This is a story about a girl you might have read about. She was one of Dracula's first victims but that wasn't really the end of her story.

Lucy Westenra has wandered the globe in search of Dracula and a reason for her existence. A young woman who never fit into her place in the world or understood her own self. Now in her new life, Lucy seeks to help those like her.


This story is an urban historical fantasy. Due to this, we will speak of the atmosphere rather than world-building. Possibly I am not the best one to talk on this either. The settings will jump from London to Asain and journey the lands of Europe through the great wars until we reach modern America. Most of the scenes in the book take place in the same or similar indoor locations. Even still the way the scenes were written still left me able to picture them playing out. All the characters were given life through the ways they moved or acted. There could have been more descriptors or depictions at times to fully bring it to life.

While there are vampires there is no other type of creature or magic. The magic is solely what abilities vampires possess. In this novel, most seem to be able to change their form at will during the night. There also seems to be either a form of charming or beguiling mortals. Over time they are able to regenerate to heal. We will get to see Lucy display these for us throughout the novel. Also, they seem to have the uncanny ability to sense where their own grave was and it is the best resting spot for healing. Outside of these though nothing else is known.

From the description, I really thought this was going to be a single-POV story. Then to start it and find that there are not only multiple characters but also several timelines as well. The elephant in the room is Dracula whose chapters are spread out. These are also written in the second person.

Our first main character we see isn't even Lucy but instead Iris Goldaming. Iris is on the run from her troubled family. She has come to London trying to sort out older properties to get a fresh start. While Iris seems to be an untrusting person and we do see her go on high alert later, pretty much everyone she meets at the beginning she trusts right away. Several things are alluded to about her family and the issues with them but you will not find out much until a ways in. Iris is a pretty self-sufficient and intelligent woman.

Then we get to see from Lucy Westenra. Lucy's perspective is different for most of the book as it is told in multiple ways. We are first introduced to her through her diary from 1890 before she was turned. These are the worries and trials of a young woman with a difficult mother who only wants to be with her Darling. Then we see Lucy again in 2024 through client transcripts where she is speaking to her therapist Vanessa. Through both of these, we get to see two very different times in Lucy's life and how she changes.

The plot without spoilers. Lucy has been living mostly alone through the centuries. She has had one driving purpose to find Dracula and get answers. Now in 2024, Londen Lucy finds Iris, another lost girl running from her own demons. As information is uncovered can their growing feelings for each other survive the danger they face?

I find this book so hard to classify. The author wrote it as a horror romance so maybe that fits. It just didn't give me horror vibes, though vampires never really do I suppose. There was a romance and while it does get brought up a fair bit I feel that it wasn't to overdone. Did it happen really fast yes, however when you're in life-or-death situations that can happen. I felt that from Iris's side especially there was a gradual building due to how she is getting to know Lucy. Situations are mentioned without getting graphic or steamy. For the type of book this is, it worked well.

There are a few drawbacks to the story. There was a bit of a slowness to the story outside of the scenes we see of the past. Normally I would say that the historical time this was set isn’t my favorite but I found those parts of the story more engaging. In our present timeline, things just didn’t mesh as well leading to figuring out the late-end plot twist early in.

Overall I feel that the story worked well, I really enjoyed the glimpses into the past to build Lucy into her present self. The ending left things in a way that this could maintain as a stand-alone but also leaves room for another entry which is always appreciated. Thank you very much to Netgalley for the ARC to be able to review.

This is an interesting vampire slow read, but I couldn't get into it. I still love the cover so much. And will recommend it to my readers.

