Set in 1887, Lucy receives a series of letters from her twin sister that become more and more concerning. After finding a dead body in the bog, her sister has become ill and requests Lucy come see her. When Lucy arrives, she finds her sister on her death bed with some unique symptoms and cravings. Lucy will do anything to help her sister survive and stay out of her worst fear, the mental asylum.

This starts off with ALL the Dracula vibes. Learning the backstory through a series of written letters, a loved one on their death bed with intriguing and disturbing symptoms, and even a character named Lucy. I was loving the gothic pacing and setting for the first half of this book. At about this point, the story takes a bit of a turn, and I'm not sure the author knew exactly how to end it. 5 stars for the buildup....but overall this was a 4 star read for me.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing an ARC for an honest review.

Blood on Her Tongue was a delicious, delightful, unhinged, rage filled/rage inducing, gothic horror novel.
This book had it all - creepy vibes, questionable characters, a unique mystery, twins (no offense to twins but even just the premise of twins is a great set up for some good horror (I’m so sorry, twins)).

It starts with a classic, gothic storyline - one sister is mysteriously ill, it's the 1800s so she's not being taken as seriously as one would prefer. When her twin arrives, she's in worse shape than initially thought - she won't eat, she isn't sleeping, and a few oddities occur that point towards the fact that this may not be your typical fever induced insanity.

The layers unraveled at a beautiful pace, every time you thought you were reaching a conclusion, you're given that MORE you were searching for. The story spirals into a direction I wasn't necessarily expecting, but I wasn't disappointed at all.

I think we've all deemed Johanna the queen of gothic literature in modern times. I cannot wait to read what she comes up with next! Thank you to Johanna and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

With books like these (not plot-driven), I think it's best you know as little as possible, so I won’t summarise anything here. This is what you can expect:
Exquisite writing.
Spellbinding atmosphere.
Intriguing characters.
Discussions about what it means to be a person, the sacrifices we’re willing to make for those we love, and much more.

I usually don’t like describing books through memes, but these are such a perfect fit!
“I support women's rights, but more importantly, I support women's wrongs.”
“Would you still love me if I were a worm?”

This was such an odd read but I really enjoyed it. The setting was very gothic and played really well with the advancement of the story, especially concerning how women were meant to act.
I really enjoyed this book, but it was a bit confusing at parts, I felt like there could have been a bit more descriptive scenes, especially with the characters outside of the twins.

Overall, this was a pretty creepy book and I loved the ending.

When I requested this, I had high hopes. I love books about the dynamic between sisters, and gothic horror is my favorite subgenre of horror. That being said, something about this book missed the mark in my opinion. The gothic vibes were written very well, and I liked the originality of the bog vampire being. But it felt as though the author was trying a little too hard to make the writing quotable, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it becomes a problem when it's a detriment to the flow of the writing and the pacing. Other than that, I loved the exploration of society expectations, sexuality, and agency.

gloomy and gory and grotesque---a very fun, swampy horror-thriller. i like how willing this book was to get gross with it. every room felt feverish and dark and it was all great! i liked what the big rotting estate added to the story. i think it was a good choice to have certain characters erupt into manic clarity so late in the story, when at first decorum and politeness demands other things of them. i do think this could've been much longer, since the ending sort of dissolves into fast-paced resolutions, but i appreciated how naturally the horror grew and grew.

DNF at 51%

With everything that was going on in this book this should have been a page turner for me however I was just really bored, things progressed at a snails pace. This book had a lot of intresting concepts, it was just too much of a slow burn, and made me lose interest. I can see how many others have really enjoyed this read, it just wasn't for me personally.

-historical fiction, slow burn, twin sisters, possession.

Many Thanks to Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for sharing a digital copy, as always, opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This book was a beautifully grotesque Gothic tale. Truly an incredible callback to the Gothic classics with a spooky setting, unexplainable events, and forbidden loves. Many descriptions in this book were very hard to stomach as Johanna van Veen holds nothing back when writing the gory and disturbing.

Beneath it all was a strange tale of familial connection that questions where line between the monster and the human truly lies.

Now, if you're going into this book expecting some sapphic romance as I was, note that this is not a main focus of the story. Yes, it's present, but it is not as central as some of the advertising would have you believe.

this was my first book by author Johanna van Veen and wow! this was so unique and fresh take of gothic horror. very eerie and weird (in a good way!) and super gripping. i need the physical copy with the blood dripping edges now! definitely recommend to any horror readers to give this a shot, you won’t be disappointed!

This book is first and foremost a gothic novel in the spirit of Mary Shelley. The graphic depictions of well, blood on her tongue were unsettling but extremely well used throughout the book. The slow burn tension was masterfully done!

A story about a young woman who will do anything to help her sister, even if it goes beyond her moral values. To the extent that she pays for it with her sanity and gets her hands bloody.
An interesting insight into the 19th century - with a tremendous amount of gore! Definitely a top pick for fans of body horror!

This one was soooooo atmospheric and just creepy. I own this authors other book and will be reading asap! This is the perfect spooky book for soooky season! Thank you Netgalley!

Ooh now this was good. Wonderfully gothic, gory, and dark. It’s about twin sisters, a bog body, obsession, madness, an overbearing cruel husband, and more. An excellent read!

