Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a galley ahead of publication.

A saucy, moody, sensual read on two of my favorite topics: sapphic women and vampires.

The writing is intriguing, the worldbuilding is captivating, and the characters (plus their immortal bonds) are enthralling. What's not to love?

Doing a bit of catch up here on my backlog - this was a fun sapphic historical vampire novel about BDSM relationships and toxic hothouse lesbians and found families. Definitely worth your time and a read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.
I was here for ALL the tropes mixed into one.

Deeply queer whimsy. The writing is gorgeous. The mood is overwrought. There's a lot of sex. Some of it dreamy ... some of it hardcore ... much of it simply existing in quotidian verbiage. I couldn't really grasp the point of the story until the very end. This is almost a character study, but a lot of the characters, well, bleed together. What do they even do with their time? I found myself wanting a little bit more from the lore. Vampires are so overdone, and everyone just riffs off everyone else ... queering things up (non-subtextually) only goes so far. I did enjoy the unabashed floozy of Poppy. She feels like someone I can't quite remember ...

I ended up DNF'ing this @ around the 20/30% mark. While the beginning was enjoyable and mysterious, I quickly found myself bored, and unfortunately the book was way too long for me to keep pushing through with something I wasn't fully engaged with at the time.
Overall, I liked the prose, the setting, and the tone, but felt like the story lacked a more concise direction.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

DNF
This book was impossible to get through. The premise and intro were paced unbelievably poorly and astounded me this got past an editor or even could be written this way. The Phrase "her body felt like a breast" to describe her as fat is the worst thing I've ever read and I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stand how the writer thinks they're writing something so astounding and groundbreaking and the plot comes across as something I wouldn't write in middle school. I tried to get through this, I truly did, nothing worked here and things were so close to being good but keep missing. I don't know how to dissect this, it's just not how you write a book. The exposition and characters were painful and the pacing was so bad it made me laugh. The prose tried to be profound but came across as cringy, see the breast line, and I'm just not strong enough to get through this.

This book was average. It had an awesome Gothic setting and vampires but failed to get my attention. It felt like the book was exciting at the beginning and the end, but the middle was 'meh' and dragged. For how dramatic the build-up was, it felt like there should have been more action. I thought the sapphic relationship was mostly done well, but communication could have improved it. And it was lovely to have different genders and sexualities represented and accepted. The found family aspect made this book nice.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

After months of trying to get through this book and not making it past 30 percent despite genuinely trying, I am officially DNF-ing it to move on to other things in my to-read pile. While the book sounds interesting (Victorian lesbian vampires!) it just did nottt hold my interest.

My main issue was with the writing style, because Poppy's voice in this book is just so unlike what I would expect a Victorian era woman to sound like and so childlike, to the point of it becoming very distracting. Her infatuation with Roisin was baffling because it felt like it came out of nowhere and that they had zero chemistry. By 30 percent, they were also still alone in the house together and so nothing was really happening anyway.

Maybe it gets more interesting later, but I don't wanna wait that long and already did not like the romantic aspect. If you like the way the author writes Poppy, however, then I would say probably stick around, because that was the main thing that kept irking me.

Love a sapphic romance but a vampire sapphic romance?? Yes please. While it does take a little bit to get into the story and adjust to the writing style, it definitely was worth it.

I have been in a vampire mood lately, and what a better way to satiate that need then by reading about beautiful sapphic vampires in victorian england!

I was so hoping i would enjoy this and I am so glad that I did, for the most part. The relationship between our main lovers was delicious, the atmosphere haunting and I applaud the author for her attention to detail that really draws her readers in and hooks them with fangs.

My only real complaint would be the pacing, and I would say this book could have been about 50-75 pages less and be perfect. for that reason, this is a 3.5 rounded down.

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

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Sapphic vampires? Hello. Yes.

Basically, this is one of those books that when it worked for me, it really worked for me, and when it didn’t, well, it really didn’t.

I was expecting something along the lines of A Dowry in Blood but what I actually got is … kind of soft as hell? Don’t get me wrong, it takes its abuse themes seriously (because you’re not in a proper vampire book unless someone has an abusive sire, right?) but it’s mostly about being queer, understanding who you are, falling in love, finding family, and choosing hope. It’s also an extremely deliberate—and, to my mind, successful—attempt to reclaim the vampire genre from the realm of “allegory for queerness” and allow it to speak directly to queer people instead.

