Dusk - Book Review

Dusk: A Re-Imagining of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (The Frankenstein Saga Book 2)
by Merrie Destefano

What is it about:
A broken heart. An infamous holiday gone wrong. A deadly curse brought to life.

A holiday in Switzerland is supposed to lift Mary Wollstonecroft Godwin’s spirits. She wants to forget the past and have fun. In fact, everyone in her party is running away from one indiscretion or another—from her fiancé Percy Shelley to Lord Bryon to Mary’s stepsister, Claire. But from the moment Mary arrives at Byron’s villa, she knows something is wrong. He rushes her indoors and forbids all of them to go out at night, claiming that the horrible weather has driven wild animals down from the mountains.

The only person who doesn’t seem to be running away from anything is a handsome, young Italian doctor, John Polidori. Instead, he is fervently pursuing local folk legends and a new scientific theory that claims people can be raised from the dead.

But it’s not until they all challenge one other to write ghost stories that the real danger begins. In a nightmare, Mary envisions a patchwork man animated by Galvanism and she begins writing Frankenstein. Likewise, fueled by local legends, John writes The Vampyre—one of the first vampire stories ever written.

What neither one of them knows is that they are conjuring a dark evil. Before long, all of their lives will be in danger—for neither of these characters are imaginary. Far from it.

A relentless winter has driven the sangsue down from the Swiss Alps. They’re hungry, they’re soulless, and they were once human.

And one of them in particular, the King of the Sangsue, has been searching for someone like Mary for centuries. All it will take is one bite and she will be his forever…

Beware: There are monsters in this book; some of them are charming and some of them are devious, but every single one of them is deadly and would love to steal your heart.

What did I think of it:
The first book in this series of novellas ended with quite the cliffhanger, so I picked up this novella as soon as I could.

And there is a lot of action, drama, and suspense in this novella. Where the first novella slowly set the atmosphere and mood this one is raising the stakes and our heroine and her friends are in peril.

I was on the edge of my seat, and couldn't stop reading. Would Mary manage to keep herself and the others safe or would she be succumb to the dark temptation of the Sangsue?

Again this book leaves you hungry for more, so you bet I'll be reading the last book soon.

Why should you read it:
It's a thrilling Gothic horror.


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