This is one of the best and funniest graphic novels I’ve ever read. The pacing of the story and the comedic timing was impeccable. And I love how the illustrations were very basic but conveyed so much of the story. This is going to definitely be on my top five list for the year and I will be bugging everyone I know to read it.

This is a wonderful, ridiculous, fantastic book. I am a fan of Emily McGovern's work, My Life as a Background Slytherin, which is why I requested this title. The book exceeded all of my expectations.
Lucy is sick of the patriarchy, so when a vampire comes along and tells her she is special and should join her, she immediately agrees. However, a poet, none other than Lord Byron, saves her before she leaves with the vampire. Now that Lucy's life has been turned completely upside down, she joins Lord Byron, and goes to find the vampire. It isn't long before they have a rag tag group of outcasts all with their own plans.
The characters in this book are hysterical. They are witty and keep the reader on their toes with their quick dialogue. There's also a lot happening plot wise, and at the same time very little. The book has a distinct Monty Python meets Waiting for Godot vibe.
I hope this is not a stand alone because I would love to read more about this group.

If you have somehow managed to be unfortunately comatose or living in a hole in the ground (hobbit or otherwise) you may have missed Emily McGovern's My Life as a Background Slytherin, this is your opportunity to discover the sheer adorable ridiculousness of her art. Like, excuse me, who gave you permission to create a regency vampire cartoon?!?! And can I have more?
I loved seeing McGovern keep her simple, quirky style while creating her own world. I very, very, very much hope the Potterheads who have embraced the sly yet sweet humour of @emilyscartoons jump right into Bloodlust & Bonnets. BYO vamp stakes!

4.5 gleeful stars

I've been a big fan of Emily McGovern's webcomic My Life as a Background Slytherin for a while now and I was so excited to check out this graphic novel by her!

Bloodlust & Bonnets was incredibly satirical, nonsensical, and hilarious. My only issue was how jumbled the overall plot was that I found myself really confused on more than one occasion but I powered through and in the end I really loved it. If you're looking for a funny historically based graphic novel I would highly recommend this, it had me literally laughing out loud on more than one occasion.

I've only heard of the author's webcomic, but I knew it had weird art and interesting plots.

I have to say that I definitely enjoyed the story, the confusion, the danger, and the romance?
Lucy, Sham, Lord Byron, and Virginia were definitely a great team, and did nothing but continuously halt and stumble across the progress of their mission.

After trying everything possible to get the egalley file to work on my phone I finally gave up and used my computer. It took me a while to get into this graphic novel. The characters did grow on me by the end, but they were too tropy for me to really connect. I know the use of tropes was intentional, but it didnt work for me. The story starts very abruptly with no backstory to Lucys character. Where did she come from and why was she there? The two characters we are first introduced to felt like they had more history than we were shown. Lord Byron seemed to be under the impression that he was a couple with Lucy, but I never saw how he came to that conclusion. Eventually I found the absurdness of the plot and the characters kind of funny and entertaining. The faceless type of art style wasnt for me. I prefer seeing the characters facial expressions and not just their unibrow and tiny mole eyes. It also felt way longer than it needed to be and it just wasnt what I was expecting.

A rollicking, tongue-in-cheek romp through regency England! BLOODLUST AND BONNETS is absolutely, laugh out loud, hilarious. I couldn’t put it down. The colors are rich and vibrant and the artwork is an entirely unique style.

All the characters were great. I really enjoy books in which authors appear as characters, and in this graphic novel, the depiction of Lord Byron (yes! That Byron! The poet! From books!) was so silly that it constantly made me giggle-snort. He is - as I’m sure you know- a notorious rake- but in the pages of BLOODLUST & BONNETS he also has a psychic eagle named Napoleon (who speaks with a French accent) and a James Bond style talking castle. Also- he hunts vampires.

BLOODLUST AND BONNETS turns popular gothic literature and romance tropes on their head. There is great joy in experiencing the way the author uses clever inversions and her loving use of parody/satire. If you enjoy books like PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES or ABRAHAM LINCOLN- VAMPIRE HUNTER, you’ll have lots of fun reading this graphic novel.



