I love the cover and the synopsis sounded really good. I also really like this author. However the pacing was really slow and if I had not skimmed it would have becime a dnf. I really struggled to get into it and the characters. I guess it just was not for me.

A captivating story imagined out of traditional Dracula retellings, Lucy Undying by Kiersten White explores and expands the life of Lucy Westenra, one of Dracula's early victims. Following three different timelines, we see Lucy’s story unfold as a human through her journals, as a vampire through her own retelling, and in the present through the eyes of Iris—another woman whose life is tied to Dracula in complex ways. Beautifully written and full of surprising twists, Lucy Undying weaves together a great story of empowerment, self-discovery, and above all, love.

❤️ What I loved: White’s writing is a real strength in this novel, and thought this book contained some beautifully written passages that made the experience of reading thoroughly enjoyable. I loved Lucy and her journey of self-discovery as we saw it through both her own eyes and others. The sapphic yearning and romance were the icing on the cake that kept me coming back for more.
💔 What I didn’t love: I think some reviews will find this book a bit winding and the pacing a bit slow. Personally, I didn’t feel this too much, but there were times when I felt “ahead” of the story and wanted the story to catch up in all of the timelines.

Fans of vampire stories, queer stories, and stories about finding your own power will find a lot to like about Lucy Undying. I would definitely recommend this book to fans of the TV adaptation of Interview with a Vampire and the way it embraces the queerness of vampire lore.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 (4.0-4.5)

Acknowledgments & Disclaimers ✨ Thank you to NetGalley, Kiersten White, and Random House Publishing/Ballentine/Del Rey, for providing an ARC and the opportunity to share an honest review of this book. ✨ All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. ✨ My reviews and ratings strive to evaluate books within their own age-demographic and genre.

Had a bit of a slow start, but by around 20% in I was fully invested in the "ditzy vampire does therapy" vibe and I was spitballing increasingly implausible theories about where the story was going to go. It was such a fun trip.

Iris has spunk! She was my favorite character (even if I’m not a fan of “calm your tits) her email at the end was one of my favorite moments.

Even though I have not read Dracula I was able to enjoy Lucy Undying. I do wish I read Dracula first just for me but I am very glad it’s not required.

Lucy Undying seemed like the type of book that would be right up my alley. The description and cover drew me in, and I had just read Dracula earlier this year. The beginning of the book started off strong. I really love this retelling of Lucy's character. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish this book. I put a lot of time into it, but it was just too long and slow. For an almost 500 pages book, I would expect the plot to be quicker and have more substance. I think three POVs was too much. I enjoyed that parts with Lucy, especially after she becomes a vampire, but Iris's story was not picking up for me. I'd be a little disappointed seeing that an Iris chapter was up next, because I enjoyed the Lucy ones much more. I stopped reading around 30%. I might finish it at some point, but right now it just felt too long and daunting for me.

Set between different POV’s from modern day to the 1800 century, we first learn about and meet Lucy Westenra. She was one of Dracula’s first victims and spent a majority of her time as a vampire in his clutches. We also learn and meet Iris, who is a part of the Goldaming family. The more the story goes on, the more you realize certain commonalities between them are connected.

It took a bit to get used to the different POVs as one was Iris, one was Lucy in present day, and one was Lucy’s therapists records which mainly take place hundreds of years ago. Although incredibly atmospheric and fluid at points, especially with the chapters dealing with Lucy after she was turned & her diary, there was a big chunk in the middle of the book that *dragged*. It took me an extra week to finish 🫠 Overall I enjoyed the romance a lot, the relationships, and the whitty/dramatic side characters. Iris’s chapters always made me giggle; I love her thought process, banter, and how she uses humor to deal with the trauma of her family. I loooved Lucy’s vampire besties. If you want a gothic sapphic vampire romance with touches of humor, this is definitely for you!

4 stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you @netgalley @delreybooks and @authorkierstenwhite for the ARC 🖤 This beauty releases on 9/10!

This was FANTASTIC. I haven't read the original Dracula, but I'm more interested than ever to go back and see these characters in their original light.
It's absolutely heartbreaking to see how everyone around Lucy treats her so horribly and they control everything until she really had no autonomy. Walking through life with her and seeing her slowly find herself, with the help of others, is so beautiful. And seeing that reflection in Iris as well is just incredible. I was completely gripped on the horror of it all!

