“To be a woman is a horror I can little comprehend”

If your hunger is fed through beautiful prose, sapphic vampires, feminine rage, and eerie, gothic settings then you will eat this up. Don’t read sapphic vampires and go in expecting just a fantasy or romance tale though- this is an atmospheric historical literary fiction. Hungerstone’s sapphic vampires are lurking in the shadows and occasionally slinking out to sink their teeth into you as a reminder of how hungry women can really be. For desire, for power, for control, for release, and for revenge… and he had it coming.

Thank you to Kat Dunn, Zando publishing and Net Galley for serving me a digital ARC that has left me thoroughly satiated.

This was a well crafted, slow building horror book. The author takes a classic story and adds a unique, spin on it. I loved the misdirection. When you think you have a mystery figured out, you don’t. I enjoyed the exploration of dark desires and Lenore’s desperate want to be heard and seen while being forced to remain small. Even after the book ended, I remained hungry for more.

HUNGERSTONE is a story about a woman who is fed up, hungry, and empowered to no longer put up with crap from men or society.

Our main character Lenore learns female rage from our dearest spooky Carmilla and has all the gothic vibes too. Also, you can never go truly totally wrong with gothic vampire lesbians because, apparently that was what I needed to get out of my reading slump!

Let me just say this upfront: sapphic vampires will always have my heart. I devoured this book (pun intended), and Kat Dunn’s take on the Carmilla story is everything I didn’t know I needed. It’s dark, sensual, and packed with tension—both the romantic kind and the “something terrible is definitely lurking in the shadows” kind.

Lenore is such a fascinating protagonist. She’s trapped in this stifling marriage to Henry, weighed down by secrets and expectations, and you can feel her yearning for something more. Enter Carmilla. She’s the perfect mix of seductive and eerie, with that classic vampire allure, but what really stands out is how she stirs something so primal and liberating in Lenore. Their chemistry is intense, and every interaction between them had me holding my breath.

The story is rich with gothic atmosphere—Nethershaw manor practically oozes with dread, and the Industrial Revolution setting adds this extra layer of greed and hunger (both literal and metaphorical). It’s a smart, haunting backdrop that mirrors Lenore’s internal struggles beautifully.

What I loved most, though, is how this book reclaims the lesbian vampire trope. It doesn’t reduce Carmilla to a one-dimensional seductress but gives her real depth and agency. The way Lenore’s unraveling past intertwines with her growing desire for Carmilla makes the story feel so much bigger than just a retelling.

If I had to nitpick, the pacing occasionally slowed in places, especially during Lenore’s reflections, but honestly, that’s a small price to pay for how immersive the rest of the book is.

If you’re into gothic horror with a sapphic twist (and, honestly, who isn’t?), Hungerstone is a must-read. It’s eerie, it’s lush, and it’s the kind of book that lingers long after you’ve turned the last page.

stunning stunning stunning. the sapphics win again! this was absolutely gorgeous and one thing about me is that i will ALWAYS eat up a carmilla retelling. her fresh take was so intriguing, and this is one of those books i will return to time and time again.

I came for the promised sapphic vampire romance and...

Well, I stayed because GOOD FOR HER 👏👏👏

Imo, this was a lot less about being queer in Victorian England, and more about surviving in a patriarchal society, women's agency and (lack of) rights. This is great if that's what you're looking for, but I was hoping for a dark, gothic romance between a vampire and a human that's so toxic that it straddles the line between sexy and ick.

And because of that, I'm honestly kind of disappointed tbh.

I'll admit, I loved that the author did a lot of research on workers' rights, the steel industry, the industrial revolution, and Victorian England in general. You can tell that the author really cared about writing an authentic story, and I applaud her for it. This was definitely a labor of love.

But other than that, I wasn't really too impressed with the story itself. While I liked Lenore's character arc, it read pretty tropey. The other important characters also read very tropey. You've got the husband doing secretive things behind his wife's back, the fake friend who might or might not be having an affair with the husband, and Carmilla, the femme fatale that read like the typical stock character.

Honestly, it was all very predictable. You've seen this play out a hundred times before in books, tv shows, movies, etc.

I kept hoping that it'd lean more on the toxic relationship between Carmilla and Lenore, but while their slowburn relationship did happen on page, it read more like a metaphor for Lenore's self-discovery. Their relationship didn't feel concrete. Carmilla was just there, egging Lenore on while being a freeloader at Nethershaw.

I wanted a lot more longing, a lot more angst, and definitely a lot more lesbian vampire action.

Thank you to Zando and NetGalley for this arc.

