This handles abuse so well. Watching Lucy grow and rediscover herself while falling into healthy love was amazing.

I either love or hate White's books. I wish I could pinpoint why. I thought I would love this one. Queer, Gothic vampires?? Yes, please. However, I had so much trouble getting through this and decided to DNF at 50%. I hate to say it was boring because it's such a lazy way to describe a book, but I can't figure out why I was so bored. I just know I was.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a lover of Dracula, I was so pleased at how much of the lore of Dracula and its characters were in this book. I mostly enjoyed the story and the characters, and thought the way Lucy was pulled into the story was done well (though a bit obvious).

What didn’t work for me in this was pretty much the 2nd half. I thought the romance accelerated way too quickly and I didn’t love how things unraveled.

But overall I would recommend this story to any Dracula fan. My final rating was 3.5 stars!

This book is unhinged and delightful. I love Lucy's narration and how White handles her immortality. I find the MLM scam storyline oddly out of place compared to everything else in the story. It just doesn't connect and it feels like they're trying too hard to fuse the Lucy vampiric sapphic unhinged adventures to the anti-capitalism messaging. Admittedly, this is par for the course for White's storytelling choices where I love the actual writing but the social commentary never really hits. That being said, out of all of the author's books I've read so far, I think Lucy Undying is the best thus far. White really aces the emotional resonance of her characters as on the nose her messaging about gender and society are.

I really enjoyed this gothic fantasy novel. Thank you so, so much to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for allowing me to read this title!

Blurb:
Her name was written in the pages of someone else’s story: Lucy Westenra was one of Dracula’s first victims.

But her death was only the beginning. Lucy rose from the grave a vampire and has spent her immortal life trying to escape from Dracula’s clutches—and trying to discover who she really is and what she truly wants.

Her undead life takes an unexpected turn in twenty-first-century London, when she meets another woman, Iris, who is also yearning to break free from her past. Iris’s family has built a health empire based on a sinister secret, and they’ll do anything to stay in power.

Lucy has long believed she would never love again. Yet she finds herself compelled by the charming Iris while Iris is equally mesmerized by the confident and glamorous Lucy. But their intense connection and blossoming love is threatened by outside forces. Iris’s mother won’t let go of her without a fight, and Lucy’s past still has fangs: Dracula is on the prowl once more.

Lucy Westenra has been a tragically murdered teen, a lonesome adventurer, and a fearsome hunter, but happiness has always eluded her. Can she find the strength to destroy Dracula once and for all, or will her heart once again be her undoing?

I liked that this story gave Lucy her own agency but kind of hated that they undid Dracula canon to make it happen and disparaged other characters I loved from the original story in the name of empowering Lucy. I think that could have been accomplished without that addition to the story.

I didn't get to finish this one. I do so enjoy the 1990's movie Dracula, and the original book. This had promise but I didn't get to dig in.

I love this author, and loved the prose and premise. However, as a lover of the original Dracula novel, it was really disappointing. The original novel, with all its faults, has some very feminist and queer themes. But this novel’s take, that Lucy hated men, that Van Helsing is a creep, didn’t sit right with me. I wish this novel had been written as its own thing, without being directly tied to Dracula. I love the idea of Lucy as a lesbian who survives, and wish it would have been done differently.

A beautiful gothic sapphic love story based on characters from Dracula. I always felt that the original Dracula had queer overtones. This book gorgeously brings that front and center. Lucy and Iris are both strong characters that come together to take down Dracula. I loved this story and am adding it to the canon in my head of the Dracula story.

Kiersten White is one of the most underrated writers and everything she writes is GOLD. This kicks Dracula's a$$.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Del Rey for allowing me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who unapologetically lives for vampire stories, I dove into Lucy Undying with excitement and high expectations. I’m still very much in my vampire era, and with Kiersten White at the helm, I was hoping for a fresh and gripping take on the undead. But despite my best efforts to fall in love with it, I found myself struggling to stay connected.
The pacing felt long and, at times, dragging. The constant shifts between past and present made it difficult to maintain momentum, and I often found myself needing to pause just to reorient where (and when) I was in the story. Iris, the protagonist, brings a fierce and unapologetic level of female rage—more than I usually see in characters like hers. While that kind of raw intensity can be compelling, it occasionally overshadowed my emotional connection to her journey.
That said, one thing I did appreciate deeply was the queer representation. It felt natural, inclusive, and vital—something I wish we saw more often in vampire fiction. That aspect alone gave the book a pulse I really valued.
I’m not writing Lucy Undying off completely. I’ve seen plenty of readers who absolutely loved it, so maybe it just didn’t land for me this time. I’ll definitely give it another chance in the future, hoping that on a second read, I might finally find what others are raving about.