Lucy Undying is a vampire fiction novel about Lucy Westenra, one of the victims in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The story is told through multiple points of view: Lucy’s journals from the late 1890s, where she’s an upper-class girl in love with her governess; an interview Lucy gives to a woman named Vanessa in the present day; and Iris, a young woman in 2024 running from her inheritance of her mother’s cult/wellness MLM.

The amount of information withheld from the reader about both Lucy and Iris makes this a confusing and difficult book to enjoy. Lucy’s story is told from both 1890 onward via her journals, but also at different points in the 20th century through her interview with Vanessa. We know very little about Iris, except that she’s inherited property she’s trying to claim in the UK while remaining cash poor and staying off the radar of her mother’s MLM goons from Utah. Iris is barely scraping by in a strange country, living in an abandoned house with no electricity, yet somehow instantly makes friends on her first day of arrival with her taxi driver, Rahul, and Elle, an attractive woman she bumps into on the street. She spends the next few days (or weeks?) dodging her mother’s people, scouring the property for valuables, and reading Lucy’s journal. Through the journals and Lucy’s interview, we learn about her years spent traveling the world, seeking her lost governess love, Mina, and her maker, Dracula.

I really wanted to enjoy this book. The cover is stunning, and vampires are always a hit. But it felt much longer than it actually was. The pacing was off, and it felt like nothing happened for long periods of time. By the time the action did pick up, I no longer cared. I didn’t feel any chemistry or romantic tension between Elle and Iris, and the entire MLM cult and the family connections went over my head. Sadly, this one was a complete miss for me.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for giving me this ARC for an honest review. Honestly, I wish I could say more about this but I thought it was just fine. I kept thinking something was missing and I couldn’t put my finger on it.

This book started out strong but somewhere along the way it became a struggle to keep going. I was disappointed because I was excited to read this especially when I saw the cover. Unfortunately, this one was not for me.

I absolutely loved the characters of Iris and Lucy and the positive queer rep of this Dracula retelling. The different narrative devices used was a unique way to draw the reader into the book's different storylines and time periods. I also enjoyed how the author played with different tones and styles as the story expanded from being dark, period, and gothic to something sinister and more thriller-y with its more modern vampiric MLM scheme.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6784246734

It took me a really, really long time to read this book and I started doing a lot of skimming just to be able to finish it, honestly. I think it could have used a lot of cutting, especially of the excess of Lucy back story that just started to feel like a slog to get through. I wasn't sure where the plot was even supposed to be going for a long time. I did think that the vampire MLM in Utah was absolutely genius and hilarious, if it didn't quite fit well with the Lucy/Dracula storyline. In many ways, this probably could have used to be a whole separate story, because the Lucy story in general might not have stood very well on its own as far as retellings go.

Starts slow but Lucy Undying has a strong finish. Lucy's voice is perfect, and the story meshes exactly with Stoker's. I was also re-reading Dracula at the same time as this, and it proved difficult to separate the two. Ms. White allows Lucy to take back her story as a victim and allows her to become the hero. The truly scary part is that I find Lucy Undying an entirely plausible story that delves deeper into Bram Stoker's masterpiece without either unraveling.

I’ve never finished a book and felt like I needed to go reread the story is based on immediately after with fresh eyes. Lucy Undying accomplished that for me – now I really want to revisit Dracula. I LOVED the way White covered the abhorrent treatment of women throughout time. The idea that a newly reborn vampire wouldn’t remember who they were previously if not given even just their name upon waking was something I hadn’t encountered before.

"The rest of the poem goes on to glorify innocence, but we both know innocence is wielded as a weapon against young women. A whip to wound us, ties to bind us. A commodity to be traded and sold. By the time we know what innocence truly is, it’s been taken from us and we’re shamed for its absence."

In reference to a passage from She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
Some of the twists were fairly easy to spot but the story was so good and I was so invested in Lucy and Iris that it didn’t bother me. I find Lucy & Iris’ instant attraction slightly off putting, BUT they did put in the work after the initial meeting. Iris felt younger than 25 – after having nanny’s, tutors etc. I would think she’d be more crafty and clever. Then again she is on the run from a company with extremely deep pockets, among other things – I’d get a little cagey and desperate too. I truly adored Lucy though – steadfast, always believing the best in others, hilarious, clever & so much more – I’d struggle against the tide of Lucy too. I enjoyed the side characters but the Doctor was my favorite – I would want to find a use for immortality too.

"I have that same sense I get with poetry, that someone is saying something I’ve always felt but never been able to express."