Note: Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I think I didn’t get the entire book, it was quite confusing. The storyline was a mess, the relationship between characters wasn’t devolopped enough.
Some parts, I admit, were very funny but I didn’t really enjoy the drawings, especially the faces of the characters.

This comic presents a charming heroine that is a great example of "girl power" in a very enjoyable and comedic fashion. I mean what could be better than vampires, witty humor, and 19th century England.

I had a hard time getting started because the beginning was vary jarring. You are thrown directly into the thick of things and it takes a little while to orient yourself to the world. That being said, the comedy in this comic pulled me in and kept me reading. The sheer amount of one liners and references to literary figures filled me with so much joy that I stopped worrying about the details related to the world and just wanted to read.

This is a great read for anyone that loves a good laugh and has an appreciation for books like <em>Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Have you ever seen those comics floating around online, the ones titled My Life As a Background Slytherin? Well, Emily McGovern is the brain and artist behind that series, and she’s just about to release her first graphic novel!
If you’re a fan of the humor within her webcomics, then I assure you that you’ll enjoy Bloodlust & Bonnets. The humor is spot-on for what I expected from Emily McGovern – a cross between whimsical and insane.
Bloodlust & Bonnets is a fun twist on classic Romantic literature…with vampires. But that’s part of what makes it so much fun! The graphic novel is set in the 1800s in Britain. But nothing is quite as it seems, or that you would expect.
If you’re looking for a series that contains British humor, hilarious and sometimes inane moments, vampire hunting, quirky characters, and characters not sure about their sexuality, then Bloodlust & Bonnets is the tale for you.

Bloodlust & Bonnets is Emily McGovern’s first graphic novel – and she nailed it. I really do mean it when I say that fans of her webcomic series are going to love this one. I know I did! It was fun and silly and odd, everything I had hoped it would be and then some.
The series is about an odd trio of characters odd on an epic vampire hunt. Only their motives are suspect, and nothing ever seems to go according to plan. The end result is a chaotic adventure full of entertainment for the readers.
Lucy is a unique debutant, to put it lightly. She hunts vampires, though perhaps her new career path was more a strange series of coincidences than anything else. Not that we blame her for going on a murderous rampage in that time in history or anything…
Meanwhile the first of her companions, Lord Byron is more or less exactly what you can expect. He’s a man who thinks a little too much of himself and a little too little of everyone around him. He’s every male romantic trope rolled into one. Only he hunts vampires. Because…well that’s for you to find out, I guess.
Sham is the third character on this little journey of ours, and perhaps my favorite of the three. Well, maybe second favorite, I do adore Lucy. Sham is the polar opposite of the first two. For one thing, they seem to actually know what they’re doing. I adored Sham and all of the little jokes that revolved around their character.
The plot itself was quite funny, with lots of quips and inane humor thrown into the mix. I loved all of the jumps between locations and events – it seemed just as scattered as our set of characters. So it was actually quite perfect.
The tone is very similar to that of My Life As a Background Slytherin, so I know fans of the series will love it. But maybe new fans won’t get it to quite the same level? Something to think about. And of course, the art style is very similar as well. Something that always makes me smile.
I absolutely loved Bloodlust & Bonnets, and can’t believe I got a chance to read it a little bit early. Sadly, now I have that much longer of a wait to see what Emily McGovern does next.

*I received an ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I was delighted when I heard that the creator of My Life as a Background Slytherin was working on an original story, so I didn’t hesitate when I saw it on Net Galley. I wasn’t disappointed; in fact, I think this book has been one of my best reading decisions of the year. I loved it, beginning to end, and fully recommend it!

