DARK HEARTS

Julietta has known a centuries-old guiding spirit known as the Night Mother, whom she calls “Mistress,” since she was a child. Mistress shepherded Julietta out of an abusive orphanage, keeping her safe for years on the street in exchange for obedience: “When she disobeyed, the jackals”—predatory men—“invariably came as punishment, as swift as they were sadistic.” As the story opens, the teenaged Julietta is saved from men threatening her by a vampiric stranger clothed in black—a “towering Nosferatu” named Farron who has an iron prosthetic arm and serves the Marquis Bellamy Valentin de La Clermont. She happily goes to work as a maidservant at Bellamy’s estate, where the marquis clearly favors her; he allows her to dine with him and to wander the grounds and even teaches her how to read. Bellamy also sponsors a brother-sister ballet duo, Colette and Sabien, who are close in age to Julietta and whose training he sometimes oversees personally. Bellamy begins an affair with Colette; Julietta, infatuated with Bellamy, becomes envious, occasionally sneaking into the hall outside his bedroom to watch the couple’s intimate encounters. Sabien also resents Bellamy, since he and Colette had previously been in an incestuous relationship. His bitterness culminates in an attack on Julietta, who stabs him with a letter opener. He survives that attack, but the household soon collapses into despair when multiple tragedies occur. Julietta begins to question Bellamy’s influence, suspecting that something dark and supernatural has taken hold of him. Although she loves him and wishes to save him, her Mistress may have other intentions. When a new pair of siblings arrive at the manor, Julietta must uncover the origin of the marquis’s malevolence and end it.

The atmosphere in this novel, which is part of a series, is richly imagined, with gothic imagery that heightens its sense of dread: “Those trees, with their scabrous, twisting trunks and jagged black branches, invoked images of gaunt hands reaching desperately towards the heavens.” Gruesome action scenes are interspersed with voyeuristic erotic moments, reinforcing the book’s fixation on desire, violence, and power. The supernatural narrative, paired with recurring themes of Catholic morality, open up engaging discussions about sin and damnation: “So long as God in Heaven dwells, we who sold our souls shall be judged and condemned. Cast down to scream in hell and so lend our voices to that chorus of the wailing damned.” Although the marquis is a well-developed character with a compelling backstory and disturbingly clear motivations, other figures remain more elusive. Farron is a memorably bloodthirsty villain (“the vampire tore off his head and lifted it like a brimming goblet towards his mouth, spilling the sanguine wine onto his tongue, toasting the last survivor of the radicals’ crooked gathering”), although his past, including the origin of his prosthetic, is left unexplored. The Mistress, in particular, would have benefited from further development, as her allusions to larger plans are never fully explained. However, fans of erotic horror will find plenty to enjoy here.