(I still want to give it another try later and make sure. If so I will update my review here and post it publicly.
Posted spotlight post on instagram.and blog for now. Links below)

"I'll start at the beginning. The beginning is, as all beginnings are, soaked in blood and shrouded in darkness. The end will be, too, but we'll get there together. My name is Lucy Westenra, and this is my story."

ooooouuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh I REALLY liked this one.

murder mystery? check. ✔
gore? check. ✔
vampires? check. ✔
cheeky humor? check. ✔
romance? check. ✔
sapphics? check. ✔
cult-like groups? check. ✔
weird MLM scheme parallels? was not looking for this, but check. ✔

Lucy Undying is a stand-alone story that primarily follows the store of two young women. Lucy Westenra as a young heiress in love with her governess and being targeted by Dracula, and Iris Goldaming trying to escape the cult-like empire that her mother has built.

eventually, their paths cross and while they begin to have feelings for each other, they also come to realize that their histories are more similar than they ever could have imagined.

I was so absorbed into this story. the storytelling method of using therapy transcripts and old journals alongside both characters telling their own stories worked really well for holding my attention and keeping me wanting to know what happens next. I will say that the pacing kind of shook me in the final 20%-ish of the book. it felt like we kind of skidded to a halt and then were creeping our way to the finale, but also doing MASSIVE time jumps along the way. the loss of time felt super jarring to the story after we had been moving day-by-day for so much of the book prior to the final stretch.

plot: ★★★★★
the plot is fun. I’m obsessed with how interconnected everything is AND how everything came together at the end. there were a lot of moving parts and a lot of questions that I worried wouldn’t get answered, but I felt satisfied at the end of the story.

writing: ★★★★★
I loved it. period. I read the first book of Kiersten White’s other Dracula series, And I Darken, and was obsessed with that as well when I read it, so I’m thrilled to see that her Dracula story-telling skills are still as strong as ever. which reminds me, I NEED to circle back and finish reading that series—now more than ever.

pacing: ★★★★☆
the pacing was incredible until about the last 20%-ish of the story. once the Big Plan was in action and we started skipping ahead in time, I was struggling to keep myself immersed in the story. I think the day-to-day story worked so well because it felt like knowing Lucy and Iris at an intimate level, and once we started looking at them from more of a distance, it felt like I lost my connection to them.

romance: ★★★★★
Lucy and Iris are so f*cking cute together. did their nicknames for each other make me want to groan audibly whenever I read them? absolutely. but what kind of happy relationship doesn’t have weird inside-joke-level nicknames? they deserve it!!!

I love that we got proper yearning and flirting for them. I feel like a lot of times when I read sapphic love stories, they move things along soooo quickly and we miss the build-up of them falling for each other. if anyone deserves a romantic happy ending together, it’s Lucy and Iris.

characters: ★★★★★
Lucy is actually so f*cking funny. I love how she explains her morbid and grim situations, and then immediately turns it into a joke somehow (e.g. joking about another vampire’s head being cut off). she’s so spirited and just genuine and pure (I know, weird to call a vampire pure, but stay with me) and I just want to keep her safe forever. it was brutal at times to watch her be hurt over and over and over again by people she loved and just wanted to be loved by. I think Lucy is officially added to my list of “favorite book characters”. she is soft and sharp. she wants to be held and be loved, but she’ll also rip someone’s spine out of their body. she is everything. I also love that when Iris got mad at her once, she pointed out that she’s forever 19 and her emotions are forever as intense as any 19-year-old’s emotions would be.

Iris was fun as well, but her goofyness wasn’t as endearing to me. I loved that she was finding humor in everything, but at the same time it was like... girl?? NOW??

the side characters were also *chefs kiss*. Rahul and Anthony??? love!! the Doctor, the Lover, and the Queen? soooo good. and I’m so glad that they kind of had their own character arcs, as small as they might have been. I kind of wish we saw a little more of Mina though.

over-all: ★★★★★
I loved reading this book. I could see myself rereading it during spooky season just to set the mood. and to visit Lucy and Iris. I wouldn’t be mad if we got some short stories of them exploring the world together someday. with all the themes revolving around self-sacrifice, I was really nervous that the ending was going to be a suckerpunch to the throat. happy to report, it’s a perfect and fitting ending.

