Born under a blood moon, twin sister travellers, Kizzy - a brave, voluptuous bear dancer - and Lil - slight in frame and blessed with a beautiful voice – are captured after their camp is ransacked on the eve of their divining, the coming-of-age rite that would have seen them learn their fates. With many kinsfolk slain, the twins are enslaved by Boyar Valcar and set to work in the castle kitchens, where rumours about the notorious Dragon loom large over all the female slaves. Separated when Kizzy is snatched away, Lil escapes to search for her sister with Mira, a fellow slave. As they race against time to save Kizzy, encountering the terrifying strigoi (undead) along the way, powerful desires are awakened, which adds extra conflict as the story winds to its transfixing climax.
Driven by the sisters’ passion and revenge, loyalty and love, and powerful on the persecution of travellers, this is a dazzling female-focused reimagining of vampire legends, with the writing infused with a lyrical earthiness throughout.
Gothic, intoxicating, feminist, darkly provoking and deeply romantic - this is the breathtakingly imagined untold story of the brides of Dracula, by bestselling author Kiran Millwood Hargrave in her much-anticipated YA debut.
They say the thirst of blood is like a madness - they must sate it. Even with their own kin. On the eve of her divining, the day she'll discover her fate, seventeen-year-old Lil and her twin sister Kizzy are captured and enslaved by the cruel Boyar Valcar, taken far away from their beloved traveller community. Forced to work in the harsh and unwelcoming castle kitchens, Lil is comforted when she meets Mira, a fellow slave who she feels drawn to in a way she doesn't understand. But she also learns about the Dragon, a mysterious and terrifying figure of myth and legend who takes girls as gifts. They may not have had their divining day, but the girls will still discover their fate...
'A Chilling and breathlessly paced thriller... Feminism, spirituality, legend and desire are beautifully interwoven in this mesmerising tale of independence and resistance' - The Daily Mail
'A feminist origin story of sisterhood, fate and survival certain to bewitch teenage readers and beyond' - Observer
Author
About Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an award-winning poet, playwright, and bestselling author. Her debut The Girl of Ink & Stars won the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 2017 and the British Book Award's Children's Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for numerous awards including the Jhalak Prize, the Branford Boase Award and the Little Rebels Prize.
Her second novel The Island at the End of Everything was released in April 2017, and was shortlisted for both the Costa Book Award and Blue Peter Children’s Book Award. Her fourth poetry collection OE, a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice in collaboration with the artist Tom de Freston, was published by Bloomsbury in October 2017.
Kiran lives by the river in Oxford with her husband, Tom, and their cat, Luna.
Kiran Millwood-Hargrave said, ‘The central joy of re-visioning Dracula’s ‘dark sisters’ is that Dracula himself was a reincarnation, a forging of many different myths into a single enduring creation. I came late to Stoker’s classic but it has permeated my consciousness for years…the story is porous and ripe for re-imagining. My ‘brides’ are sisters, twins and travellers. This is a much persecuted culture throughout history and has its origins in Northern India, where my own family are from. Drawing on the darkness of history and mixing it with the glitter of fantasy, I have a place for my beloved characters to wrestle with fate, lust, death and evil. Most of all, I hope to have fulfilled Bellatrix’s admirable aims, and gifted these women something of a life beyond Dracula’s lines. The second book in the new Bellatrix collection – a creatively curated list of empowering, diverse YA novels by leading female voices.'