I received a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review

CW’s: blood, violence, gore, body horror, death, depictions of mental illness and health issues resulting in long-term care, sex (the most SAPPHIC kind), various types of abuse, various types of emotional manipulation, cults and MLMs, historic setting comes with queerphobia.

My Rating: 5 stars

I loved this book from the jump. I mean, Sapphic vampires? Win is a win. Both Iris and Lucy felt like real people right off of the bat. They were already dynamic from the jump and it felt like they were already people, Kiersten White didn’t have to do all this work to set them up, she managed to do so within 10% of the book.

Also, gay pining? Absolutely a win. Their meet cute? Adorable and swash buckling at the same time. The classic “stop-you-from-getting-hit-by-a-car” trope done with two women is so much nicer than when it’s done by a woman and a man.

The way the story was fleshed out and the world was built was really natural and organic. It wasn’t info-dumpy, it wasn’t flat, it wasn’t boring, and it wasn’t confusing. I liked the take on vampires, and the inclusion of Dracula and Mina, and villains that felt realistic. The villains felt true to not only the time periods they were from, and the ones they lived in, but their circumstances. The men didn’t feel cartoonishly evil, they felt like real men that women worry about being alone in a room with.

I loved the parallel timelines too, especially with the parallel love stories between Mina and Lucy then Elle and Iris. I loved the representation of queerness/sapphicness in this era. The depiction of marriage as a political match was well done, better done than A Rose By Any Other Name. The way that a woman’s place, and how she gains power, in the 19th century was done really well. Lucy was used by her mother but she knew how to use that to her advantage still.

I was also invested in the plot enough to make guesses about the connections between the timelines/points of view. I wanted to guess who was related to who, who Iris’ mother was, and who Lucy became when she’s meeting with the therapist. Is the girl she references either Elle or Iris?

I’m so invested.

It just kept getting better and better. I loved Elle and Iris developing relationship. I loved the way Iris’ story was told as it intertwined with Lucy’s, and how the romance developed.

I also loved the portrayal of flawed queer characters, it allowed them to be human and realistic but didn’t demonize them or force them into tropes that were harmful stereotypes. They were allowed to love and feel attraction and lust and it wasn’t treated as bad or brave. It was just…there. It was normalized and the narrative didn’t focus on queer phobia but rather love triangles and the danger that men posed to women throughout different time periods. Iris’ journey in terms of romantic relationships wasn’t focused on her queerness, the roadblocks were related to her MLM mother and the cult-like environment she grew up in. It was about her going back into that world and not being involved with outsiders rather than her being queer. Which I thought was a really refreshing spin.

Kiersten White also writes really well, not just beautiful writing, but writing that is compulsively readable. Her chapter lengths also do a lot for the pacing of the book. It didn’t feel like it lagged at any parts and it was character driven without losing in the plot.

I was absolute addicted to the book, the plot was fast paced and the individual timelines were interwoven really well together and done in a way that paces out reveals and world building really well. I think the way they cut the chapters did a service to its pacing,

I do feel like this was kind of two books in one. But it wasn’t disjointed or anything, I just felt like this, for another author, could’ve been one long book and another novella or drawn out novel. But Kiersten White kept it all in one book, which I liked. Dracula’s chapters were really cool too, Kiersten White does a good job with horror/villains and makes them really terrifying. But once the Lucy/Elle and Iris relationship got to a developed stage, it was interesting seeing it along with the plot line of Iris’ mother’s cult/MLM and Dracula and this “we have our own issues to deal with but we’re still together” plotline.

I thought the pacing and excitement was kept up throughout the novel. I didn’t ever feel like it lagged or slowed down too much.