Lucy Undying is the Dracula reimagining I didn’t know I needed! The book flips between memories and present day. In today’s world, Iris is the heir to a creepy multi-level marketing cult that is obsessed with her blood. In the past, Lucy juggles a strange trio of suitors and is targeted by a predator who steals her life as she knows it. As Iris uncovers the secrets of the house she inherited, she meets Lucy. Can Lucy and Iris team up to take down the shadowy predator who stalks their nights?

Lucy Undying is a much-needed sapphic take on an overlooked character from the tale of Dracula. I enjoyed how Iris got to know Lucy through her journal entries. Kiersten White weaves in powerful themes of agency, sapphic romance, and the downfall of a nightmarish monster. But in Lucy Undying, some of the scariest monsters are the humans. The pacing felt a little slow at first, but at a certain point I was hooked. The side characters of the Queen, the Lover, and the Doctor were very interesting and I enjoyed learning about their history with Lucy.

Lucy Undying is a clever re-imagining of Dracula. Perfect for spooky season!

Thank you to Kiersten White, Del Rey, and NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc.

Lucy Undying contains the more expected luxuriant prose typical of vampire novels, alongside a modern approach and setting. In how it chooses to explore its sometimes-epistolary narrative style, Lucy Undying falls somewhere between Interview with the Vampire and Dracula, and is similarly told through several perspective characters (accounting for the variance in prose and tone). At times the prose is very compelling (“I cannot bring myself to care about or trust in a distant God, fickle and unreachable and unknowable.”), but at other moments falls quite flat (“Calm your tits, Iris.”), generally faltering when attempting modern inclusions.

The plot is promising in all of its facets, but Lucy Undying suffers from attempting to fit such varied plotlines into one novel. What begins as gothic horror ends as a sci-fi thriller, though it takes a somewhat abrupt turn rather than feeling like a natural transition. Despite this, the novel is nearly 500 pages (and 112 chapters), but due to the rotating cast of perspective characters, there is relatively little time dedicated to this shift in genre.

The characters themselves are incredibly charming— and in particular, Lucy. A novel just following Lucy’s journals and Lucy’s faux-therapy session(…s?) with Vanessa could honestly have been captivating enough, narratively, to stand on its own. It is within these sections that (I think) author Kiersten White’s writing is strongest and most engrossing.

Ok, listen, I think we all needed this new take on Dracula. Lucy Undying is a masterpiece and a perfect fall read. What a phenomenal book! I loved the multiple perspectives and how each character came to life on the page, I think these characters will live rent free in my brain for eternity. The lore, the friendships, all of it, simply delightful! The way this story transformed from beginning to end actually changed my brain chemistry and daresay I may never recover. This isn't a retelling or even a reimagining of Dracula, this is a story of women taking their power back and refusing to be controlled by anyone.
Thank you Random House Publishing and NetGalley for sending me an early copy of this book in exchange for my honest review

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc<3
2.5 star
I was really excited to read this. I read the original Dracula just last month for the first time and loved it, so when I heard of a sapphic Dracula reimagining, I was all in. Plus, the cover is stunning.
The actual book was not what I expected (in a bad way)
I thought it was a cool idea to completely change the original characters, until it became "everyone except for Lucy sucks ass." None of the characters were changed in an interesting way, they were just all rewritten as horrible people.
The multiple POVs were heavily confusing in the beginning as well as feeling completely unnecessary towards the end, making the whole story feel disjointed and incredibly slow paced. As soon as I started to like one storyline, I started to dislike another. A lot of this book slogged for me, and I ended up skimming the last 30%.
There were some parts of the book that I enjoyed, but more often than not, I wanted to DNF.
All in all, this just felt messy and surface level.

Told with multiple POVs and timelines Kiersten White does an amazing job of bringing life to a character I always wondered about. Now while I did like learning more about Lucy's past and how she ended up a vampire with a vendetta against Dracula, I really enjoyed the chapters of Lucy in the present, I also absolutely adored Iris's POV and how she saw Lucy, especially after reading the diary she wrote as a young woman. The way she viewed Lucy showed a lot more facets to Lucy's personality, and she caught some interesting tidbits about the people in Lucy's life that she didn't / couldn't see at the time.

