My thanks to Netgalley, 47North and Sharon Lynn Fisher for the eARC in exchange for a review of this book.

When I was in college, I had the opportunity to take a class focused on studying vampires in different short stories and books. This book opens with a quote from Polidori's The Vampyre. For those that don't know the background, Polidori was there the night of the contest, the one that gave readers Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It's that background, a dark and dreary estate out in what feels like the middle of nowhere, that helps set the mood and location of this book. This book reminded me of those stories I studied, showing that Fisher did her research and absorbed their influences, using the familiar from those works and creating a new vampire story. Because let's face it, vampires are something that has been around in books, shows and films for ages. This book fits in with other gothic romances but at the same time stands apart, because while I found familiar vampire ideas while reading, I did not expect the changes that Fisher created that made this different from other vampire works.

This book follows Mina Penrose (yes, Mina, Fisher did that and made her vampire a man named Harker. On the nose? Obviously. But I look at it as a nod to those characters, a show of respect for the characters that have come before). The other lead is, as I said before, Harker Tregarrick, a recluse living in a chapel that overlooks the village, whose family land and history has kept rumors swirling about what kind of man would keep himself locked away from the rest of the village. After the death of her parents a few years earlier, Mina has found something for herself to do, work in a tea room while her twin brother, Jack, works in the mines like their father did. At the start of the book, Mina is starting to realize that she can see shapes in the tea leaves left behind in the cups of customers coming throughout the day. Mina can see things in the shapes, recognizing enough that when things happen to those customers of the leaves she's "read", she realizes that she can see things coming for those people before they happen. Mina reads the leaves of one patron, hinting at something bad to come, and then finds a man murdered on her way home. The body is at the edge of the Tregarrick property, which leads Harker to come down from his tower to meet Mina, and the two slowly come to work together to find out how the stories about the Tregarrick family relate to what is now happening in the village.

I really liked Mina. I liked the idea of a young woman taking steps to change her life, getting a job, learning to read, creating more for her life so that she has something to look forward to. Mina's job puts her at odds with her brother, who has been trying to get Mina to give up her job for reasons of his own. I liked the dynamic between the siblings, which made sense in terms of the period and just the way siblings quarrel over many things. Mina has a solid head on her shoulders, logical and curious, which helps her when she meets Harker and starts to work on unraveling the mystery of the story. Harker is given his own chapters to narrate, which help to build up the tragic backstory of a man forced to become a vampire and then choosing to cut himself off from society rather than risk harming anyone he meets. Fisher manages to create two distinct voices in these chapters, separating the points of view perfectly, with each working to elaborate the nuances of Mina and Harker and revealing their histories in an natural way. Nothing felt shoehorned in, nothing was forced. The reveals worked to build sympathy for the characters and created an eerie atmosphere that worked for the mystery at the center of the story.

All the secondary characters were given their chance to shine with Fisher easily making them as detailed as the leads even with the little page time they had. I wanted to wring Jack's neck and I loved the support that Mrs. Moyle gave Mina. I enjoyed their interactions and the build of the story. I liked the familiar gothic setting of the moors and an old village filled with the usual small-minded people and the people who are able to come together to help those that need it. The focus of the novel worked, building the tension needed for the mysterious assailant that Mina and Harker are trying to find. And the reveal about what exactly is working against the characters and how it relates to Harker and Mina was just so interesting. I was not expecting the reveals that Fisher gave and I appreciated how Fisher was able to hold some of the smaller threads of the story I was still wanting to understand and then provided the answers readers needed. Everything flows in the book, the slow burn between Mina and Harker adding to the easy pace of the story. The book flows, think more trickling stream versus rushing river, and it adds to the vibe of cozy murder mystery that allows readers to enjoy the reveals as they come without being rushed. It's obviously well-researched as well, always a plus in my opinion.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I read Fisher's debut, Ghost Planet, back when it was first published and managed to find my copy in my library a few nights ago. I also have The Ophelia Prophecy right next to it on the shelf, so obviously will be starting that book this weekend. I also have Salt & Broom on my tablet, so suffice to say, I have a good number of Fisher novels to get back to reading, and a bunch more that I'll soon discover for the first time. Thanks to this book, I've found another author that I'll be following closely from now on, and I always like it when I can find an author with enough books to add to my towering TBR stacks.

