Blood Countess by Lana Popovic
Genre: Historical Fiction, Horror
Release Date: January 28
Rating:
3/5
Synopsis
Anna Darvulia has just begun working as a maid for the Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Soon Anna becomes Elizabeth’s friend and confidante. But Anna realizes she is really more of a prisoner and the countess could turn on her at any moment.
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Thank you to Abrams Books for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Review
I was immediately intrigued by this book. I mean a fictional story about Elizabeth Bathory. This story is told from the perspective of Anna, her handmade. I think that was what kept me from really loving this book, I didn’t like Anna. We all know that Elizabeth Bathory is going to be the villain in this book, I mean come on she killed a lot of women, but for me, Anna was certainly no heroine.
My other complaint was the disregard for some of the history. I understand that this is a work of fiction, but when you are writing a fictionalized account of an actual person I do feel like you can’t change facts too much. The timeline was a little off for me. While I understand why the book did this, it did annoy me a little.
What I did love was getting a better understanding of Elizabeth Bathory. I think I would have preferred this from her POV, but again I understand why it wasn’t done this way. This book does a great job of showing us the sorts of things that Elizabeth Bathory did. Though it is slightly graphic, it is certainly toned down a tad. I also liked that we see the Countess’s descent into madness.
Overall, I enjoyed this book but just wanted more. As a bit of a history buff, this story is not new to me and perhaps people that don’t know this story will enjoy it more.