A historical YA horror novel based on the infamous real-life inspiration for Countess Dracula

In 17th century Hungary, Anna Darvulia has just begun working as a scullery maid for the young and glamorous Countess Elizabeth Báthory. When Elizabeth takes a liking to Anna, she’s vaulted to the dream role of chambermaid, a far cry from the filthy servants’ quarters below. She receives wages generous enough to provide for her family, and the Countess begins to groom Anna as her friend and confidante. It’s not long before Anna falls completely under the Countess’s spell—and the Countess takes full advantage. Isolated from her former friends, family, and fiancé, Anna realizes she’s not a friend but a prisoner of the increasingly cruel Elizabeth. Then come the murders, and Anna knows it’s only a matter of time before the Blood Countess turns on her, too.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for this ARC! It was such a quick and exciting read, and I feel like I have gained a better understanding of the Blood Countess herself from reading it! It is a spectacular account of Lady Bathory’s descent into darkness, and there are a lot of names, places, and even tortures that are worked in from her actual history! I loved that we saw the story through a chambermaid’s eye, as it is someone who would have been close enough to Elizabeth to be privy to all of her inner workings. The author used this closeness to her advantage, and made her someone the countess couldn’t live without to justify why she was never slain in kind. Lana pieced this story together so beautifully!

When we meet Anna, she is a peasant. She lives with her violent father, her midwife mother, and her siblings. She is smart, kind, and talented, but she harbors a tortured heart. When she meets Elizabeth, she sees herself in her, and she is taken with her from the start. She thinks their chance meeting is the last time she will see her, but her haunted face never leaves her mind. So when the countess entreats her to come help her in her time of need, she does not hesitate; now leaving her mark on Lady Bathory as well. She is soon after sent for to be her chambermaid, and although things hold her back from doing so, a macabre series of events launches her forward and brings her to Elizabeth’s castle. At first, she is given a job in the scullery, trying to help keep her family afloat as she tries to win back Elizabeth’s favor. While there, the other girls regale her with stories of Elizabeth’s cruelty, but she can hardly believe her ears. Surely the kind countess she had met was under some sort of duress that made her act this way.

She worms her way closer to Elizabeth as a way to gain more coin to send to her ailing family, and as she does, she realizes the problem must be her husband, Ferenc. Anna and Elizabeth grow even closer, shedding their professional relationship and becoming something more akin to lovers. Anna begins to see flashes of Lady Bathory’s evil herself, and takes it upon herself to try and calm the storm raging inside of her. When not even losing her husband helps, Anna slowly realizes that maybe Elizabeth was the terror all along, and she steadily declines into madness, using Anna’s affinity with herbs and healing for much darker purposes until the former chambermaid has had enough. She bites back, much harder than the countess ever expected, and Elizabeth’s story ends much like it does in real life; locked away in a tower until her death.

I love how this is, at its heart, the story of a girl who will fight for what she loves, and what she loves changes greatly in this book except for one thing; her family. She prizes her mother and her sister above all else, and it ends up being a weakness for her, as does her eventual love for the countess herself. It blinds her, as love is wont to do, to a lot of the bad parts of Elizabeth until it is nearly too late. At that point, she learns that the person she should love is herself: the stone-hearted witch that Elizabeth always thought her to be. She is such a strong and intelligent main character, and it was so cool to me how her tie to nature was something to be feared, as it more than likely would have been in this era. However, since she was the ‘pet’ of the countess, no one could touch her, but you could see everyone turn against her, even more so for continuing to stay at Lady Bathory’s side. When it was all said and done, this was an extremely quick and interesting read, full of lore and gore for those with dark hearts but also a glimmer of sunlight that is love; familial and otherwise. I immensely enjoyed it!

5/5 stars