I live for books that give me the feeling from the above quote. Lucy Undying is one of those books – I was constantly tucking away passages into my brain reading this.

If you loved books like My Throat an Open Grave or An Education in Malice, I highly recommend picking up this one. Many, many thanks to TBR & Beyond Tours for the chance to read this one and to Kiersten White for writing the Dracula rewrite I didn’t know I needed. If anything about this book piques your interest, don’t sleep on it – buy it, check it out, get on a waitlist. One of the most hilarious, gutting, and illuminating books I’ve read in a while – Butter Chicken & Little Cabbage forever!

My favorite classic monster book to read was Dracula. I feel that Kiersten White did a wonderful job diving deeper into the much maligned story of Lucy and finally gave her the happy ending that she deserved.

This books jumps from present to past via the diary of Lucy while she was alive and then transcripts with a therapist (reminded me of Interview with a Vampire) recounting her vampiric afterlife. All this gave Lucy good depth and explains what shaped her into a fairly well adjusted vampire (at least better than the Lover or the Queen). The other present viewpoint is from Iris, on the run from a giant MLM company, Goldaming, a business with a secret and sordid past touting a special way of life, becoming living gods and goddesses at the highest level (hint hint, not quite as true as advertised).

So, I did enjoy the past sections more than the present ones because they made Lucy seem fully real while Iris didn't have too much depth, though she did have much better morals than her mother and the company she leads. But I did enjoy how it all tied up in the end with characters past and present finally all get together to finish what was started so long ago when Dracula first went hunting, killing, and changing Lucy and the friends she made who were also his creations but became their own women and stronger because of it.

This was a satisfying book to read and props to the cover which so cool and lets you know that Lucy is not to be messed with. She deserves that.

Unfortunately, this book just didn't work for me. While I was hooked by the concept & the cover art, it felt as if the author was not able to manage all the storylines well. Iris & Lucy, though being of adult age, were written very immaturely and the book came across as YA despite being an adult book. I really struggled to finish this book & would have DNF'd if not reading for a book club. Our podcast review @OWUBPod will be released on 09/25/2024.

The cover is my favorite thing about this book, it's amazing!

I really liked the idea of this, it was an interesting premise. I always appreciate a story of a woman taking control of her life after having others dictate everything. I liked the multiple POVs, switch between past a present. I haven't read Dracula in a long time, so I really couldn't compare it to the original. I like how the two MC's stories were woven together by the diaries.

It fell flat for me in execution, I found it to be too long, the pacing too slow, the switching between timelines and POVs was disjointed and it was difficult to keep up with everything. The dialogue was also cringey at times.

Fans of Long Live Evil, Darker Mischief, and The Lost Apothecary may enjoy this!

Thank you TBR Beyond Tours and Del Rey/PRH for the ARC!

Lucy has risen from the grave and is trying to escape Dracula. She meets Iris in her current life and finds similarities and connection while trying to navigate modern day events.

I usually love an alternating timeline and POV but I found myself lost in this one. There were moments of fun and good pacing followed by long periods of boredom which really made this difficult for me to pick up at times. I wanted to like it so much more! I found the characters started out really fun and colorful only to fall flat later on. I can definitely understand those that loved it.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, Kiersten White, and Random House Publishing Group for providing this free ARC. This is my honest review! This published on September 10th.

I have posted my review on Goodreads, my Facebook book club, and will make a TikTok.

I love the cover, and I'm a sucker for gothic vampires and a Dracula retelling; however, the pacing was a huge drag in my ability to enjoy this book. It's actually why I'm a bit late in posting the review. I found myself reading the more enjoyable parts and skimming others. I did not what to DNF this book because I was so excited for it. The beginning was very good, but the author did not keep the pace with the rest of the book, and I found myself getting irritated at the characters. Maybe if it has been shortened to a novella, this would have been fine.

I remember absolutely nothing about Dracula, but I love this sapphic take. Following Lucy’s journey as a vampire was such a good time. I was surprised to see a gothic fantasy/romance from Kiersten White, but I’m glad she did it.

I did struggle through the first half of the book. There are multiple timelines and POVs, there’s a lot going on. Sometimes I felt a bit lost or like I wanted to rush back to my favorite POV (Lucy talking about being a bad ass vampire). However, about halfway through the book, there’s a big bang moment and everything aligns. After that, I could not put it down.

Thank you to @netgalley and @delreybooks for my review copy. Lucy Undying is out now. If you love a slow burn, gothic, sapphic vampire love story with action and drama, you’ll be needing this one.