To unpack that a little, vampire-as-metaphor-for-otherness has sort of evolved over the centuries from, you know, unquestioned prejudices intended to play on social fears (Count Dracula is literally a rich foreigner coming to buy our real estate and corrupt our women) to prejudices we definitely ought to be questioning intended to push back against social fears (the whole True Blood AIDS thing, the author writing as Poppy Z Brite’s self-consciously transgressive take on vampires, and of course Anne Rice’s explicitly homoerotic one). But the fact is, using vampires as metaphor/allegory for queerness is complicated, even if your position is a sympathetic one because, well, vampires do kinda kill people (which queer folks, as a general rule, do not). Nor, for that matter, do we “turn” people with our seductive, sinister ways. Or actually maybe we do…

Anyway, the other problem, for me, with the vampire-as-stand-in-for-marginalised-group thing is that it reduces marginalised people to a single story: that of ostracism and alienation, with difference as our prevailing characteristic. And, don’t get me wrong, those things are (or can be) a very real and significant part of queer lives but we are not—nor should we be—defined by solely by those experiences.

What A Long Time Dead offers, then, is not so much a story about vampires-as-queerness but a story about vampires who are queer. In this context, vampirism does offer some allegorical dimension (vampires have aspects of ‘normal’ life denied to them, much as queer people do) and vampires can come under threat and or suffer exploitation, but mostly the book focuses on a group of the undead living (or learning to live) their best lives. I found that, honestly, pretty damn charming, though it does end up undercutting some of the more traditionally horrific aspects of the vampire lifestyle. I mean, vampires still feel a deep thirst for blood and can go into an animalistic frenzy if starved or stirred … but, despite having spent a year sequestered to control her needs, I never felt the heroine was truly or sincerely in danger of murdering anyone, or that her need for blood was *that bad*.

She mostly chows down on hares without great regret and the Brood—a group of queer vampires who live together as family—keep a cadre of extremely overpaid servants who are act as fully consenting, um, snacks, all of whom get intense sexual pleasure from the act of being snacked upon and seem to be in absolutely no danger from the snacking. Similarly, the Brood regularly host equally consensual human/vampire sex/blood orgies, and—once again—there’s not a whisper of a risk about the whole thing. Of course, we can move this back into metaphor/allegory space, using the fact that vampires are mostly in control of themselves, and very little danger to others to reflect upon the way concerns about queer sex or queer identity are exaggerated by mainstream society. And while I felt this definitely worked for a book about queerness, I felt it was a bit of a copout for a book about vampires.

I should probably add that there are a fair few scenes of, err, bloody frenzy, with the heroine gushing blood from almost every—and I do mean almost every—orifice as she succumbs to her vampiric appetites. But, once again, for whatever reason, I think because it’s so intimately connected to her sexual desires, I never felt it was … scary? To be honest, I mostly distracted imagining the same scene from the perspective of someone with different anatomy to the heroine. Like, rushing around naked, with your eyes and quim pouring blood feels sort of hot and gothic. The thought of doing the same with a massive erection, spurting blood in every direction like an improperly opened ketchup bottle is just fucking hilarious to me.

Anyway, anyway, the actual plot. Our heroine Poppy—a harlot working in London—falls in with a beautiful decadent noblewoman called Cane who, of course, turns out to be a vampire, leaving the newly turned Poppy in the care of Roisin, Cane’s former lover and generally damaged soul. As Poppy and Roisin fall in love it soon becomes clear that Cane has been hugely abusive towards Roisin—forcing her to stay with Cane via mind control when Roisin tried to leave—and that this perhaps a greater impediment to their burgeoning relationship and then the whole dead and blood-drinking angle. Eventually Roisin goes off to pursuit on Cane, believing she and Poppy can never be free while Cane is still obsessed with Roisin, and Poppy is left with the Brood, the group of queer vampires living together as lovers and family I mentioned above. Eventually (like 15 years eventually) Roisin returns having made no progress on the whole Cane thing and at some point the Brood, with Roisin and Poppy, decide to try and take Cane down by enlisting the help of Count Vlad, one of the oldest and powerful most vampires still around.