While this book is a Lucy retelling I really think Iris is where this book shined, she just has a way of bringing everything around her to life, making it brighter, and bringing a level of sass that constantly had me grinning while reading. There was a bit of insta love between our couple, and a few slower parts in the beginning and middle, but I was completely entertained and loved watching both Lucy and Iris realize what is most important, and really coming into their own.

Thank you for a copy but unfortunately I DNF'd at 15%. I needed more character action or plot action to be invested more.

Dracula reimagined meets Interview with the Vampire (the interview/therapist confessional part) meets the recent We Love the Nightlife.

The prose is wonderful, and Lucy's POV is very interesting. She is sarcastic, self-deprecating, and lovely. The convergence of the storylines and characters is a bit on the nose, but it does work - if the book was not so incredibly long.

I did enjoy it, but the Iris chapters almost sound like YA, probably because she is supposed to be the "modern and hip" to Lucy's all-knowing and wise (ish?)

That said, there are plenty of beautiful parts, and the book lures you in despite the uneven pace. I loved the themes of loneliness, what it can mean to different people, and how the desire to be seen and loved can push us to self-destruction. The sapphic romance throughout was lovely as well.

"What would I give, to be seen? To be carefully studied and perfectly understood? Would I let someone carve me up, if it meant feeling like I was loved? I knew the answer was yes, because it had always been yes."

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, for sharing an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review. The book is out on September 10.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

This book. This book has my whole heart. I absolutely adored this! From the incredible characters, to the plot, to falling in love with everything so quickly- I couldn’t put this down. I highly recommend this! It really just sucks you in and makes you never want to leave. In my opinion, those are the best books and I couldn't get enough. Kiersten has a way that sucks you in (pun intended) and I was ready to flip back to the beginning and start all over once I finished.

𝟯.𝟱 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗗𝗢𝗪𝗡
A book being over 100 chapters should be illegal.

That aside, I have very mixed feelings about this book. I wish I had read the original Dracula before reading this because I feel like I would've understood certain references more had I done so. I also feel like it was a major part of why I didn't quite connect fully with the characters. I liked them and they were well written and fully fleshed out, there was just something missing. Which is obviously totally on me. However, I did enjoy my time reading this book overall. I loved the different perspectives and the time jumps. Also a HUGE YES TO THE SAPPHIC ROMANCE! The writing was extremely descriptive without being overly-flowery and annoying.

I guess my main complaint would be that it was too long. This book is edging close to 500 pages, which wouldn't have been a problem, had it not dragged in various places. Also, as I said before, it had over 100 chapters...113 to be exact. Granted, most of the chapters are fairly short but it makes the book automatically feel as though it has been going on FOREVER.

~ Chosen One
~ Damsel in Distress
~ Forbidden Love
~ Found Family

I found this book to be an exciting take on the classic Dracula. I loved that this book helps us take a peek into who Lucy is and the fact that she just wants to feel something. The character development in this book is top tier which I found very essential to the story because our two female main characters in this book needed a strong background to explain their grappling with trauma and assertion in their society. The bridge of the two timelines kept me hooked, allowing me to see how Lucy evolved into who she is now. It gives you a deeper exploration of legacy, autonomy, and resilience in the face of darkness. This is a good read for those who are gothic and contemporary lovers.

