Halloween Bingo 2025
This summer, I attended a special event at my local bookstore. The owners and employees are all dedicated readers and they took turns pitching their favourite books to us, their customers. I distinctly remember one woman holding up this book and declaring, “Three words: Toxic Lesbian Vampires.” That was when I knew that I would be reading it for this year’s bingo game.
The book lived up to that billing. It is the story of three women, from different eras, all of whom experience the change to undead. It isn't obvious at first how they will intersect, but they do collide, with tragic consequences. How many of us could maintain a romantic relationship over centuries? Many of us struggle with mere decades. All three women are surprised when they are turned, one reacting better to the new situation than others. None of them feels the same way about being turned.
Schwab gives the vampire mythos her own spin. Sunlight doesn't kill, but makes them very ill. Graveyards are traps that suck their vitality. And the thirst is never satisfied. One of the women describes herself as a colander rather than a goblet, impossible to fill. Running through it all is the desire to live life in their own way, to be free of societal restrictions. Three of the vampire men are decent people, but the human men are uniformly predatory. The exact opposite of what you'd expect. And, oh, the feminine rage!
Partially an homage, I think, to Carmilla, that great-grandmother of a lesbian vampire tale.
I read this book for The Carpathians square of my Halloween Bingo card.
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