There’s really a lot to love here. To begin with, Poppy is an absolute fucking legend. For example, her reaction to discovering she’s a vampire who can only consume blood is as follows:

<blockquote> “How will I make my living?”

Roisin was staring at her. “You earn money by eating?”

“Sucking pricks, you dolt. Am I meant to take a pay cut because I can’t swallow?”</blockquote>

Asking the real questions is basically Poppy’s role throughout the book. She’s fat (if I may use that word in the descriptive rather than pejorative sense), she’s a sensualist, and she’s incredibly down-to-earth. Honestly, it’s just incredibly refreshing to meet a heroine like her and especially in a vampire book, which are usually dominated by the angsty and the intellectual (with the exception of Jonathan Harker, I guess, who is the biggest himbo in fiction). While there are occasional sections from the perspectives of other characters, we mostly see the world through Poppy’s eyes and this makes the book unexpectedly and delightfully funny for a genre that trends dark. For example here’s Poppy discussing love with Carmen (another fabulous character btw):

<blockquote>“Are you familiar [asked Carmen] with the ancient Greek words for love?”

“Carmen, do I look like I’m familiar with the ancient Greek words for love?”

“I wouldn’t presume. There are six.”

“Bit excessive.”</blockquote>

I think there are probably going to be readers for whom the shifting tones of A Long Time Dead might not work. It is cackling funny, achingly sincere, emotionally intense, and hella sexy all at the same time, plus you have Poppy’s wonderfully unpretentious approach to the world at large coupled with unashamedly lush writing. For example here’s a throwaway piece of exquisiteness about Roisin’s hair of all things:

<blockquote>Her hair, which had previously hid under a bonnet, was now tied in a low queue. It was wet-earth-dark and bone straight, glistening and touchable under the stars.”<blockquote>

For me, though, the style was an absolutely joy; there’s a sort of textual queerness to the melding of so many apparent contradictions that suits the book and the characters perfectly. Speaking of characters, I loved the supporting cast, Carmen and Valentin especially (although some other members of the Brood feel a bit more lightly sketched) and Roisin in a messy, fascinating love interest. I was attracted and frustrated by her in almost equal measure, but I admired her as a portrait of someone recovering from abuse, finding herself again slowly (and, at times, literally, given Cane has the power to alter memory). There’s also a thread of delicate but also quite explicit (although they never use terms like dominance or submission) sexual powerplay between Poppy and Roisin that is … uh … hot as fuck to use the technical term. The tenderness with which Poppy helps Roisin entangle her desires from the context of her nonconsensual loss of agency with Cane is truly lovely but never becomes simple:

<blockquote>Even in the worst moments, the sorrowful and terrifying, Roisin could easily believe she deserved Cane’s treatment, and worse. Because with it came the cruelty that fitted her bones to her muscle, her muscle to her skin, and buttoned her up into the shape of a person</blockquote>

Where I struggled with A Long Time Dead was mostly—and this is going to sound incredibly banal—related to the pacing. This is a book that wants to linger with its characters and, in general, I cared enough about those characters to want to linger with it but … boy oh boy does it linger. I think it’s over four hundred pages long and I did kind of feel that at several points while I was reading. There is sort of a plot going on—a “what are we going to do about Cane” plot that really ought to have been urgent considering what an absolute monster she is—but this is mostly just queer vibes all the way through. Like there’s a whole section at the end which is kind of an extended Dracula parody that in no way advances the plot. In fact, given that Poppy and co have spent thirty years supposedly in pursuit of Cane, the only thing that seems to allow them to actually confront her is her decision to … let them? There’s a similar moment earlier where Roisin leaves Poppy in order to hunt Cane and then comes back fifteen years later having … I don’t know … given up? It’s this sort of thing that robs the book of almost any momentum and often left me being like, “wait, if you could have done that or stopped doing that at any fucking time, why didn’t you?” But you know what, I’m not immortal and I’m fairly lazy about getting round to things. I expect if I was immortal it would take me fifteen years just to get out of my coffin at night.

So yes.

A Long Time Dead. A really intriguing read for me. Sometimes more intriguing than it was successful, perhaps, but I’ll take something heartfelt and unusual over same-old same-old any damn day of the week.

A fun gothic read, I am always looking for queer vampire books! Loved this one, especially the found family in the Brood, A bit of a hefty read, at times, and I'm not sure the length was always beneficial? But regardless I had fun reading, and would definitely recommend.