Dracula is one of my favorite movies, so naturally, when I saw a book about Lucy, I immediately requested it. First of all, that cover alone makes me want to pick up the book. It is definitely gorgeous and a little bit eerie. As for the story, I love the author's different take on a well-known story. The story is not just told from Iris's point of view, but also includes Lucy's journal entries and client notes. I highly recommend this book if you want to read a different, unique, and sapphic vampire story. Thanks to Random House Publishing Group and Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I am obsessed with this book and with Kierten White's writing! I went into this with no real expectations and was pleasantly surprised around every corner. I Couldn't put this down. Iris is a fascinating character, and I found myself relating to her quite a bit. Lucy though stole my heart. Her journal entries and her therapist transcripts were fantastic. This was a really interesting take on the Dracula tale that we all know. I loved being able to see through Lucy's eyes as she traveled and came into contact with more vampires that had been made and then abandoned by Dracula. I really didn't see the twist coming, usually I have some sort of inkling of what is going to happen. The way the story flips at the end was not what I was expecting but I loved it. Also, as someone who is currently living in the Salt Lake City valley, I was super excited when the story returned there. I loved the way that Iris took hold of her trauma near the end and used it as a weapon against those that had wronged her. I think she really grew into her own at the end. This is definitely going on my list of recommendations for vampire books!

Lucy Undying by Kiersten White is a fantastic Dracula novel!
In this epic and seductive gothic fantasy, a vampire escapes the thrall of Dracula and embarks on her own search for self-discovery and true love.
I really enjoyed the writing style here! I thought it was engaging and well written.
The characters suck you in almost immediately.

First, this cover is gorgeous! It visually gets you excited to read a gothic fantasy/romance with vampires. Unfortunately, the novel itself left me feeling meh. I love pretty much all things Dracula inspired. I am here for the recent transition from the more commercialized vampires to the scary haunting ethereal forms. When I saw a book featuring, in my humble opinion, a maligned feminine figure such as Lucy from Dracula I was all in. Instead I found more a thesis on the evils of MLMs. Perhaps I was mistaken in my expectations but this book was just not for me. When I first started this book I was intrigued and excited for the many ways this story could go. I found it dragged instead and I often found myself skimming and picking up my phone to scroll instead. Poor Lucy, still maligned for being a sexual creature in a time of purity. Alas.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group / Ballantine / Del Rey for sharing this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Another absolutely delicious novel from Kiersten White! The way she weaves a story to be not only fantastical but able to provide a searing feminist and sociological commentary has me lost for all the right words to express how much I love her writing. I am a sucker (pun not intended) for a story with multiple perspectives, and she just does it so well. I raced through Lucy Undying and couldn't wait to see this story of infinite nows unfurl. I loved flitting through time with Lucy and finding out the next revelation in Iris' equally chaotic life story. This book will be the reason I finally read Dracula after my 33 years on this earth. Thank you, Kiersten White. I absolutely cannot wait for your next novel, and I thank you for giving us Lucy & Iris, Rahul & Anthony, and the Queen, the Doctor, and the Lover.

Lucy Undying is an amazing story based around classic vampire lore and themes such as feminist rage and the idea of love and curiosity.
Also, please a moment of marvel for the stunning cover which drew me in originally and then a plot so perfect for me I could cry. 😍
First off: Dracula is a long time favorite of mine so naturally anything based on or around it I must read instantly. Sapphic Dracula retellings tend to be my favorite and the love story in this novel had my heart playing puppet. So unique and captivating I just wanted more and more. No spoilers but it’s one for the books!

In Lucy Undying there are multiple POV’s/timelines which definitely kept things interesting with so many twists and turns but the pacing could’ve been helped a little. The middle tended to drag on a bit in my opinion but that’s a small turn off. With that being said, every character we met was well developed and had a reason to be there. There was no wasted thought about why they mattered or what their purpose was. I appreciated that because it gave my brain time to wonder about other pieces of the novel.

Overall this novel was gothic and deep, the histories and hidden meanings behind small details really secured my opinion on this novel. More time often than not we get vampire stories of mass killing or slow insanity and Lucy Undying was a different but so intriguing point of view on a different undead life.

I highly recommend and will be reading again. 🖤

this will go down as one of my favorite reads of the year. dracula, vampires, sapphic humans that arer lovestruck and gay as hell? my favorite. the fmc is so relatable in her queerness, and the way the chapters are split up made me so, so eager to get to the next chapter so each element of the story could unfold. i loved every page.