The first half of the book was a slowburn and full of avoidance and it kept the plot from going somewhere. But in the later part it really picked up the pace and my interest peaked again. I love the concept and the execution of this book in the way it was written and so. Recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the free eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I was already hooked when I saw this was a rework of the book Carmilla and it's safe to say that I was not disappointed.

I couldn't put this book down. It was so insanely well written. It was spooky and dark at times and then more hopeful during others. Personally, I loved that it focused more on Lenore's character and her story than the romance between her and Carmilla. Lenore is written as a complex character. She feels real, which makes it even better to read about her anger, her fears and the way she handles them.

Even if you haven't read Carmilla, this book is a must! I would highly recommend it.

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review

"I am a woman woken from thirty years slumber, and I would eat the world should it satisfy this empty, keening void where my heart should be."

Lady Lenore is hungry, but at the beginning of this novel she doesn't know it yet. Left orphaned at a young age and in the care of her aunt, her life hasn't been kind to her. When she became of age, she was determined to find a husband and earn her place in a society that had long been denied to her.

Eventually Lenore gets the life she always wanted, yet she is still hungry. Until one day, a wounded young woman, Camilla, enters her life and her new manor. From that day fourth, Lenore is plagued by nightmares and strange visions. her strange young house guest starts to slowly dismantle the life that Lenore thought she wanted,

Hungerstone is a raw and beautiful novel, with feminine rage at the very centre. Although this is a sapphic vampire romance, this is not at the forefront of this haunting historic masterpiece. Featuring gorgeous prose and perfect pacing, Hungerstone is the perfect follow up to Kat Dunn's previous novel Bitterthorn.

Oh my god, I think I found one of my favourite books of next year. I can't wait for this to come out! This was such a gripping read from start to finish, I loved exploring the lesbian vampire trope. It's perfect for fans of Piglet, Big Swiss, Woman Eating, and The Vegetarian.

"And all I am left with is my raw, untrammeled hunger. I am a woman woken from thirty years of slumber, and I would eat the world should it satisfy this empty, keening void where my heart should be. I would cry with grief over my life so unfulfilled and drink down the salty tears, eat my worthless tongue and important fingers, skin this carcass and pick the bones clean."

"Hungerstone" is a retelling of one of the earliest works of vampire fiction, "Carmilla." The Gothic novella is female-centric, sapphic and the original prototype for so many female and lesbian vampire characters to come.

Author Kat Dunn's version takes that to a whole other level. Set in Yorkshire in the 1800s, the atmosphere is its own character here. It's dark, gloomy and isolated, creating an ever-present sense of tension.

Like so many recent female-led historical retellings (and lots of my faves), "Hungerstone" is a book of rage. It's not only the rage over how our main character, Lenore, is treated by those around her but also her own.

From the author, Kat Dunn, herself: "This one is for the feral girlies, for everyone who has ever wanted to take the world in their mouth and bite."

Hungerstone was, BY FAR, my most highlighted book of the year. The use of hunger as a metaphor and the visceral nature of the horrific elements, especially blood. I have MANY feelings and thoughts about the characters and their specific plotlines (i.e., Cora, the scenes Lenore stumbles upon, etc.). However, I hesitate to say anything more.

Plus, anything with the words “sapphic” and “vampires” in the description is an auto-buy for me.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley and Zando for the advance copy in exchange for my review.

Oh my god this was SO GOOD. Lenore is a titled woman who married for money, constructing the perfect life for herself. When a mysterious woman has an accident near her country estate and convalescences with them, her world is upended in a way that scares her but also intrigues her. I love the intrigue with Henry and Carmilla was perfectly mysterious and enigmatic. I love the country setting it felt just remote enough to be scary-to me this was a perfect horror.

I requested this book because the premise was very promising: I loved Carmilla when I first read it, and I wanted something with those vibes, and even better if it was sapphic!
 
I enjoyed the book for the most part, but I can't help but think that it could have done much better with certain things. For instance, the main plot was delayed quite a lot. The first half of the book is Lenore purposefully avoiding the real problems and losing herself in flashbacks to convince herself that her situation now is better than it used to be. That in itself is fine, but eventually it stretches too much, to the point that the plot revolving around her relationship with Henry doesn't get much attention until the second half of the book.
 
On the other hand, I loved the horror in it. It wasn't very heavy, but enough to disrupt Lenore's daily life and frey her nerves. I also enjoyed the parallelisms between her eating disorder and her longing and how Carmilla's character keeps reminding her that this hunger she feels is not real hunger but something more demanding. It's an interesting idea that she's feeding on food to try and satiate a hunger that requires an entirely different thing (power, freedom, etc).
 
