What desperate steps will Lucy Westenra take to save her own life?
Hillingham in Hampstead, once the home of the well-to-do Westenra family, is now divided into apartments. When teacher Kate Balcombe sets about renovating her flat in the attic, she finds an unsent letter written 130 years before by Lucy, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the house.
You may know Lucy from Bram Stoker’s Dracula… a pretty, flirtatious girl with three ardent suitors, she is Mina Harker’s best friend. When Lucy falls mysteriously ill and dies, Van Helsing identifies her
as a victim of the vampire.
But what if the monsters who hunt Lucy are much closer to home?
As Kate begins to investigate Lucy’s story, she meets James Harker, Mina’s great-great grandson, and together they uncover a long-hidden story of deception and murder.
Rosie Fiore is the author of eight published novels, including Wonder Women, After Isabella and What She Left, as well as The After Wife, written as Cass Hunter. She is a teacher of creative writing and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow. She lives in North London with her family, and can frequently be found wandering on the Heath or haunting a churchyard.
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My thoughts: I really liked this book, it gives life and agency to Lucy and Mina, the victims of the count in Bram Stoker’s book. Two young women who don’t have much say or power. Which is of course true of many women in the Victorian era, there might have been a woman on the throne, but women were still not free or equal.
Kate finds Lucy’s letter in her mum’s old flat, never delivered, and wonders about the woman who wrote it, her life, and what happened to her. As she investigates, events will change her life forever. She will also get a glimpse of who her mum was, having lost her quite young.
Along the way she meets James Harker, Mina’s great-great-grandson, and a bond forms. The two will follow in Lucy’s footsteps, from Hampstead to Devon and finally all the way to Texas.
Lucy’s story is tragic, mostly because she has so little power over the events of her life, she cannot fight back against the men who want to use her, so she must find a different path and set herself free.
Clever, interesting and enjoyable, bringing old characters into a new and more rounded version of the story we know from Dracula.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 