And oh myyyy goooodddd the gay pining. The amount of moments where Wait for Me from Hadestown could’ve been used were numerous. In that lovely, lovely way. I adored this book so much for Lucy and Iris’ relationship. The “touch-her-and-you’ll-die” trope is so intense here too for both Lucy and Iris.

The ending was my favorite by far. Oh. My. God. The last bit was a combination of stomach dropping and heart pounding and soul souring. The unapologetic queerness of this book was something that made me feel something so beautiful. I loved it so much.

One of my favorite books of the year.

Loved getting the perspective of Lucy. This is a great book for fans of gothic, vampires, etc. Great read for autumn and Halloween.

Wow, I never thought I'd enjoy another vampire novel every again, much less a refreshing take on Dracula. But move over, Carmilla, there's a new Gothic Sapphic Vampire Queen in town and it's Lucy Westenra. I received an ebook from Netgalley for this ages ago, but for whatever reason I kept passing it over for more promising reads. I finally picked up the multicast audiobook and I'm ever so glad I waited because I truly believe this is a story best read TO you. Lucy is a character plucked directly from Bram Stoker's original as the first English rose to be plucked by Dracula and then summarily forgotten in favor of the remaining cast. The author's choice to lean into Lucy's pining for Mina and giving her more agency in death than in life, could have gone any number of predictable ways that we've been bombarded by in pop culture. But the story of her eternal life, told by herself over multiple mediums and timelines, all converging towards her journey towards herself, is masterfully done. The writing is just as lush as the cover, and Lucy's voice just as easy to fall in love with as Iris does in the story. At times, I was worried about the length and the various one off POVs of minor characters. However, every side character, with or without a POV chapter shone so brilliantly in this narrative, and everything came together beautifully to give the women in Dracula's orbit the glorious audacity to be as unhinged and unapologetic in their journeys towards what they seek. Their intersections with and change as a result of meeting Lucy is truly fascinating, and I could read many more books about the exploits of The Doctor, The Queen and The Lover through the ages. In the middle of all this, however, Iris kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. While she is an important connective tissue of the story, her POV chapters were kind of a frustrating change of tone and perspective. Usually I'm leery of singe POV romances but in this case, I would say their romance would be more believable if the narrative was focused solely on Lucy's journey. That said, I am in awe of how the author took this age old story, empowered a canonically fridged lesbian, and somehow created an incredible commentary about patriarchal power structures, and their abuses through history, right down to the insidious predatory nature of pyramid scheme cults. Not to mention, rendering Dracula unimportant in this own story as a pathetic distillation of cishet male hubris across time, slinking away in fear of his own discarded progeny. TL;DR: If you never read another vampire novel again, try to make an exception for this one, if for no other reason than for the sheer joy of reading about a trans woman working the magic of therapy on a vampire. Vanessa, you deserved better and I love you.

Lucy Undying is Kiersten White's best work yet.
Epic in scale and length (a bit too long, actually), but the character work is superb and dripping in classic gothic imagery. A bit slow to start, but I thoroughly enjoyed the twisty, puzzling POV-switching between Lucy Westenra and Iris Goldaming. I honestly enjoyed Lucy's story more and wanted the book to focus more on her rather than Iris. At times, I struggled to grasp how these two women were connected or why they needed to be. If you took out Iris' parts, you'd still have a solid Dracula retelling/reimagining from the POV of one of his first victims. Iris' generations-old vampire MLM legacy sometimes felt like an entirely different story - that I'd still love to read. The beginning of the third act lost me and the plot, but I was satisfied with the ending to this story. It's very sapphic, which I loved, but was too insta-lovey. Overall, the book was immersive and addictive and a great pick for fresh twists on classic vampire stories.

I really did not like this, this essentially ended with Dracula being in charge of an MLM pyramid scheme. I only liked the letter portion of the book but everything else just dragged and did not work for me

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!
Not at ALL how I expected a continuation of Lucy’s story to go, in the best possible way. I absolutely love the way Kiersten White’s mind works!

VAMPIRES RISE. Vampire books are making a comeback and I am here for it. I absolutely adored Lucy and her journey. I could not put the book down.

I am obsessed with this book. Sapphic vampires are having their moment and I will never recover (affectionate). Taking a classic tale like this and spinning it around from a new perspective is everything I wanted.

One of Kiersten White's best. A true gothic masterpiece. Witty, playful and kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through!