Rating on my scale: 9 Stars. I'm a selfish reader, I wish there was a little more to the story. More to delve into, more to witness with how it ends or even what is to come. Still, like I said, there are more Fisher books for me to read, so at least there's that for me.

This is a athmosheric read, set in the victorian era. It's well researched, you can see that the author put in the research.
While it starts off feeling like a cosy read, with Minna working at the tea shop, baking and walking to and from work, it's certainly not. The narrative becomes darker and more tense pretty quickly.
I did not expect the vampires from reading the blurb and might not have started reading the book if I would have known. It follows some tropes but the author makes the story her own in a good way. I enjoyed the book and the blooming love stroy, even tough I wanted to yell at Minna at some points. I'm not the biggest fan of the trope used, but it was used well and I enjoyed the book.

This was an incredibly immersive and atmospheric gothic folktale. Perfect for autumn! I felt fully immersed the season of Autumn in mid 1800s Cornwall. There is some great autumn imagery in the book. The eeriness and gothic tone of the book reminded me of something from the mind of one of the Brontë sisters. You can tell that the author really did her research of the time period and setting of the novel, which only lended to how immersive the story is. I really enjoyed how I was immediately pulled into the story. The murder mystery aspect happens within the first few chapters, hooking the reader in for the long run. While some might find the book slow because of the mundane everyday “slice of life” elements, I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. I loved hearing about Mina walking to and from work, her making pasties for the tearoom and her brother. It really put me in her shoes. I felt like I was involved in the character’s life, not just the exciting plot points of the story. *Mild Spoiler!* My only complaint is that at one point the solution to the main conflict felt a little too easy and convenient. The antagonists motivation behind the murders felt odd to me. It really didn’t make much sense till the end. But I guess a bloodthirsty monster doesn’t have much sense. Overall I really enjoyed this story and will definitely pick up more by this author!

Fisher is very good at writing cozy, well-researched Victorian-era fantasy romance, and this was another great one. Unlike Victorian-esque alt-universe romantasies, this is set in our world, or one very like it, where magic exists but is hidden and disbelieved. Our hero, Harker Tregarrick (yes, I could have done without that name, too), is an alchemist, isolated from the world around him (including the Cornish village near which he makes his home) because of his terrible secret and his own guilt. Our heroine, Mina Penrose, is a simple village girl who lives at home with her heavy-drinking but beloved brother (who works in the clay pits) and works part-time at the local tea shop. If those two names, Harker and Mina, don't give you a clue as to Harker's terrible secret... well, then I won't spoil it.

Fisher does a great job with setting and characterization; the village manages to feel realistically Victorian and Cornish while being generally full of well-drawn and well-intentioned people. Her take on the folklore and myths she's using here is fascinating and definitely kept me invested as Harker and Mina work to uncover terrible truths. That said, there's some occasional clunkiness, as when Mina doesn't know the word "detective" but seems perfectly comfortable with "parasite" - Mina feels generally more like an archetype of spunky, self-educated nineteenth-century romance heroine than an actual nineteenth-century villager, if that makes sense. But that's in keeping with the vibe of the whole book, really, which is cozy and gently affectionate; despite the mystery and the murders it is engaging without being stressful or terrifying, which made it a really nice light read.

The stunning cover and premise suggest a wonderfully rich and moody atmosphere, which I unfortunately never felt. The writing is amateurish and clunky at times, with incomplete sentences and the verbose vocabulary an overwrought attempt at complexity. I do, however, appreciate that the story begins almost immediately (nothing like being 100 pages into a murder mystery and nobody's dead yet!).