summary (3/5): Overall this was disappointing to me. It’s written in a super flowery, literary style prose that takes over the story. The story itself is predictable, slow, and boring. The original “Dracula” by Bram Stoker was much more interesting. I personally wouldn’t recommend it, this just wasn’t for me. If you enjoy flowery stories about vampires struggling through boredom, you might enjoy this.
