📕 Title: Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel
✍️ Author: Kiersten White
📖 Genre: Gothic Fiction
⭐ Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

BOOK BLURB

Lucy Undying reimagines Lucy Westenra’s story as a sapphic romance and features an imaginative vampire MLM plot, interjecting humor into a Gothic story. The story is told through therapy session transcripts, journal entries, and first person narratives as it oscillates between the past and present. The story is primarily related through the perspectives of Iris and Lucy (both past and present).

REVIEW

We see both past and present Lucy, a stark contrast between her nineteen year old self and her present day persona. Iris is scrappy and determined, and her narration reveals strong parallels between herself and Lucy. I loved Iris’s chapters and her snarky commentary often made me laugh. I was enthralled by Lucy and fell in love with her just as Iris did, especially seeing how she evolved from denial of her sapphic feelings into a woman who fully embraced herself.

The plot hinges on a conspiracy and, as a reader, it’s simple to put the pieces together because we have access not only to Lucy’s past and present perspective, but also Iris’s perspective. Importantly, readers are presented with Lucy’s journal entries many chapters ahead of Iris’s reading of the same, allowing us to draw our own conclusions prior to her. Readers learn about characters from Lucy’s past long before Iris does, and Lucy is similarly ignorant to certain information. So while the reader knows what’s happening, the the characters always several steps behind. However, I think the story is less about the conspiracy and moreso about the characters’ journeys of self discovery.

I loved the way Dracula is incorporated into the story and the utilization of third-person narration (in contrast to all other chapters being first-person) for his chapters was an excellent decision.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read Dracula so I cannot comment on any specifics, but I found this a fascinating reimagining of Lucy’s story that integrated plenty of history and lore. If you enjoy books like Interview with the Vampire you may enjoy this one.