An absolutely wonderful sapphic vampire novel (a genre that, in my opinion, certainly needs to see more lesbian characters)! I loved the relationship between Roisin and Poppy, and the descriptions are entrancing. I was left wanting more with every page of this story!

I read a bunch of reviews after I finished reading A Long Time Dead and felt like we were not all reading the same thing. I thought this was a sweet, slow-paced sapphic romance. I thought the vampire aspects were smartly written and made sense to the logic of the story, and overall this was very sweet! It is definitely a slow burn- but if you have centuries to live, isn't that appropriate?

Four stars. I really enjoyed it. If you like vampires and slow burn romances, you likely will, too!

This was super slow and super hard to read. I think the author was trying to give a feel of the period it took place, but the vocabulary usage felt a bit much for me. Loved the representation though!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bywater Books for the digital galley of this book.

It’s 1837. Poppy has always been a creature of the night, so whoring fits her lifestyle perfectly. One night, she wakes up groggy and weak, far from her London home. One more thing. She craves blood. Poppy has been turned into a vampire. Stuck with only the mysterious Roisin for company and as a vampire mentor, Poppy beings to explore her new found immortality, body, and proclivities. A tight, lonely, buttoned-up woman, with kindness and care pressed up behind her teeth, Roisin didn’t turn Poppy, but she feels responsible for her, and as their feelings grow deeper, Poppy faces potential danger and Roisin faces an impossible task. Together and apart over the coming years, they meet vampires, shifty pirates, conniving opera singers, ancient nobles, glamorous French women, and they never can stop loving each other.

They had me at queer vampires, and no surprise, I loved this book! It’s the perfect blend of plot, romance, spice, and friendship, all with vampires and humans across the map and queer spectrum. I was rooting for Poppy and Roisin all the way. I loved their slow build to romance, and I was impressed at how their tension held throughout much of the book. The supporting characters were absolutely delightful, and I could go on reading their stories long after the pages of this book ended.

Although much delayed, I thought this book was eloquently written and had many interesting plot developments. I really enjoyed the main character's perspective and also how vampires were depicted in this novel. The imagery is striking and the story was very moving. However, I have yet to finish it, and will get back to it sooner rather than later.

5 stars!!! All the stars!!!

I can not understand why it has taken me so long to write a review considering I LOVED this book. The writing is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, PHENOMINAL, EXQUISITE, etc etc. I have not shut up about this book since I binged it right before it was officially published. I literally stopped halfway through at one point to pre-order a physical copy because I knew this was one I will want to re-read (and the cover is amazing!!).

A Long Time Dead is a sapphic vampire story - so two of my all time favorite things. This has become my go-to niche genre (gay vampires) and I'm so beyond excited that I get to add A Long Time Dead to my collection.

The writing is so poetic without being difficult to understand, the setting is portrayed so well that I felt like I was right there with the characters, and the characters oh the characters. They have so much depth and emotion and I'm just so obsessed with them that I can't even articulate why. They just reached into the depths of my soul and struck a cord.

With one book, Samara Breger has become an auto-buy author and I can not wait to see what else they publish. Also, did I mention the cover is beautiful?

A slow, atmospheric Victorian dive into the world of a new vampire, Poppy, as she learns to accept love and found family.

Poppy, a sex worker in London, wakes up from a tryst with a mysterious woman in the countryside craving blood. Roisin, an ancient vampire, is there to teach her the ways of the vampiric world as she knows them: resist human blood & partake only of animals. Poppy learns to hunt hare, resist humans, and trance until her world is thrust into chaos as Roison tell her she must leave to hunt down a monster that endangers them both.

Poppy is dropped off with the Brood, and develops new friendships with other queer vampires all while longing for Roisin. Her and Roisin come together again in an irresistible dance that thrusts her entire friend group into mortal danger. Together they all enact revenge on Cane, an ancient vampire who wreaks havoc and murder wherever she goes.

A perfect queer historical fantasy romance with fully fleshed characters - sapphic, achillean, and trans rep, disability rep - dyslexia, and achingly immersive atmosphere. Breger writes with humor, longing, and desire to offer a slice of Victorian vampire life: sometimes slow & sometimes action packed.

Thanks to NetGalley and Skylark for the e-ARC. All thoughts my own.