“Bloodlust & Bonnets” follows Lucy —a fiercely independent, yet still surprisingly impressionable young lady— through late Regency-Britain, in a quest to defeat (or join?) a cult of bombastic vampires. Her adventure is filled with unforgettable characters, among them poet Lord Byron (yes, that Byron) and a mysterious hunter named Sham, who hides secrets of her own. The trio, finding themselves on-and-off on the same quest, push at each other, trying to remain faithful to themselves and their increasingly intertwined paths.

With talking castles, psychic eagles and vampires that won’t stay dead, the whole thing ends up being ridiculously funny and surprisingly touching.

It’s the book’s humor that makes it so good. Every page is filled with fantastic one-liners. “Bloodlust & Bonnets” knows it’s ridiculous, and it thrives the more it embraces its nonsense, making fun of itself and the genres it represents. Every trope known to romances and adventures is poked at, becoming a tribute and a homage. The book is also delightfully inclusive, with all three protagonists being some kind of queer.

The illustrations are very clean, very practical —as expected, if you’re familiar with McGovern’s web-comics. But the simple lines are paired whit vibrant colors that make everything pop, adding thrumming vibrancy to the slapstick humor. Nothing felt too crowded, and the colors changed with the story, warming and cooling as the plot did.

Admittedly, the book oftentimes makes very little sense, if any at all, but this is definitely on purpose, and you will laugh too much to care. I know I did, and I’m sure you will, too!

**Disclaimer: I was given an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.**

I really tried to get into this comic, but it felt a bit /much/ to me. The jokes were excessive; however, the art was cute. I'm unsure what audience this comic would appeal to??

No matter what I try, I am unable to open/download this file at my device. whereas other netgalley files are okay and opens in Aldiko or any other pdf readers, this one won't work at all.

This book was....ridiculous, but not necessarily in a good way? I liked the illustrations and the premise and the inclusiveness, but it was also ridiculous and annoying in parts. I finished this feeling relieved it was over, but also that it was cute.

I like the subject matter (medieval times, vampires, vampire hunters) but found the comedy to be a little forced. I think people who are familiar with the author's webcomic would greatly appreciate it and others who like the type of humor the author uses. For me a lot of the jokes were hard to catch onto and happened so frequently. I wasn't able to appreciate this book like I would have wanted to.

Bloodlust & Bonnets is a funny and enjoyable read about a gang of queers (including the very dramatic Lord Byron) vampire hunting in Regency England. The art style and gags made me laugh throughout and reminded me of Hark, A Vagrant, but unfortunately the narrative was quite chaotically all over the place. Lots of great ideas, but in need of a bit of an edit to make it easier to follow.

After reading the synopsis for Bloodlust & Bonnets and seeing that it was by the creator of "My Life As a Background Slytherin" I knew that had to read it.

The cast of characters is amazing. There's Lucy who is a classic heroine with a twist, she's sick of the life that is imposed upon women in her time and begins wailing on her male companion. She is then approached to join a prestigious vampire cult by Lady Travesty who is in turn dispatched by Lord Byron, yes, the one from the books.

This is all within the first chapter. The humor that you would come to expect from Emily McGovern is there on every page paired with her unique art style and a beautiful color palette. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and I would recommend it to all of my friends.

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very fun concept but I felt the joke wore thin in places, and there wasn't enough depth or character work to sustain a story this long. I think it worked a lot better as spaced out chapter updates than read all as one. That being said, it is funny and easy to read!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect going into this, but I do enjoy Emily McGovern's other works so I wanted to give it a chance. This story was definitely full of a lot of twists and turns and McGovern's dry humor. It was definitely a fun romp that kept me guessing!

Things I liked about this book: the characters, especially Lord Byron (he's pretty spot on), the psychic eagle, and the sentient castle. There are some really neat ideas here, but to me, the plot was lacking. Sometimes this is okay in a graphic novel, but I'm not sure the things I liked redeemed the plot, which didn't make a lot of sense most of the time -- was this a webcomic first? It reminded me of reading webcomics one day at a time that when you took a step back and thought about, you'd realize that there wasn't much plot to talk about. The art is cute, but also felt web-comic-y to me.