Eh. This was fine. I have never actually read Carmilla but know of its standing as a classic vampire story, so was intrigued by the description of this one as retelling/ reimagining. And maybe it’s unfair to expect anything super original from a retelling but that’s basically the feeling I left this one with – it was all very reminiscent of so many other novels I have read before, and not even in a particularly fun way.
I will say that Dunn did a great job of setting the mood in this one. It doesn’t take much time to grasp the exact type of person Lenore is or the state of her marriage to Henry, although that might also be because these are such familiar tropes. Lenore is uptight and concerned with what is proper, having suppressed large parts of herself to be the right kind of wife. Henry is not the good guy we are told which is rather obvious early on. It seems clear that he has conducted shady business dealings.
Into this comes Carmilla though she is more of a ghost than a character, something that shakes Lenore out of her rut, and makes her start desiring more. There are some scenes throughout that are a bit grossly disturbing. But honestly, I just didn’t think this novel was that interesting. It was a very familiar story of the Victorian wife finally coming into her own, no longer following convention except with this barely there vampire figure as a catalyst.