I cannot overstate how much I loved the author's writing style in this, or how much I loved this in general. Very weird and twisted, almost dreamlike, and so, SO dark -- highly recommend!

This was so good!!! I normally am not a fan of gory books, but this was brilliant. I love the gothic setting and the feeling of insanity everywhere in the book. I also love the very different take on vampirism. I don’t think I’ve read a vampire story quite like this one before.

The only reason this wasn’t a 5 star is it lost a bit of the feminine rage impact for me because of Not Sarah being a parasite and maybe not deserving the amount of love from Lucy that she was getting. Otherwise, it was so good and I love the author answers at the end on the physical book that explains where she thinks the characters ended up.

Please write a sequel!

I don't know if it's my reading slump or I just lost interest part-way through, but I struggled with this book, which sucks because horror is my favourite genre.

'Blood On Her Tongue' tells the tale of sisters Lucy and Sarah. After receiving some disturbing letters from Sarah, Lucy goes to visit her as she suddenly becomes unwell to the point where she is descending into madness. On her arrival, Lucy realises that there's something definitely wrong with her sister, but she must find out what it is before her husband has her committed to an asylum.

The first third of the book hooked me immediately - Sarah's letters about the Bog Woman and her interest in her juxatposed with current day and her erratic behaviour made me so curious as to what was going on with Sarah.

Lucy on the other hand, I struggled with a lot. Her personality solely was her co-dependence on her sister and then her lust for her sister's husband. Her chapters were much harder to get through (and as the FMC, there are a lot more of them), and perhaps this is where I began to lose interest.

Throughout the middle this was especially hard for me, and with only 2-3 hours remaining of the book, I really had to push myself to continue because the motivation to finish was lacking (the book is not super long but my "read' dates show how long it took me).

I just found the whole ending bizarre? The notion that a version of your sister where she is <spoiler> dead but a 'parasite' inhabits her so that you still have all her memories and don't have to live without her </spoiler> is the best case scenario is just wild to me.

I also don't really like how the author describes a <spoiler> vampire as being a 'parasite' </spoiler> it made it seem like less of a threat and therefore less scary.

From reading the reviews, reviewers are in high praises of the author's debut novel, so maybe I'll give that a go instead, but yeah, I just didn't enjoy this one as much as I'd hoped.

The gothic horror vibes were there initially but something was lost along the way to the end.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and to Poison Pen Press for the eARC to review!

I don't think I can adequately put into words how much I loved this book from the very first page. I could NOT stop reading, other than when work or sleep took over and forced me to. I thought I loved Johanna's writing in My Darling Dreadful thing, but my god this one absolutely took my breath away. I can't wait to see whatever comes next from her, she's easily become one of my Instant-Buy authors without question.

I was so excited to read this after the masterpiece that 'My Darling Dreadful Thing' was and 'Blood on Her Tongue' did not disappoint. While I'm not sure I liked any of the characters, the plot and atmosphere more than kept my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley, Poisoned Pen Press, and the author for giving me the opportunity to read an advanced readers copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

What a wacky crazy story. I loved it so much! Honestly I don’t even know if I could try to summarize this book, since it’s just a lot. If you love dark, twisted, weird, exciting books then you should really read this book. It’s riveting and gorgeous and bloody and everything in between, and I’ll be picking up every other book this author publishes in the future. Loved it!

Johanna van Veen is officially my new go-to when it comes to gothic horror. This book was delicious! Blood on Her Tongue is bound to be on my mind for a long time. Why did I like it so much? Well...

Let's get into it-

Characters- Twins have a special place in horror. We often find a pair of off-putting twins between the pages of a horror novel or on the big screen. While it might not be a revolutionary concept, I do love a good twin story, even if its been done before. I also love a story about sisterly love, so Van Veen is hitting a two-for-one here. I thoroughly enjoyed each and every character in this story, but none more then our main character Lucy and her twin sister Sarah. I found Lucy to be endearingly odd, and Sarah to be a fascinating character both before and after being "possessed". From their interactions to their complex feelings towards one another, everything about these two worked for me. The other characters filled out a memorable cast , with each personality adding their own spice into the story. 4.5/5

Setting- I absolutely adored the Netherlands as a backdrop for this story. The bog, the house, it all felt so wet and cold and horrible in a way that suits the gothic genre perfectly. 5/5

Premise- This not-quite-possession story was so unique and fascinating. I really enjoyed the scientific path the story took, and felt that it added an extra special layer of horror. Lucy's resigned understanding of her sister's condition and her instinct to save her despite her distasteful changes felt entirely believable to me, and I had no issue supporting her decision. 4.5/5

Horror- I felt that the horror elements of this story were handled masterfully. Because I was able to understand Lucy's decision to help her sister, watching as she planned to "feed" her was all the more sickening, because it felt like a necessary conclusion. This story comes together like a train-wreck in slow motion- you know where it's going, you know it will be gruesome, and yet you can't tear your eyes away for a moment. 5/5

Johanna van Veen has cemented her place on my roster of authors to watch. As far as the modern gothic goes, she is the queen in my eyes, and I eagerly await whatever it is she writes next. Blood on Her Tongue was a delight to read, through and through.