This character-driven horror is not for everyone, but if you need a palette cleanser from your typical thrillers, this is a fun one to escape with. Kiste knows how to tell a story! This story takes place in the 1960s, but the themes in this book cover both current day and the past before this time period. This book is my first read by the author and honestly, Gwendolyn Kiste's writing is spectacular. I want you to enjoy the peculiarities of this book like I did because if I wasn't so caught off guard, this book would probably not have worked for me.

I don't want to give too much information about this plot, because well, it's f'n weird. It isn't until the return of another immortal that throws the ghosts of Lucy and Bee's pasts into the present. Both Lucy and Bee are haunted by the ghosts of their past-Dracula and Rochester. The story centers around Lucy Westenra from Dracula and Bertha Mason (Bee) from Jane Eyre as immortal beings living with the demons of their past. I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would as it centers around women in classic fictional horror literature and is retold in a new environment-1960s Hollywood. I do not agree with the comparisons of Mexican Gothic AT ALL. Reluctant Immortals is the love child of Taylor Jenkins Reid and Paul Tremblay.

Rochester, and the two women who survived them, Bertha and Lucy, who are now undead immortals residing in Los Angeles in 1967 when Dracula and Rochester make a shocking return in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.Ĭombining elements of historical and gothic fiction with a modern perspective, in a tale of love and betrayal and coercion, Reluctant Immortals is the lyrical and harrowing journey of two women from classic literature as they bravely claim their own destiny in a man’s world. Reluctant Immortals is a historical horror novel that looks at two men of classic literature, Dracula and Mr. For fans of Mexican Gothic, from three-time Bram Stoker Award–winning author Gwendolyn Kiste comes a novel inspired by the untold stories of forgotten women in classic literature-from Lucy Westenra, a victim of Stoker’s Dracula, and Bertha Mason, from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre-as they band together to combat the toxic men bent on destroying their lives, set against the backdrop of the Summer of Love, Haight-Ashbury, 1967.

Reluctant immortals by gwendolyn kiste