Vivia

Reading this felt like watching one of those dark fantasy movies from the 80s, like Labyrinth or The Company of Wolves. It's extremely atmospheric and beautiful, but also very, very dark. Tanith Lee truly is the queen of dark fantasy, and she does not pull her punches. Don't go into this expecting sparkly vampires -- this is horror, and many parts of the book made my skin crawl.

This story is about suffering, abuse, trauma, loneliness, and the loss of humanity. Most of the characters are vile, with no redeeming qualities, yet even with all these things, you can't look away. Every fiber of my being told me to stop, yet I couldn't.