I wished, however, that Lenore and Carmilla's relationship was explored more in depth. Aside from one very sapphic scene, their relationship lives mostly in Lenore's mind, whereas in reality they spend too little time together in real life. Their relationship is more like a spell than a real thing.
 
The second half of the book was my favourite by far, because that is when the pacing of the plot really picked up a bit. The conflict between Henry and Lenore was satisfying; Lenore and Cora's sidestory was also very interesting to read, and Lenore's descent into madness, I believe, was quite well-written.
 
However, I feel like the ending was packed in too nicely. Everything fell into place too easily, and that final scene was too perfect. I wished to have seen more consequences to certain actions, maybe a bit of struggle as well.
 
It was a good read, despite this. It could achieve greatness with some small changes, though.

3.5
I really debated between rounding my star up or down, but after some consideration, I'm going to have to round down.
The story itself was enjoyable enough, but the two things that it suffers from is the fact that there are a lot of unnecessary flashbacks, as well as the fact that the book's pacing is way too slow for what it actually is. These two issues directly relate to one another.
The main character who we are getting flashbacks for only really ever has two things that she talks about - her traumatic childhood / living with her aunt, and how she grew up and thought she was doing well by finding a husband to marry. The flashbacks were fun at first, but get very repetitive very quickly. At least a good 20 pages could be shaved off of this book with no considerable loss to the story.
In fact, I feel like these flashbacks at a certain point only work to drag down the pacing of the story. I know that part of their purpose is to put you into the mind of the main character and her despair and descent into self-doubt and loathing, but that only really works if the flashbacks are actually providing something new and fresh to the plot. Most of the time, it simply re-iterates what we already know but through a slightly different event.
This, in turn, makes the first 56% or so of the book very repetitive and slow, and things really only start gaining steam after this point. Where the first half was at first interesting but eventually turned slog, it becomes really riveting after the halfway point.

Although I am pleased with the conclusion of the story, I still felt the relationship between our main character Lenore and the mysterious stranger Carmilla to be lacking. Or rather, I expected something a little more from it based off of the description. Throughout the book, these two actually have a surprising lack of interactions, because Lenore is either purposefully avoiding her, or Carmilla sometimes has a habit of just disappearing for a day or two before returning back to Lenore's residence. I expected their clash of personalities to be a little bit... more than what it was. To me, I can't say much more about the pair except that Lenore is bewitched by her. I didn't see much more to their relationship besides that. I would go so far as to say that Carmilla herself ends up falling into the typical tropes of a manic pixie dream girl, though I know that was not the intention, but now that I've made that connection in my head I can't seem to shake it.

I had an easy enough time imagining everything that was going on since Kat Dunn certainly knows how to write a vivid description, but in the aspects of pacing and character development, it's a little rough around the edges. I would be interested in reading more from her in the future, but this one fell just a little below target for me.

I wanted to like this one, but it feels very standard vampire story. In the way where I feel like I'm reading a modern Carmilla still set in the past. There's some interesting historical elements, like an opening that talks exclusively about periods, but other than that, it felt repetitive.

I support women’s rights AND women’s wrongs. This Carmilla retelling is set in the moors of England and centers a sapphic storyline as well as a story of Lenore’s self discovery and vengeance on those who have wronged her. Love love love!

Special thanks to NetGalley and Zando for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was outstanding. The writing in this book transports the reader into the time, place, and characters. It is intimate without being overly revealing. It emulates classics such as Dracula and the Yellow Wallpaper while still maintained its own identity. I can see this book being a future classic and would highly recommend it.

This book is a must for everyone who likes gothic literature, Horror and angry women!

I'll be honest: When I started this book, I didn't think it was going to be quite this much Horror. But most of the Horror parts happened towards the middle of the book and the rest of it was totally fine. So even people who don't read a lot of Horror (like me) can read and enjoy Hungerstone.

The athmosphere of the book was phenomenal. It's dark and moody and mysterious. And I loved how Kat Dunn used hunger as a metaphor. Lenore was a super interesting main character and I still wonder if maybe she was an unreliable narrator. It would definitely fit.

Honestly, I can't say too much about this book without giving anything away but just now that it was amazing and that I definitely recommend it! Extra point because it was sapphic.

This was a must read for everyone who loves Carmilla.
It was atmospheric, it had good characters.

I need more stories like this one.

There was not a single moment in this book where I knew what was going to happen. The premise was so incredibly intriguing and I appreciate the subtlety of the vampire element, however, for me I would have loved it if it played an even larger part in the novel. I did feel the story dragged a little between 40-70% but from 80% onwards I was unable to put it down. The ending was very neat while still leaving some questions for the reader to ponder on (without them becoming too frustrated). Overall a wonderfully enjoyable read.