Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel by Kiersten White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars rounded up**
Lucy Undying is an Adult Gothic Fantasy novel that reimagines some classic character arcs from one of my favorite novels of all-time, Dracula.
This is the 11th-book I’ve read from White. I had really been looking forward to it ever since I read the synopsis and first laid eyes on the stunning cover.
With a clever use of mixed media, as well as an intriguing present day narrative, White spins a tale spanning across generations. The way the historical and present perspectives were played off each other was very well executed.
As the synopsis notes, one of the main characters in this story is Lucy Westenra, who Dracula fans may recognize as Mina’s best friend. She’s also known to be Dracula’s first victim in the UK.
In Lucy Undying, White imagines what would have happen to Lucy after that, for her story didn’t end there.
In present day, we follow Iris, who’s family owns a health products empire. Her mom has recently died and Iris travels to London to stay at a mansion, known as Hillingham, that she’s inherited.
It’s there she makes new friends, explores the past through the pages of a journal she discovers hidden in Hillingham, begins to find her true self and hatches a plan to escape from the clutches of the evil company her mother left behind.
This story is layered. There’s a lot happening. Initially, you aren’t 100% on how all the different elements are going to come together, but each perspective is equally intriguing.
I loved the idea of the Hillingham house. I could just picture this neglected gothic property and loved Iris’s time there. Those scenes at Hillingham are some of my favorites from the entire novel.
I also did enjoy Lucy’s perspective. The more historical portions were well connected with the original source material and I liked hearing Lucy’s side of all that: her suitors, her mother, etc.
I was obsessed with this story for the first 65%. There was so much going on and I was enjoying the back and forth of it all, trying to piece it together.
However, around that 65% mark, there’s something revealed, where after that, I was almost over it. There wasn’t much intrigue left for me and I struggled to see how we still had so much story to go?
It did drag for me in that second portion, but picked up again in the last 10%. For me, I feel like this could have been cut down a bit, but that’s purely personal taste. NGL, I was over it, but others may eat it up the whole way through.
Overall, I felt this was a clever reinterpretation of Lucy’s story and an interesting exploration of where that could have gone. I know some true Dracula fans may be turned off by how much this changes some of the MCs of Dracula, thinking of Mina in particular, but I think you have to appreciate White’s creativity with it.
Thank you to the publisher, Del Rey, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I enjoyed this one and can’t wait to see what White delivers us next!